Sailing into Social Media With A Sponsored Blog
03/29/2007
More and more brands are taking a step into social media with blog marketing sites. Ann Handley, the diva of the community world and the driving force behind the successful Marketing Prof's Daily Fix blog recently posted that, "Last year's (blog) boom is yet another indication that blogs have gone mainstream, probably more so than many other social media platforms."
Last night AiMA had a great meeting that focused on consumer generated advertising and consumer generated branding. Congrats to Wade Forst, Spunlogic, who brought in Tom Daly, Global Interactive Marketing, Coca-Cola and Michael Friedman, Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Smokey Bones).
Some
companies are dipping their toes in, not with traditional conversaional blogs, but with sponsored blogs. Darden Restaurant's Bahama Breeze is following the travels of Caribbean artist
Bruce Smith and his wife Jan (who it seems is writing many posts but is not credited) as they sail from San Diego Bay to the Caribbean.
It's an interesting and real blog read especially the post about how Bruce and Jan rescued two Haitian migrants. See the 3/2 post .. sorry no permalink.*
I thought it would fun and a good learning to develop an informal social media marketing / blog marketing analysis of the Bruce Smith Voyage Blog.
Transparency - Darden got the bloggy transparency right with mentions on the side nav bar of sponsorship. Lessons learned from our friends at Edelman perhaps?
Interactive - The Bruce Smith Voyage Blog is linked from Bahama Breeze's home page (zero Google rank). There is a MySpace page that seems to be a space holder since there is no current content, few friends (44) or comments (5).
Viral - Posts don't have unique permalinks .. missed opportunity for viral.* With a zero Google ranking on the blog there doesn't seem to be much pick up. Speaking of pick-up and viral buzz our pals at Technorati show 13 links from 5 sailing blogs while Google Blogs shows only 2 links.
Engagement - If engagement is measured by comments, links and trackbacks the Bruce Smith Voyage Blog is missing the boat.
Lessons Learned: Even a blog with interesting content, great writing and cool travel photos won't find friends unless you tell them you are there. That might include: traditional marketing that leverages the Bahama Breeze restaurants, to a blogger relations programs, to a search engine optimization initiative.
Sidebar: Mike mentioned that Darden's marketing strategies are intended to put butts in the seats. Don't know if that was the objective of this initiative and if so if it succeeded. Or if there is significant traffic from the blog to the website that spells s-u-c-c-e-s-s. But seems to me that the sails could have gotten more winds from this campaign.
Sidebar: Yvonne DiVita's Purina sponsored blog Scratchings and Sniffings is a great example of a corporate sponsored blog. Bloggy disclaimer Purina is a client.
