Some thoughts on the LG blogger relations campaign

Posted Saturday, May 20, 2006 at 12:59am in Blogging  | 

Today Niall Cook shared some very interesting feedback regarding the LG Chocolate phone blogger relations programme he’s been involved with. Niall makes a number of points so I thought I’d chime in with my tuppence worth.

Niall says: “The campaign (and supporting blog) is running well, and I thought it would be worth sharing some of our observations so far, for those thinking about stepping out into the realm of blogger relations (or - as is usually the case - not).

“1. The bloggers you identify as the most influential are not always the most likely to use their blogs to report their feedback.”

I had a feeling this might be the case. Some high profile bloggers like to ‘keep it real’ so any affiliation with the dark side might be seen as a no no. By the sounds of it, the influential bloggers Niall refers to actually gave feedback, but just not on their blogs. So, if these bloggers are mobile phone experts/fanatics, their thoughts are still good to know I guess.

“2. A brand cannot blog - only people can.”

Makes sense. Blogs are about conversations and I’ve never discussed the finer points of life with a brand. Besides, blogger relations is one of PR’s online tools it has been missing so long. Brands that blog are just…well…ick! **cough** Cillit Bang **cough** say no more.

“3. A video that one blogger included in his review of the phone was posted on YouTube, and has been viewed almost 22,000 times in a week.”

Very impressive. This is a great example of how other social media like YouTube can tie in with a blogger relations programme. Customer evangelism through connected media.

“4. The same guy’s review was posted to Digg, receiving 1,285 diggs and 113 comments.”

Again, very impressive. What tone were the comments though? Positive, negative or neutral? More on that later.

“5. A leading technology portal emailed asking us to mention their review on our blog.”

I wonder which one? I’m not sure how that benefits the campaign but it does the old ego no harm I suppose.

“6. We’re #6 on Google for lg chocolate review.”

Yeah they are, take a look. I dare say that position may rise too if they continue using specific keywords to improve the SEO.

7. “One blogger sent us 2,250 referrals”

That one blogger is BBC employee, Ben Metcalfe. Technorati rank of 3965 so quite influential.

Couple of things. I wonder if the blogger relations team are evaluating comments? Particularly on Digg as a scan shows not all are positive, like this one: “Has anyone actually handled this phone…. It feels cheap and plasticy [sic], and after handling for 2 seconds is covered in smears…. Looks awful, feels awful.”

In the interest of research I counted the number of positive, negative and neutral comments, and the results aren’t great: 18 positives, 28 negatives and 56 neutrals. I know, I know, that only adds up to 102 whereas it says there are 113 comments. But that’s all there are…honest. I must say, however, that the tone of the comments were deemed by me, so some people may beg to differ. Although, they were pretty obvious in my eyes.

I do think this is an important part to measure though. If PR is about influencing and persuasion then you should be measuring how influential or persuasive any PR activity is. Blogger relations is a great way to do this don’t you think?

Secondly, if this blogger relations programme is a success, it looks like Niall will be adding other LG phones to the programme. The domain url for the Chocolate phone (http://chocolate.lgbloggers.com/) is a subdomain of lgbloggers.com. Interesting.

Nice for him to share it and, on a personal level, I can guarantee next time I’m in a mobile phone store I’ll be sure to check it out.

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