The Australian Blogosphere’s #1 Meeting Place
Following on from the Google war on pagerank, this SearchEngineJournal post got my attention.
I don’t get out much and had never heard of Widgetbucks - so I thougt I’d give it a try - see the new widget in the right-hand sidebar.
I’ll post our findings in the next few weeks.
About The Author:
Not quite, but you get the idea.
In an increasingly crowded media landscape, bloggers need to use their medium find their own ‘voice’ and position their offering:
Here’s an interesting case study of a brand that isn’t quite using reverse psychology but is more akin to highlighting their weaknesses (and in doing so, demonstrating their strengths).
‘Telling the truth’ sets the framework for the customer relationship that is based around honesty and trust. Isn’t this what your blog is trying to achieve?
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With Google’s recent crackdown on paid links, some say in an attempt to increase their takings from the advertising pie, a number of blogs that rely on Google for search engine traffic have been hit hard. If your blog falls into this category, then your choices are as follows:
If you’re leaning towards the latter, here are three ideas to help Google do less evil:
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You have a new idea or product or service.
It’s cool but in its early form - a little edgy and raw.
But it’s got potential.
How do you get the word out?
Hypothesis No.1: Personalise it
If you can’t be all things to all people, road test the idea with a few trusted friends. Cut it down to its raw elements and put it to them for comment.
Put a little spin on it to initiate eyeball engagement. Think of it this way: if your product was a book, what would the cover/title/book need to look like so that the potential reader grabs it off the shelf. Whether he/she ends up buying it will depend on the merits of the transaction - does the book give the reader what he/she needs/wants, but the point is you need to gather the audience before you can even start that spiel.
The AustralianBlogs experience
We thought we’d try our new idea on the inmates/housemates at the Silicon Beach House by individually labelling some beers we brought for Freelancer Friday. Small and hopefully unobtrusive but enough for Bronwen, Myles and Dave to ask the question we wanted them to: “So what’s BLOG.biz?”
Whether or not the new idea meets their needs will depend on how well we do our job in structuring our offering + whether they actually need what we offer….but last things first - let’s make them grab this little idea off the shelf for a closer look.
The Concept
The Yakka
The Execution
Myles Eftos (MadPilot Productions and PerthNorg) and Luke Evans (AustralianBlogs)
Dave Gardner (Intilecta Corporation)
Bronwen Clune (PerthNorg) and Luke Evans
Bronwen Clune and Bronwen’s beer
Beered in absentia: Richard Giles (Scouta) and Jordan Brock (Five Senses Coffee)
About The Author:
I’ve been avoiding the Facebook and MySpace crowd since its inception - I didn’t want to be the thirty-something, dirty old man on the barstool of a teenie/twenty-sonething nightclub. However, about the time of the relaunch of AustralianBlogs (or thereabouts) Simone sent me a LinkedIn invitation. I must have signed up a little while ago as it’s fallen by the wayside like my hotmail account. So I gave i a whirl - accepted Simone’s kind invitation to link up and dusted off the resume. This time around, I pasted a link on this blog (as you can see on the top right-hand corner).
It’s terribly uncool to the digerati, I’m sure. LinkedIn’s up there with Amazon, eBay and Yahoo as the giants of the first go-around of the internet boom.
So I thought…PERFECT.
Positives
Negatives
Overall, I’ve added 30-odd friends (real friends) and a couple of acquaintances from the blog world. Not bad. The greatest tangible benefit has really been hooking up with long-lost friends but I guess it’s been some help with any interested surfers looking to get involved with AustralianBlogs.
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This is a great post - I love the distinction between ‘Making money by investing time’ and ‘Making money by investing money’.
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When we came up with the idea of blogging our attempts to raise some money for my boy’s childcare centre playground refurb, we thought it would be a laugh to see if we could come up with some unconventional marketing campaigns to flog what is well-worn fundraising stock (ie. the humble Freddo and his mate the koala).
Here is a quick summary of the ideas we tried:
- selling with humour
- selling with threats (albeit in good humour)
- selling via perceived shortages
- selling via lifestyle outcome (ie. “I want to get out of this place!” - see above image)
Here are some ideas which we didn’t get to try:
- selling via recommendation/sponsorship (”The Boss says ‘buy a Freddo!’ “)
- anti-selling (”Say no to smartarse marketing slogans - buy a Freddo $1″)
- Office lookalike competitions
- ‘Diet starts tomorrow’
- ‘0.00003% fat-free’
- locating Freddos in the Ladies toilets
The final wash-up:
- nearly four boxes of 48 Freddos/Caramellos sold @$1 (still finishing up this final box)
- near-zero theft rate
Analysis:
- People chose our chocs over others because we gave them interesting content (that made them laugh…or in one case - tear it up in disgust)
- People were less likely to steal because they knew who was behind the Freddos (we had a substantially-lower level of theft compared to other choc fundraisers)
- The initial gimmicks got some great laughs
- People made up their mind about your offering pretty quickly
- People who bought at the start will more like continue to buy from you (and vice versa)
- We identified our customer-evangelists who were our highest spenders as well as spread ‘the word’
- Customers expected a new and funnier campaign daily. When they didn’t get one, they still bought (although they would give you a good-humoured serve)
How does this little exercise relate to blogging?
Is your blog like a box of Freddos? Is it a commodity or is there a high degree of differentiation compared to other blogs (or even other media?) Do you know if your readers are coming just for the content or the interaction? Do they see your blog as a means to pass the day or something they draw information for practical application? Based on this, how do you package your product? Do you dress it up with witty commentary, or do you focus on newsreader-like dissemination of the facts?
Answer these questions (as a start) and you will find that you’re on your way to building a group of sticky clientele that will keep on buying your virtual Freddos.
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Day 1 = 8 sold
Day 2 = 12 sold
Day 3 = 5 sold
Day 4 = 12 sold
Day 5 = 8 sold
Day 6 = 10 sold
Day 7 = 16 sold
Theft = 0
Eating into profits = 1
Left to sell = 24
Complaints = 1
About The Author:
Day 1 = 8 sold
Day 2 = 12 sold
Day 3 = 5 sold
Day 4 = 12 sold
Day 5 = 8 sold
Day 6 = 10 sold
Theft = 0 (after recount)
Eating into profits = 1
Left to sell = 40 (onto second box)
Complaints = 1
About The Author:
The cropped image (above) is a parody of an internal ‘company values’ diagram - you get the idea.
Day 1 = 8 sold
Day 2 = 12 sold
Day 3 = 5 sold
Day 4 = 12 sold
Theft = 1
Eating into profits = 1
Left to sell = 9
Complaints = 0
Overheard:
- “did you see the last one with the picture of the dog?”
- “the boys told me they were going to put a new campaign up every few days”
About The Author:
Day 1 = 8 sold
Day 2 = 12 sold
Theft = 1
Left to sell = 27
Complaints = 0
Overheard:
- “made me laugh”
- “put a smile on my face”
- “people must be buying them…” (I strategically removed some to engineer the facade of diminishing supply)
- “it’s awful what they’re doing to that dog”
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Expected response: howls (no pun unintended) of complaints and at least three purchases.
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Total Freddos = 48
Unit Price = $1
Target market = IT-savvy late-adopter types
G-O-A-L = playground toys for my kid’s child care joint
Pre-sales = 2 (1 x Angry South-African punter sys admin, 1 x Angry Asian Hobbit-hunter sys admin)
Total left to sell = 46
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A little while ago, we did a post on the acquisition of Level9 blogs by b5media. I speculated out loud about the blog network space and the viability of joining a blog network in particular - using b5media as a case study.
If I were to put myself in the shoes of an aspiring blogger looking to make blogging a commercial proposition, joining a blog network would be an excellent way of getting traction quickly. However in an industry, let alone a technology, that is still in its infancy - bloggers, blog networks, advertisers, businesses and blog readers are still trying to get a grip of this blogging thing. I can only conclude that any blogger looking to hook up with a network should satisfy themselves that the network shared a similar vision and business approach (and profitability) because utlimately their success is your success (and vice versa).
With this in mind, I yammered away and a couple of b5media bloggers popped by, along with Jeremy Wright (the big banana at b5…would that be b1@b5? Sorry, my kid loves that show) offering to help shed some light on my questions:
- Having a quick look around, it would appear to my untrained eye that the blog networks that come to mind all focus on a particular niche or target demographic, for example the 4.5 million uniques/month Sugar network (Popsugar etc) seem to target the women-based iVillage demographic, and ShinyMedia tends to have a more UK-based readership, ditto with Techcrunch’s web audience. What would you say b5media’s approach is in relation to building an audience?
- Shai mentioned that of the 230+ blogs in the b5media network, two blogs remain the flagship offerings - does this pose a risk to the organisation? Is this an issue for advertisers?
- If not commercially sensitive, would you be able to give a rough indication of the split of advertising revenue source ie. 20% direct, x% adsense, x% textlink ads etc? And do you have a preferred mix - what do you see as your long-term goal re managing your advertisers? Do you see yourself moving towards direct or perhaps outsourcing it to providers so you can focus on content (like BoingBoing)?
- Everywhere I turn, it seems you are snapping up great local blogging talent (eg Sara Goldstein aka thebargainqueen, and Alister Cameron) - what is your approach to recruiting bloggers? Do you identify the content space first, then find the appropriate person to fill it or vice versa?
- What light can you shed on your blogger remuneration structure?
- For the potential new b5media blogger, would you say the whole point of joining a blog network like b5media would be the quality of the crosslinking between blogs within the network thus allowing the startup blog an opportunity to gain traction more quickly? With this in mind, do you track the cross-sell ratio, i.e. % of visits originating from the network? If so, can you give an indication of its magnitude?
- do you see b5media as more of a co-op publisher, or a publisher that contracts for content via freelancers?
- Landing VC funding of $2m has obviously allowed you to beef up the head-office function (marketing, developers, operations etc) and upgrade infrastructure etc - what has been the advantages and disadvantages of bringing in VCs? Does it translate to having to ‘Do more in less time’?
- What’s the blogger attrition rate been like since launch? And how to you keep all your hens productively laying eggs?
Jeremy has kindly replied at his blog and it makes for some fantastic reading.
Some of the highlights for me included:
Positioning
I see b5media as a media company, so of the 3 options “publisher that contracts” is probably the closest. At the same time, though, I also see b5 as a community, as a supporter of WordPress, as a technology company and as a a place to just share ideas. But, yeah, from a business standpoint, I see our strength being our writers.
In my mind there are a handful of network structures out there that work, each with their own challenges and opportunities. Many of the larger networks, like Shiny, PopSugar and even Gawker, have chosen to focus on one or two key demographics - and for them, that works incredibly well. I’ve always felt, though, that it would be much more exciting to develop a key set of skills as a company and to apply those more broadly.
b5media’s stated goal is to provide the right content to the right person at the right time on the right device (with the right ad tucked somewhere in there!). To me, that means we need to have a depth of content that’s effectively unrivaled in the online content world. We need to be publishing hundreds of posts each day, dozens of deeper articles each week and reaching a critical mass of millions in the US, Canada, Europe and south east Asia.
Our approach, then, has always been to identify certain key areas where we believe we will see significant growth, and to enter those areas with a large number of blogs that would appeal to just about anyone interested in that space.
Remuneration
Base pay: 50-250$/month depending on age of blog, quality of blogger and time with blog. Typically this is a sliding scale based on how long a blog’s been with b5media (this is especially true for blogs we start and then bring writers in for… which is still 90% of our blogs, so is, again, the norm. 0-3 months: 50$/month, 3-6 months: 75$/month, 6-9 months: 100$/month, 1 year: 150$/month, 2 years: 250$/month.
Basically the bas pay allows us to grow a blogger’s take-home pay, even if they aren’t getting a huge amount of traffic. It also rewards longevity, provides milestones (we do reviews each quarter, as part of the pay bumps), etc.
Traffic bonus: Right now this is sitting at 1.65$ CPM (ie: for every 1000 pageviews, you get 1.65$). We try to bump this every quarter. It doesn’t always happen, but we believe that if b5’s doing well, bloggers should see their pay go up as well.
What this means is that the average blogger who writes for a few hours a week and builds his or her blog to 30-50K pageviews/month over 6-9 months can earn 100-150$ and a mature blogger can easily earn 150-250$… While bloggers on large blogs can earn hundreds more.
Thanks very much to Jeremy for lifting the hood. I respect the transparency that he has afforded us, certainly living the values of the open web upon which blogging tries to facilitate.
For those that have come through Jeremy’s blog, I would invite you to take the opportunity to browse the Australian blogosphere. We’re a small country in terms of population but boast a vibrant local web community (here too).
We’ll do a follow-up podcast shortly thanking Jeremy as well as a 2min analysis of his responses.
About The Author:
I was fortunate enough to read this story from the Weekend Australian magazine after coming home from a long day at work. I was ‘burping’ my little boy (who is only 4.5 weeks old) in between paying my eldest (a 3.5 year old) somewhat incoherent spurts of parental attention - whilst my wife put the finishing touches on the evening’s meal.
The newborn had the expected disruptive effect on our normally smooth household routine and I had wondered over the preceding few days, “when will it get back to normal again?”
Suffice to say, after reading this story I am feeling appropriately sheepish.
Jackson is a young man with an intellectual disability, however with the help of his family he is the sole employee of JACKmail - a Canberra-based courier service that provides a post office pickup and delivery service.
I don’t want to dilute this great story - still evolving as Sally, Jack’s mum continues her efforts to ensure a full life for him.
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The poster child of beancounters everywhere, Tim Pethick, the founder of Nudie Juice gives a great interview in the Robert Half podcast (not a bad idea for a bunch of headhunters to spread the viral street cred).
If you have a blog or are starting a blog, you could almost substitute [name of your blog] every time Tim says ‘Nudie’ and apply the same marketing principles.
He’s a very articulate speaker and very much worth the 30 min investment.
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