John Cass, David Wharton and Buzz Bruggerman at the Blog Business Summit
David Wharton
- Works at Nintendo, develops online communities
- Sent copies of new game to target gamers
- Created a private online community for them
- Members posting pictures of their real dogs, Nintendogs, sharing stories and tips
- Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, big Christmas release and nobody was talking about it
- Developers didn't want to say or share anything about the game
- Created character Samantha Manus and her blog at channel51.org
- Created site to talk about how women were better suited to space flight
- Created exclusive community to engage serious gamers, get real feedback, allow profanity
- These people are incredibly marketing sensitive, need to be engaged for advice
John Cass
- The web is being used by customers to compare products and companies
- Consumers using blogs to publish their own websites
- Customers have the opportunity to create lots of buzz marketing
- Search is where research begins. 64% use search engine, 19% use the manufacturer of the products site
- Still in the early stages of customers using blogs
- People are looking for the best products and ideas, not necessarily yours
- Case studies of Indium, Intuit, Macromedia, all benefitted from blogs
- Targeting influencers: target the right keywords, find your blogging customers, use blog search engines to find bloggers covering your products, comment on the other blog
- The goal is NOT to spam, but to have a conversation
Buzz Bruggerman
- Blogging world has leveled the online marketing playing field
- Steven Levy in Newsweek "Blogs and forums are the new crystal ball"
- Got over 400 requests from 28 countries from 1 podcast interview, he offered free copies of ActiveWords to anyone that had listened through to the 1 hour mark they were at
- Searching for product name + problem in any search engine will customers everything wrong with your product
- You better build a good product and be responsive or you won't last in today's market
- One determined detractor has more power than 100 happy customers. That number is going to grow.
- Boeing invited bloggers on to the Conenexion flight that had wifi during the flight
- Believing that mistakes will blow over and go unnoticed is wishful thinking
- Little companies can't afford bad press, Buzz constantly watches mentions of himself, the company and the products, offers personal discussion with any dissatisfied/confused customer
- Getting bloggers to deliver the right message involves listening before approaching, asking them how they would make it better
- The magic is coming up with the product idea, building the relationship with real people