I've been thinking about this post for several weeks and was inspired by Mack Collier's post on Daily Fix to finally put thoughts to virtual paper.
First a little background: I'm a marketer who blogs. I have never been a journalist nor have I ever worked in a PR firm. I was once a director for a non profit and with that came many hats including media relations. My deep dark secrets are I would have loved to have been a foreign correspondence wearing those cute jackets with zillions of pockets, drinking Scotch and yes, an occasional puff on a cigar. And I covet a real press badge that will get me into concerts and events for free. But I digress ..
With blogging has come many new opportunities, as well as a few surprising new identities. A couple of weeks ago I received a press release that referred to me as part of Atlanta's prestigious media. Maybe I do have a press badge but I just forgot where I put. But I can tell you that some of my best friends are in the PR biz. And I've met people who are true professionals in every sense of the word. What do they do that is right?
1. They
know who I am. 2. They tell me who they are. 3. They know what I focus on. 4. They offer background
information. 5. They help me provide valued content for Diva Marketing's
community. 6. Sometimes they even ask what I would like to make the
post more compelling. 7. They offer me more than a vaguely clocked sales pitch. 8. They say "thank you."
For all of you a toss of a
pink boa!
Girlfriend, since we're talking among friends, here are a few pet peeves ..
1. Emails from people who at first glance seem to be my long, lost, best friend. 2. People who start their emails in the middle of a conversation and it takes me a second to realize I've never met the person in online or offline. 3. Emails that are so much like spam that they never get a glance. Off topic. 4. People who say lovely things about Diva Marketing and then ask for me to be their best friend and write about their stuff. 5. People who forget to tell who they are or who they work for or why I should take my time to promote their product. 6. People who forget to say "thank you."'
That has me wondering why:
1. Some PR people seem to get it while others do not have a clue. 2. Some PR people seem to understand that bloggers are not representatives of a media outlet that is paying them to write about "news worthy" events. 3. Some PR people treat bloggers with the respect that they would give to an influential journalist from a publication like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or even The Star 4. While others do not.
Recently I received an email from a brand manager type who works at a very large company. She had hired a PR agency to conduct a Blogger Relations strategy and wrote ..
"We've discussed the fact that bloggers, by publishing their opinions and inviting readers to comment or contact them, basically agree to open themselves to unsolicited information." The ah ha light bulb moment flashed on. My response back -
If you take that approach you'll open yourself to firestorms. What we tell clients is that the blogoshere is comprised of many "villages" and each village e.g., the cat pet village, the business village, the golf village, has a unique culture.
Within that culture each blogger has her own sense of what she will post .. how she deals with unsolicited "pitches" and so forth. That means more than identifying a bunch of bloggers who talk about a subject it means understanding the blogger. This post from Diva Marketing might shed some understanding.
The ah ha: People just don't know and some agencies dive into this space with
little or no experience positioning themselves as experts .. getting their clients and themselves in Big Trouble. Blogger
relations is different from traditional media relations. As BBF Paul Chaney indicated in the comments on Mack's post it seems to be a training challenge .. or opportunity.
The friction between bloggers and public relations people reminds me of the song from the musical Oklahoma - "Farmer and the Cowhand .. Should Be Friends." So I'd like to propose ..
Social media folks should stick together. Social media folks should all be friends.
Thinking about more blogger relations I was curious if reaching out to bloggers was in anyway in violation of the CAN SPAM Act. My pal Simms Jenkins, CEO of BrightWave Marketing & EmailStatCenter kindly shed some light.
To begin to work together .. Bloggers and PR People .. this is for all of us. Thanks to Simms who agreed to let me post our email volley.
Simms Jenkins: The CAN SPAM act only requires some key elements, none related to permission. Best practices of email campaigns are related to the subscriber proving an opt in. So spammers follow neither which means the law is powerless, for the most part.
Regarding the outreach, I think a one to one email provides more flexibility - after all we all send some unsolicted emails hoping to get press, leads, friends :) ..once it becomes an email campaign, you should be more cautious as that is the brand not just an email sent to an individual.
Toby/Diva Marketing: So if I'm hearing you right .. if the email from the, call it agency/person, includes a "if you don't want to hear from us again we won't bother you again" statement it would be okay and not fall into the CAN SPAM act? Simms Jenkins: I am defining campaign as an email from BrightWave Marketing promoting my book/website The Truth About Email Marketing - I need to follow the letter of can spam...however, if I send you an email from my personal account promoting the book, it allows a bit more flexibility but that is a general grey area and why I include an opt out note at the bottom of all of my emails to people
Social media folks should stick together. Social media folks should all be friends.
In prep for writing my Age of Conversation book II page, I reached out to
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, for his insights about social media. Not only does Tony blog but he actively tweets (on Twitter the 140 character micro blogging platform).
In fact, that's where I "met" Tony. I sent him a Twitter DM (direct message). With Tony following 4658 people I
wondered if he would respond. He did indeed .. within minutes (!) providing me with his off Twitter email so we could continue the conversation without the 140 character limitation.
Sidebar: Not to digress but .. where else .. how else could a little ol' diva in Atlanta connect with the CEO of billion dollar corporation based in Las Vegas? I tell you girl friend, that alone boggles the mind. One more testimony to how social media and in this case, Twitter, can open the doors and windows a little wider to develop relationships.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What influence has social media had on how you conduct business? Does Zappos have a system or process in place to respond to the concerns/complements from consumer generated mentions about the company? And to respond back to the blogger, tweeter, etc?
Tony Hsieh: We haven't really changed any of our internal processes yet. Right now the stuff I am doing on Twitter is just me... if someone Twitters me then I personally respond.
We now have close to 300 employees on Twitter, but
our main motivation for getting our employees to join Twitter was to help improve our company culture.
Company culture is our #1 priority. We believe that if we get the company culture right, most of the other stuff (including great customer service) will happen on its own.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What advice would you give to a CEO on how to incorporate social media and the feedback from social media into an organization?
Tony Hsieh:
I think if the CEO starts using Twitter on his/her own and is actually passionate about it, then that passion will eventually rub off on the rest of the organization.
You can't fake or mandate passion, you actually have to be passionate. On Twitter, people can tell whether you are actually passionate about connecting with other Twitterers, whether they are your customers or employees.
About Zappos - Founded in 1999, Zappos is an online commerce
company that got its start selling shoes. Since then their product line
has morphed to include: handbags, clothing, electronics and more.
According to Marketing Sherpa, Zappos anticipates to top $1 Billion in sales in 2008. With a focus on superior customer service Zappos is game to try innovative strategies that bring them closer to their customers. Zappos BlogsZappo Tweets. Sounds like a match made in Social Media Heaven!
Yesterday I had the most fun teaming with two amazing divos - Dan Greenfield. media consultant Bernaise Sauce (former vp Earthlink) and Michael Pranikoff (del.icio.us) director Emerging Media PR Newswire. We were Conversation Guides for a session on social media for a great group of folks. The convo went from micro blogging to how to develop a strategy to the difference between an audio file and a podcast. Answer: RSS
As promised, we're happy to share the deck. For those who didn't attend the session there are some great resources including Twitter search engines complements of Michael and an easy to follow 10 Step Social Media how-to get started Process from Dan. Enjoy! Download the_social_media_10_step_process.pdf
From the lunch key note panel .. a few snippets
To celebrate GM's 100th anniversary an employees wiki has been established. As employees add their memories a unique view of the company's history will be created. For Mary Heinge, APR communications director, GM Corp., the added benefits include a viral element, a way to involve many people and no book printing costs.
Debra Neuman, svp external relations for Care told the group that social media gives people the ability to respond immediately and especially for a non profit ".. your content better be right."
Question: Who owns social media? Debra Neuman - "No one and everyone." Love that one.
Most controversial statement was from Jack Leslie. When the panel was asked about the skills they were looking for in new hires, Jack told us he leans toward people half his age when considering employees with social media skills since .. young people have this built into their DNA. Now perhaps Jack was trying to be funny but the buzz in the ladies loo (Girlfriend you know exactly what I mean.) was outrage that only the Millenniums are perceived to "get it." As one women said to me - Anyone can learn how to put together a MySpace or Facebook page but it takes experience to understand how to incorporate social media into a PR plan or campaign.
Last week I followed a link I found in Diva Marketing's stat referrals. It led to an amazon.com powered site ..
Expert Choice. Have you ever wondered what books influential bloggers read? We did too. So we asked them.
Lo and behold I was included in this list of experts.
But wait a sec .. I had no recollection of reviewing these books. Even though it seemed to be associated with a not for profit, Kiva, I assumed it was a rather clever spam site. I noticed that Drew McLellan was one of the bloggers listed. Drew was on Twitter so .. yes, girlfriend, I tweeted. He had not a clue either.
A few days later I received an email from Jeff Greenfield thanking me for participating in the project that he and his classmates, from the MBA class at Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, had put together .. Expert Choice book store. Ahh .. lightbulb went off.
"We have created this webstore for our group project in EDGE, a course that explores how technology and globalization are transforming the business landscape – opening markets, redefining industries, and erasing boundaries. Our project’s specific goal is to connect readers with business-related books that are recommended by industry experts.
One hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of all books through our Expert's Choice webstore will be donated to the Kiva, a charity that lets you lend to specific entrepreneurs in the developing world – empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.
To ensure that there was no doubt that this was not only a legit initiative but one developed by a group of MBA students, I suggested a more prominent placement of About Us. TheTeam Edge from UC Irvine: Jinu Choi, Erin Cueto, Jeff Greenfield and Chris Ting presents their project May 27th. Take a moment to visit the Expert Choice book store and help them out with a few clicks and it would also be swell if you bought a book too .. it's for a good cause. Maybe you can send it to the Masiguy to help him pass the time as he mends.
Lessons Learned People are cynical. Ensure that your credibility information is front and center. Need a fast response? Tweet. Bloggers are kind and generous people. A 50% response rate is great.
I felt the vintage vixens' feedback was valuable, in-depth, research for wowOwow and I wanted to help these women reach the founders. So .. I dropped an email, via the site's contact us form, with hope that it would make its way and wowOwow might benefit from their community members' insights.
Joni Evans, CEO of wowOwow, responded to me. Athough she declined an interview for Diva Marketing she graciously agreed to let me post our email volley where she tells a bit about her vision of for wowOwow and how she is listening to the convo. Thanks Joni .. next step is to encourage your peeps to really engage with the wow women. Btw .. still don't get why they don't oh well ..
Sidebar: Click to expand the graphics
Read more in the NYT interview with Joni Evans, Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl and Whoopi Goldberg conducted by Joan Juliet Buck who is a contributor of wowOwow.
Earth Day was once a quaint little holiday. Almost four decades later April 22nd has become a day that combines education with celebration. From the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' week long Party for the Planet, complete with marketing sponsorship opportunities to a benefit Shred-a-Thon for the Farmington River Watershed Association in Connecticut to hundreds of events in almost every city, town and school Earth Day sometimes has the feel of a Hallmark Holiday. From a marketer's view point that type of exposure certainly creates grass root awareness. Earth Day 2008 Event Calendar
As my friend Mary Clare Hunt preaches it will be Wall Street, not government, that will turn the tides when it comes to impacting "eco friendly" behavior. Business, including venture capital firms, are beginning to put a lot of green lettuce, and we're not talking salad stuff, in support of environmental initiatives. WSJ reports that VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is devoting about one-third of its $700 million investment portfolio to green technology e.g., alternative fuels, fuel-efficient devices.
Mike Italiano, MTS CEO, in a detailed post on MTS' Smart Solutions For Sustainable Business blog, tells us that Green
Building Investment Underwriting Standards are expected to add an
estimated $1 trillion/year to the global economy after five years.
Mike's post includes a comprehensive list of companies that are involved in the Capital Markets Partnership program. Major cities such as Chicago, New York and Dallas are working along side of high profiled financial institutions JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase CitiGroup Smith Barney. Bloggy disclaimer: I've worked with MTS on the blog.
In the direct to consumer side, grocery stores like Publix and Whole Foods Market are getting into the act with extensive green initiatives. Dell's regeneration goes a step further and incorporates social media involving customers by giving them a platform to express their vision and ideas of how to "clean it up." These type of programs can't help but influence purchase behavior.
Social media is making an impact too. According to research from Nielsen Online protecting the environment has become increasingly important to consumers, with online buzz around sustainability growing 50 percent in 2007."...consumers are becoming increasingly vocal online about the issue of sustainability... Blogger attention to... issues like pollution, toxins and sustainable agriculture reveal an important intersection between personal health and environmental wellness." Jessica Hogue, research director, Nielsen Online.
As we're seeing "Green" has morphed into a cool marketing strategy. However, Nielsen's research cautions businesses to be careful how products/ are positioned and promoted.
"Consumers expect consistency in action and authentic and transparent messaging."
That's not to say that if your organization is doing good why not let your customers know and reap a few atta girl sales. It's not easy being clean .. opps .. green. Thank you to the companies that are working to keep our earth green and our skies blue.
Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to
Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be
sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.
Today's Friday Fun is being turned over to Mugsy, Iris, Suzanne and Suzanne, a few of the women who are the heart of the the WowOWow - Women on the Web site. However, Girlfriend, they are not the founders (media celebrities: Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Mary Wells and Joni Evans). Nor are they are paid employees. Nor are they are formal volunteers. In fact, they have had little to no interaction with the women who launched WowOWow. And that was what mystified and intrigued me.
A little background .. early this week I wrote a post about three social networking communities, Dove, Shine by Yaoo! and WowOWow - Women on the Web, that are targeting women .. and not only "mommy bloggers." A couple of the WowOWow women reached out to me to tell me their reasons for being involved and committed to a community where the founders/contributors seldom engage with their peeps.
I had several reasons for this post. I wanted to share these four
amazing women with the Diva Marketing community; and in doing so, give
them a platform to tell their stories about their WowOWow experiences.
The learnings about how to build social networking community is
evolving and we continue to learn from each other.
At first I thought the post might find its way to the ladies who lunch, the founders, and perhaps help them understand/encourage them to be more "social"
within their own community. However, as the emails flew back and forth
among the vintage vixens (Iris' term .. love it!) and myself I began to understand these
smart, savvy women had created their own community. They didn't need,
nor were they really interested in, extensive interaction with the
founders (altho I'm sure it would be nice).
Organically they have assumed the role of
community managers. As anyone who has been involved in online community knows influence grows with interaction. The vintage vixens want to be
involved in the development of what they consider to be "their community." It would be wise of
WowOWow to listen and engage directly with these women.
It with pleasure that I turn Diva Marketing over to
Mugsy Peabody, Iris Odonata, Suzanne de Cornelia and Suzanne Conti
Mugsy Peabody
Toby/Diva Marketing: What attracted you to read WoWoWow on a continuous basis? Mugsy Peabody:
When else in history have women over 40 been actively asked to express their opinions about anything in public?
I mean, since Seneca Falls, which was when? 1848? I have always been interested in what women say when they are in a space to speak safely and honestly about their lives. Reminds me of my grandmother's kitchen on the farm, when the men were off somewhere, and the women were cooking together, telling the truth about their lives because they knew they would be heard.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What do you like best about the site? Mugsy Peabody: What I found lots of women like me out there. It helps with the cosmic loneliness of having Mensa IQ without an interest in hanging out with a bunch of snobbish winos who smoke too much.
I really am amazed that the wowowow people didn't realize we'd want to get in touch with each other and build community.
But most of them don't just make friends with folks; they get handed "suitable" people by others to evaluate, so they probably wouldn't know what the rest of us do to hook up. Like George Sr. not knowing what a grocery scanner is.
Toby/Diva Marketing: Why the active, very consistent participation in not only adding comments but engaging other women in conversation? Mugsy Peabody: Good conversation is one of the great rewards for dressing up our eternal souls in this human suit and lugging this corporal body about the planet for whatever alloted years we have. It's a skill I learned early on, growing up in a family not unlike J.D. Salinger's Glass family. Three brothers (one actually a rocket scientist) and parents whose brains were incandescent, and an adopted sister who glowed with smart genes. My sister-in-law is a big shot techie at NASA, e.g. All sorts of people used to gather at our house just for such conversation.
So I get some of that juice from the wowowow site -- not necessarily from the contributors or the owners (two separate sets of people) but from the posts of these amazing women who are sharp enough to have found the wowowow site in its beta state.
Toby/Diva Marketing: The big question .. why do it when the WowOWow authors seem not to be paying attention to the convos? Mugsy Peabody: For starts, the authors aren't necessarily the most interesting women on www.wowowow.com. (And I think that really surprised them!) So we're not really talking with them alone. Certainly if they want to join in, fine. Second, I'm honing my "voice" for my own web efforts, retrieving my humor writing skills. I must say, I've been really touched and gratified by the reception I've received in this community. And, third, who knows? The WowOWow women might just learn something from the rest of us.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What advice would you give people building communities who would die for peeps like you who organically take an active role in the conversation? Mugsy Peabody: Make it really interesting for us. For example, we loved Joan Julia Buck's piece on Ms. Streep. And Jane Wagner's Care-Toons on the earth were so fabulous. Women over the age of 40 are some of the most experienced, inciteful, "smart" folks on the planet. Even though retired "soccer moms" are routinely ignored as being an interesting demographic, that is a serious error, a blind spot on the radar, because those women are the best organizers we have, and they determine where the household dollars get spent.
I know Ms. Tomlin can get down with "just folks," but I seriously wonder how many of these people are democrats with a small 'd'. And, P.S., for godzakes, don't try to BS us, because we have BS radar for days.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What one piece of advice would you give to the founders? Mugsy Peabody: Hire
me to help them get on track. Just one example: Whoopi Goldberg is the
only women of color on the masthead, and she hasn't bothered to fill in
her profile. Of course, that gets "read" as them saying, at the last minute, "Oh, we'd better get Whoopi, cause we'll drop a big piece of the audience if we're all white."
(Well, guess what, ladies? The whole dern rest of the country is
actually serious about pluralism! [Ms. Tomlin's support of Richard
Prior earns her a lifetime street cred on this issue.])
And of course, they've already dropped the Asian demo -- and trust
me, that's where their lack of inclusion will hurt them, cause my
Asian-American friends drop more cash at Tiffany's and on designer
bling bling than anyone else I know. As to today's blunder of talking
about how they"confuse" their "hired help" with "friends," oh, well, where do you even start with that? Hire me. I'm worth my weight in gold.
A little about Mugsy Peabody
I'm 61 years old, and live in Oakland, California. I've lived in the Bay Area since I came here with flowers in my hair, 38 years ago, and used to play pass tag on the Golden Gate Bridge with Janis Joplin. While I may walk a little slow, I still have god's own rock and roll in my soul. I don't disclose much personal information on the net, since what I have to offer here is my written stuff, and you've already got that. My beta blog site, Mugsy Peabody Online, first posting. Sidebar: Mugsy's writing is absolutely as refreshing, funny and as smart as you would expect!
Iris Odonata
Greetings Miss Toby:
Where to start, where to start. Saw Mary, Leslie, Liz and Joni interviewed by Diane Sawyer on GMA at very beginning of site launch. Decided to visit and see what was up. Had only posted infrequently on a couple of other sites. Got drawn in by the idea of us vintage vixens having a forum for our voices. I have been awaiting this source of energy finally finding it's spark ...
Toby/Diva Marketing: What attracted you to read WoWoWow on a continuous basis?
Iris Odonata:You have and you must admit there are some of the most erudite contributors. Smart, funny, irreverent, brilliant, giving, educational and generous. Paying it forward and helping each other evolve. I am not speaking just of the Masthead Mavens. I am speaking of us just regular folks. This is Upstairs/Downstairs, Gosford Park stuff.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What do you like best about the site? Iris Odonata: Same reason I read on continuous basis. Plus, if I can get to half of Suzanne de or Mugsy or The Old Crone's brain power. These women are mentors in a way I could never have dreamed possible. I always knew I would be late bloomer. These AMAZING! woman are a gift.
This is accelerated, cut-the-crap, no nonsense practical and pragmatic information on just about any subject you could possibly want. Suzanne de may just single-handedly jump start activism again. That woman is one force to be reckoned with. Plus, there is "culture" being discussed. Gaudi/Gehry. Feadships? Learned something new on that one.
Toby/Diva Marketing: Why the active, very consistent participation in not only adding comments but engaging other women in conversation? Iris Odonata: Learning, teaching, being. Nice to be asked to the table. We've discussed the disappearing bees. Me thinks they are in our bonnets. This site is thought provoking and endearing, humbling and hubris busting. X marks the spot. X chromosome that is and this site will not only earn gadzillions, it'll let the boys in power know (who might be trying to learn their opponents weaknesses) swarm behavior is unpredictable. Swarm goes where the queen goes and each of us is a queen.
Toby/Diva Marketing: The big question .. why do it when the WowOWow authors seem not to be paying attention to the convos? Iris Odonata: Yes that is a big question. Do they care? Don't they? Set the cat among the pigeons, eh? I think they'll end up with the precise focus group they want as us "first posters" start make off-line contact. We may become more watchdoggish ourselves.
The Ladies who started this aren't really in control of it. They just own it and it's going to go where it goes.
I e-mailed Mugsy this a.m. and said this site is deliciously layered, just like Baklava. There are many many threads in this web. The convo twixt the foursome yesterday, will be read much differently "those" of their "echelon." Made me think of the famous Cavafy poem, "Barbarians At The Gate."
I don't want anyone dying to get a peep like me active in convo. This site has taught me that 54 years on the planet now comes with a users fee. So yeah, make it worth my while. Either compensate me financially or engage me emotionally. If it ain't got heart, I ain't interested.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What one piece of advice would you give to the founders? Iris Odonata: Get this thing more organized ASAP. We need a
venue just for continual/ongoing conversation, seperate from the
content exploration of daily question or brand promo. I think they get
that they are not dealing with dummies, irregardless of our
educational/geographical backgrounds. They also need to be upfront as
to why they want our input. You yourself are probably receiving scads
of useful information here so you can advise your clients as how to
best capture their market share.
A little about Iris Odonata's
Iris Odonata's bio....I am writing her memoirs now. I let you know when they are ready for publication. Sidebar: Yes, Iris please let me know when your memoirs are ready for blogging! Love your phrase vintage vixens also!
Suzanne de Cornelia:
Toby/Diva Marketing: What attracted you to read WoWoWow on a continuous basis? Suzanne de Cornelia: I
admire the founders' highly successful media careers, and that now in their
50s-80s they are undertaking an entrepreneurial venture. I wanted to be at
the party.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What do you like best about the site? Suzanne de Cornelia: As a former
designer I find the clean architectural look and white/black/red scheme appealing and snazzy. The content is well organized and runs the gamut
of glitzy fun to topical and serious. It forces you to reexamine your
beliefs.
Toby/Diva Marketing: Why the active, very consistent participation in not only
adding comments but engaging other women in conversation? Suzanne de Cornelia: Three reasons
really. 1) I'm very sporty and techy and just shattered my foot and am confined to bed-rest. So the chatty site is a godsend. 2) I've been an
activist and involved in major projects my entire life, and like to help grow
things and to support and also challenge other women. 3) Because my novel
"French Heart" will be out the end of the year and I'm also relocating to
France I want to develop an online network. The women who've thus far emailed
me from the site are Francophiles like me, including a writer who lives in
Provence where I'm headed.
Toby/Diva Marketing: The big question
.. why do it when the WowOWow authors seem not to be paying attention to the
convos. Suzanne de Cornelia: Theoretically, I'm partly using the site as a focus group for my
book, and building word-of-mouth. In practice I wind up shooting myself in
the foot by feeling obligated to respond to factually false responses on
things like unregulated derivatives trading and how it propelled the
foreclosure crisis, then wind up pulling freight for free. The
founders need to either become more involved in the conversations, or hire
a moderator. When Mary Wells said on Charlie Rose that they are spending all
their time on this, I thought, "Hello?!" I know nothing compels me to do
it besides some feeling of responsibility in me when I see something posted
that demands an affirmation, acknowledgement,
or correction.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What advice would you give people
building communities who would die for peeps like you who organically take
an active role in the conversation? Suzanne de Cornelia: Match the site to a passionate market.
The political, celebrity, society gossip, wine blogs, and other specialty
sites from cats to Joan of Arc garner that kind of readership. Look at the
Top 100 Blogs on Technorati and the Yahoo Groups for clues. Mainly I think
it is something that you need a real passion for yourself otherwise you'll
burn out.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What one piece of advice would you give
to the founders? Suzanne de Cornelia: The most popular class at Harvard today states the
recipe for happiness is finding activity that is pleasurable and purposeful.
From what I gather, WoW will be making some technical adjustment to make
maneuvering through the site more pleasurable, and will be developing the
Change the World section in a manner that will make visitors feel more
purposeful. Those two things will really add to the site. However, there's
a certain dissonance the founders need to clarify: They write about their
lives tooling around glitzy locales, attending First Nights with
celebs, sponsors are high-end, and the weekly financial column is a summation of trends that would benefit those with hefty well-portfolios. But
when hundreds of readers responded to an economy-related question they
clearly wanted pragmatic advice.
There's a dichotomy between the
demographic they want to attract, and the one that is showing up and
demanding they be more diverse and inclusive.
Sidebar: The Change the World section launched on Thursday. It's my understanding this was one of the first times when the vintage vixens were
asked their opinions about how a feature should be developed. The energy
and excitement of helping to create the site comes through loud and
clear in comments.
A little about Suzanne de Cornelia: I managed $1 billion
in major design and construction for Fortune 100 firms and top
universities. Then an accident cost me $700K and my 20-year career. I
retrained in the UCLA writing program, wrote my novel, and live in San
Francisco where I belong to two Web 2.0 groups. Sidebar: Suzanne authors a delightful site My French Heart.
Suzanne Conti
Toby/Diva Marketing: What attracted you to read WoWoWow on a continuous basis? Suzanne Conti: The caliber of the women contributing their comments - they were well informed, witty and I felt similar enough in views and characteristics to mine that we could have a real discussion of kindred souls. I enjoyed the amount of differences and new aspects in thoughts presented that stimulated serious consideration on my part on the issues. There was enough common ground to relate to each other, but not so much as to be clones.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What do you like best about the site? Suzanne Conti: That this site brought me together and allowed me to meet and have dialog with these fascinating accomplished blogging women who have and continue to make an impact on the world. I am not a “lunch” lady - I have been too busy working at a demanding career. But I do want to join with other women to make a difference.
The whole sexism issue coming back to light with Hillary’s campaign has raised my hopes that the activism of my generation of women would be reignited. Since I started my lawsuit against my employer in 2004 for glass ceiling, unequal pay I have been deeply disappointed (not surprised though) in women’s lack of willingness to do anything about their oppression – other than whine. I have also witnessed women’s unwillingness to support other women, to unite for progress. I was hoping this Wow site would be a mechanism to unite women willing to finish the women’s liberation we started decades ago.
Toby/Diva Marketing: The big question
.. why do it when the WowOWow authors seem not to be paying attention to the
convos. Suzanne Conti:
I am not a celebrity chaser and really could care less if they join in the conversations. I am there to talk with other women of substance who log on. These women have renewed my faith in humanity. I had no idea such thinking witty women were out there since I have spent most of my life in a male world of work as well as at home – brothers, husbands, sons.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What advice would you give people
building communities who would die for peeps like you who organically take
an active role in the conversation? Suzanne Conti: It is all about the quality of the conversation, I am too busy to invest time reading and blogging back to small minded people and have no interest in just chatting – I am a doer- that is how I have achieved all that I have in my life I am not an idle chatter.
My husband is highly accomplished and my sons – one got a full ride scholarship to University of Michigan’s medical school and the other got a major scholarship to an art college on the east coast and was honored at Carnegie Hall for winning art awards, he also won an award that sent him to France for 3 weeks to study art there. I do not want to discuss what I sleep in and how many people I have slept with - Career women concerned about their professional reputation do not discuss such crap.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What one piece of advice would you give
to the founders? Suzanne Conti: Reduce to a minimum - the gossip Cosmo type
trivial articles or come out and tell the bloggers what your vision and
mission statement is so we know if we are in line with your goals. Recently, I am beginning to feel WowOWow is an oxymoron – wanting
intelligent, accomplished, women of substance to log in and then they
present such trivial, gossip, superficial topics. In all honesty I had
my concerns when I saw Liz Smith was one of the founders, but had no
idea she was going to be the dominant celebrity contributor – and
apparently nobody crosses Liz Smith!
A little about Suzanne Conti: At a time when women were traditionally in administrative positions Suzanne spent the majority of her career in a management positions in the male dominated auto industry. True to her husband's assessment of her as triple A type personality Suzannewas even the youngest buyer at a major Big 3 company .
In this world of social media we continue to learn together. Toss of a
pink boa to Mugsy, Iris, Suzanne and Suzanne!
Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Mary Wells and Joni Evans .. here's the secret .. you may have jump started
the convos but you are not the heart of your own
community.
My advise .. hire these amazing women to continue doing what they have been doing .. building community. Let the vintage vixens know that you are listening and involve the community in the creation process. It might be nice if you reached out in the digital world and in the offline world. However, a bit sadly, that's not really necessary.
Question: What does Dove soap, Yahoo!, a comedian - Whoopi Goldberg, a TV journalist - Lesley Stahl, and a gossip columnist - Liz Smith have in common?
Answer: They are tapping the hottest demographic trend in social media networking .. YOU. Me. Us. Girlfriend!
Recently BlogHer and Compass Partners co-sponsored a primary research study that provides some much needed insights about women who blog and women who read blogs. The findings were presented at BlogHer Business earlier this month. A few interesting stats from the survey. Among the respondents who participated (blah blah blah):
36.2 million women write and read blogs every week
Approximately half consider blogs a “highly reliable” or “very reliable” source of information and advice about everything from products to presidential candidates.
24 percent of women surveyed say they now watch less television because they are blogging instead.
55% would give up alcohol
50% would give up their PDAs
42% would give up their i-Pod
43% would give up reading the newspaper or magazines
BUT, some things are sacred … only 20% would give up chocolate!
Sidebar: PowerPoint of the study is posted at BlogHer. The link is at the end of the post.
Small wonder that within the last few weeks several social media networking sites, targeted to women, were launched by Dove, Yahoo! and a group of women celebrities. Take a sip of your skinny latte, I prefer my vanilla, and let's explore what these new sites have to offer US.
After it's successful Campaign For Real BeautyDove (Unilver) became the darling of the marketing/advertising/pr world. The no-make-up-beauty-is-in-the-heart campaign also resonated with its target audience. Working with Ogilvy North America Dove is partnering with MSN to create dove.msn.com/
Our goal is to become a global leader and a true digital media force by completely redefining the digital experience for women worldwide. We can do this by leveraging the Dove "real beauty" credentials -- our philosophy, compelling content and product offerings. Kathy O'Brien, marketing director Dove North America Money Central
The site is heavily branded including free product samples. Blogs, columns, discussions seem to blur together. Didn't see much participation or comments but it's early in the game. There is def lots to do on the site including games for tweens and social media profiling, ask the experts columns and product info. Demo target seems run from young girls to moms to women in general. A frustration for me was the content is "locked" .. can not be copied and pasted. Not very 'social.'
Big Question: Can Dove leverage the Campaign for Real Beauty concept
and goodwill to create a community where women will feel
comfortable and want to participate? Can you be all things to all peeps .. from young teens/tweens to 20-something, 30-something, ?-something?
My first impression of Shine was .. a slick publication. There are nine categories including fashion, beauty, parenting, health, love and sex, food. Shine editors are responsible for content development. In addition blogs and articles are pulled from Yahoo!'s other lifestyles publishers (including male writers). Community members can add their comments and digg, del.icio.us, stumble, technorait and buzz up the post.
Shine is targeting the 25-54 audience - .. a highly sought-after demographic for advertisers. From a Yahoo! news article a new buzz word for this demo - Chief Household Officer. Wonder what Susan or Marianne or Jeneane would think of their new title (wink!)?
We didn’t want to be a site just for moms or just for single women or working women, or any specific demo- or psychographic. We wanted to create a smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info and to connect with each other and the world around them.Shine About Us Page
Big Questions: Can Yahoo! turn the "slick shine" down a notch or two? Can you be all things to all peeps .. from 20-somethings to 50-somethings?
Sidebar: Toss of a pink boa to Yahoo!for reaching out to women around the U.S., bloggers and not, asking for feedback about
Shine. I was looking forward to attending the session in Atlanta, alas! my hot water heater had
other plans for me. I won't go into details except to say walking on
squishy carpet is not a fun thing. Back in Skinny Jeans attended in CA and has a great post about her experience.
Here's the deal - you're smart, you're successful, you're rich, you're 40+ and you "know everybody." You want to make money, be an entrepreneur, get involved with something new on the web. Your journalist friend is complaining she is getting cut from 5-days a week to 3-days. Another chum wants to write more than about politics.
Over lunch an idea is born. Together you'll create a site where you can talk to your friends and invite other accomplished 40+ women to the conversation. It doesn't hurt that you and your girlfriends can each invest $200k or a total of a cool $1 million. You knock on your friend Tiffany's and Sony's doors for a few ads and launch a "ladies who lunch site."
Snippets from Charlie Rose's Interview with the founders: Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Mary Wells and Joni Evans
Charlie Rose - When you say geared to women over 40 what does that mean? Joni
Evans – It means women who have had experience, women who have had
education, women who have had careers, women who have lived.
Leslie Stahl – Virtually every woman who is a
contributor is a known person. And they are commenting and writing on
something you wouldn’t expect that person to write about. Candice
Bergen on politics. Leslie Stahl on her new mattress.
I wanted to love WowOWow. Really I did. Accomplished, smart women reaching out to a demo who had been neglected. I wanted to love WowOWow. Really I did. I love Liz Smith's wit, and Candice Bergen's savvy and Mary Wells forged paths in advertising for women and Lesley Stahl is from Swampscott, MA where my college roommate lived. I wanted to love WowOWow really I did. Behind the scenes with the cool celebs who seemed to want to include me in their world. I wanted to love WowOWow really I did. But it falls flat for me.
Maybe they don't really want to talk to us. Trust me when I tell you I have spent significant time wandering around the site. I call it a site because it's way far not a social networking community. It's rather like being invited to join the "in group" in high school and then being ignored. In the Charlie Rose interview (he asked great questions but the women danced around giving straight responses) the founders made a big deal about the "conversation." However, few join in on their own conversations to talk to the peeps.
Sidebar: There are several women who actively comment and encourage conversation on many, many, many of the posts. Suzanne de Cornelia, Mugsy Peabody and Suzanne Conti. WowOWow has hired five employees and call me cynic but I can't help but wonder if these are them.
Maybe they don't really like us. In chat about privacyJulia Reed commented: I read somewhere that like 10 times the amount of people now Google themselves as did five years ago. I mean, you know, just … not people like Candice, who have reasons to be written about. What does that mean?
My ah ha moment is .. I don't think the founders of WowOWow get what
social media or building a social media networking community is about.
In the Charlie Rose interview when asked what blogs they read, Drudge
and news sites a la the Huffington Post (not a big surprise) were
mentioned. Women of the Web do you know there are vibrant communities of
women bloggers who are your target audience?
However, barely a few weeks old the site is doing quite nicely thank you kindly. My favorite bit in the Charlie Rose interview was when Joni Evans stopped herself because she wasn't "allowed to talk about" the site stats. Liz tossed off, “Go ahead. You have 100 books on the best seller list you can talk about any damn thing you please.” So she did. Average length on the site about 8.5 minutes - as of April 8th. Not an earth shattering piece of information. If the number of comments = success than out of the virtual box WowOWow is a huge success. Some posts are pulling in 20, 30, 50 comments and some have hundreds.
For me the lesson learned is that women want to express their opinions to women who they admire and might be paying attention even if there is no feedback. What does that mean? Is that part of the culture of the 40+ women .. that an outlet for expression is enough even if there is no conversation or response from the author? Is that what the political blogs have taught us? That it's enough to state your opinion but don't expect a response from the candidate? Or is it just as the SNL character Linda Richmond said, "Talk among yourselves."
Big Questions: Is this is a play toy for the founders or can they sustain the writing into year two and beyond? Will WowOWow turn into a female version of the Huffington Post (no shame in that)? Is it all about the celebrity?
Update: Suzanne de Cornelia and Mugsy Peabody DMed me. Neither they nor Suzanne Conti are part of the paid staff. To be continued ..
Last week I had the honor of participating in BlogHer Biz '08. Part of my gig was to lead a round table discussion. Our talk turned to etiquette in social media. What is proper and polite in the digital world of social networking?
The Divas round the table kindly agreed to share their thoughts .. What does social media etiquette mean to you?
Lori Magno, Digital HiveModadi Magno: Be Nice. Is it really that hard? disagree with me, tell me why - I'll respond. Can you phrase it in the form of a question? Are you "you" or are you hiding behind "anonymous?" Be. real. You will be rewarded.
Yvonne DiVita, Lip-Sticking: Be open & honest. Respect the fact that its not all about 'you.' It's about the whole community - that's a group of people, not just one person. By the way be sure to check out the stylish new header on Lip-sticking.
Sarah Levy, Mini-et-Moi : Respect and responsibility. Be respectful of the writer and the community and behave as though you are par
pink boa! 
