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Thanks for reading and blogging!

It basically pings a lot of services you already knew of, but now in one time. The only thing I find useful about it is that it gives you a sort of overview about the backlinks you have.

The tool is definitely made to make money, because the links to Google’s AdSense and TextLinkAds that are given after the analysis are referrer links. First they measure how much you’re worth, then they tell you how much you can make, and then they offer you to sign up. Clever.

Via: Seth Godin

Other tools previously featured on Marketing Thoughts:

• How Much Is Your Blog Worth?

There’s still a lot to be done, but they’re on their way. The main thing that caused their growth is the personal approach they maintained, to contact every blogger single handedly over email and negotiate the ad placement.

(disclaimer, Adhese runs ads on this blog from time to time)

–

Kris Hoet from MSN EMEA: Everyone is a customer.

How can a company engage with bloggers? How to connect and build long term relationships? There’s a lot of blog trackers and product trackers out there (technorati, tailrank, …)

The first thing you should do is READ! If you don’t care for reading blogs, don’t bother contacting them to promote your brand. Use RSS readers to track your bloggers, follow links to discover more blogs. Comment on blogs, where it makes sense. Don’t kill a bad blogpost, but stay factual.

Stay on track of your comments with tools like co.mments.com or cocomment.com, don’t comment to never look back. People will answer and expect you to come back and follow the conversation.

Set up meetings, invite people to come over and get to know you and your purposes. It helps to get your message out. Word of mouth is still the most powerful form of brand communication. It’s a natural thing that needs to grow in a natural way. Forcing it, or even worse: trying to force it, will lead you further from your goal than you’ll ever wished for.

Kris closed with some cases like the guy who got to drive with an Aston Martin because he wished for it, the Gillette 5 blades disaster and the famous Dell Hell.

She presented a lot of human stories, to illustrate that behind a lot of blogs, real people with real stories live their daily lives and are willing to share it. It’s not always about the high traffic numbers, but very often about ‘what’ is written and for whom. A lot of people write for a small audience and love that, they don’t feel the need to become famous. They do meet in small blogger events, and they love to socialize, but most of all, they love to blog.

The funny remark here is that Skynet started with an ‘everything about skynet blogs’ blog and that shortly after that their ‘top blogger’ started with a mirror blog which is called ‘bloggers about skynet blogs’. Every official announcement the Skynet team launches on their blog gets an instant feedback on that blog, and it’s most of the time razorblade sharp. A nice example of how blogging works.

–

Jesse Wynants from i-merge and Gunther Boutsen from Fishtank are talking about the conversation that ‘happens’ when people use blogs. About opinions everyone has and everyone’s dying to share with the rest of the world.

People blog to become an authority, to be invited to speak at events, to connect with others (clients). People want to meet other people, bloggers want to meet other bloggers. Companies want to create transparency and want to share their ideas, their thoughts. Companies want to share knowledge, engage in conversations. CEOs blog to share their vision.

This presentation is really interesting and in fact goes a little too fast to live-blog. For every reason of blogging, they give an example. They give tips to blog like: create a style, send lots of linklove, set up a schedule, blog every day and keep up the frequency, write original content and don’t copy-paste too much. Personalize your blogposts and blog so that people can identify theirselves with you and your life. Try to organise a battle, start a debate and invite people to participate.

One of the best links I just discoverd is the IKEA hacker site, the perfect example of what ‘anti-consumerism’ means. This blog tells you everything you can do with the stuff from IKEA when you don’t want to follow the papered how-to guidelines. Sweeeet :)

You can also use technology to make it more easy to blog. You can use tools like Flickr, and blog those pictures. With tools like LiveWriter you can create posts offline in an editor that looks and feels like Office Word. You can use Media (audio and video) to make your content more catchy, or aggregate content from other bloggers or users or from yourself (del.icio.us, podcast feeds, video feeds). You can use widgets to make your blog look more ‘alive’ and to discover new things you weren’t aware of yourself. If you start moblogging and send pictures from your mobile phone to your laptop, the spontaneity increases and gives your blog a more ‘human’ face.

If you use metadata, you can strengthen your content and give it date/time/location tags, so the content has more context.

Then Jesse talked about degrees of participation. First degree is just the IP’s, the readers who come by and don’t interact. Next you have the Subscribers, the fans, those who keep coming back and are dedicated readers. Lastly there’s the groupies, the user group who interacts. These are the most valuable people, the ones who drive your community. These are the ones you need to love and praise.

Maarten Schenk, Six Apart. Blogging since 2002, that’s worth a t-shirt.

A lot has changed in a short time. Back in 2003 people thought it was either a forum, some sort of Geocities homepage or a community site. Nobody understood the purpose of RSS. But nowadays, the word weblog is in the daily news, all the major newspapers have blogs with RSS feeds, or are launching them as we speak. Companies treat bloggers like journalists… They’ve come a long way, and they’re here to stay.

Introduces ‘Blogoloog‘, a pet project that ran out of hand. Blogoloog is basically a rough project setup that runs on an old computer at Maarten’s little house. It has a full index of a number of Flemish blog services, and keeps lists of the blogs that have been updated recently. The list has been completed with ‘tips’ that have been dropped in Maarten’s comments.

Stats today:

40.000 blogs, between 9.000 or 12.000 outgoing links, 4000 daily blogposts…

Most of the blogs are hosted with free services. The backend of the state of the Flemish blogosphere looks like this (in order of all-aroundness): MSN Spaces, Skynetblogs, Bloggen, Blogger, Seniorennet are the most popular services. But, self-hosted blogs and foreign blog services are under-represented, so it’s difficult to keep track of the exact online activity.

MSN Spaces is overrepresented, because feeds of this service contain also the updates in picture galleries, which are very often more updated than the actual blogs.

A lot of popular blogs choose for self hosting, because they can avoid third party advertisement and by using paid services, they have more control over their uptime and the backend on which the blogs run.

The popular blogs of the Flemish blogosphere consist of small “blog clubs”, it’s the same people who react on each other’s blogs, add the same blogs to their blogroll… Much like it happens with the international A-listers.

The number of blogs keeps growing, because it’s become really easy to publish for anyone.

From what I’ve heard, there’s going to be 6 presentations of each 10 minutes, all about blogging. What better way to cover that than to live-blog the entire thing?

There’s a Flickr account where everyone can upload pictures and a dedicated blog where we can cross-post our thoughts. Pretty good organized, this event.

It’s been a happy rendez-vous with a bunch of ex-colleagues from i-merge and I also saw Robin Wauters and Ine ‘Wow’ Dehandschutter and Herr Tom De Bruyne, the 2.0′d devil of the famous interactive agency. Also Maarten Schenk from SixApart and Jesse Wynants, who’re both going to give their best on stage.

Let’s see what the show brings. I’m looking forward to this.

Simon McDermott from Attentio.com will be your host, and he’s inviting Belgian bloggers to attend. If you have nothing planned or are able to switch some appointments, you’re welcome to join the group at the Strofilia restaurant, which is near Place St. Catherine (Brussels).

Check here for restaurant info

Drop a line to Simon asap if you’re planning to come. [simon at attentio dot com]

I talked to Shel about the book he ghost-authored with Scoble (Naked Conversations) and about the benefits it has to offer to companies that still need to define a good and transparent blogging policy. Shel has some really great insights. I’m glad I had a chance to talk to him. I also met Simon McDermott from Attentio and we had a really interesting talk about the brand rumor tracking tools. Too bad I didn’t end up next to Rick because I think that would’ve been interesting as well… Time, as always, flew by way too fast.

Check out the Belga Queen Club

I finally met Veerle Pieters, the godess of CSS and design and probably the best known blogger outside the Belgian borders. In all honesty, she rocks! Also there and in for some good conversation was Jean Philip De Tender who’s currently working as program manager and content coordinator at ‘één’, the Flemish TV and radio broadcasting company. After dinner I also talked to Geert Desager. Last time we met over e-mail he was still working for Tagora (an ad agency), but he’s now working for Microsoft on the trade department.

© Pietel

Some of the usual suspects were there as well, and we had some good talks. Networking kicks butt. I’m so glad I went. I’m so glad I was invited. There’s only one word left: Awesome. No wait: Cool.

Thanks Bea, Kris and Simon for putting this together. I had a great time!

More pictures on Flickr © Pietel
Also see my pics, on Flickr too :)

Update: More pictures from Veerle and Peter

I asked Randy to give me three good reasons why R|Mail is better than FeedBlitz and here’s what Randy had to say:

Many FeedBlitz users say it doesn’t work and they never get their emails

A FeedBlitz publisher gets your email address when you subscribe, you are giving up your email to both FeedBlitz and the publisher, he can unsubscribe you and he can subscribe you to other mailing lists without you wanting that

FeedBlitz is confusing. You can’t just go to http://www.feedblitz.com/ and subscribe to something

He also added: if you read the FeedBlitz blog, then you’ll find a few times every month where the end user asks why his stuff isn’t working – they don’t even bother responding

here * here

FeedBlitz is actually broken and many users are switching to Rmail. Recently I’m gaining about 100 subscriptions per day. Here’s some posts that I’ve found on the FeedBlitz problems.

* here * here

And if you read the FeedBlitz blog, you’ll find the last 2 weeks that it’s mostly entries about why their service is not working.

* here * here * here

Further, if you read the comments for the last two months on their blog, you’ll see people complaining that they are not getting their emails.

* here * here * here * here

So, that’s why I’m very happy with R|Mail, with the speed it delivers the news and the ease of use. If you need a trustworthy service for your readers, I’d put my money on R|Mail and give it a go. You’ll see.

R|Mail Subscription page
R|Mail Blog
R|Mail Stats

I shared a table with next to me Bruno from B.V.L.G. and the guys from the Tech podcasting crew Absurdnet.com. At the same table where Dries (i think) (who used to work at i-merge before they moved to the place where I work at now) and a nice lady who blogs at a fruity place called GeleBanaan (yellow banana). The other head of the table (I sat on one end) was Pascal Van Hecke, who sat right in front of me. [There were some other folks at our table as well, but I didn't get the chance of talking to them, which is way too bad.]

Jeroen organized it quite well, again, and maybe it’s time someone else did a third BlogCom in another city so he could actually enjoy it as well instead of running around like a madman, trying to get it all worked out. Great job dude!

I had a nice talk with some people I already knew like Robin, Clo, Luc, Rik and James, and I got the chance to meet some new bloggers like tantieris and the blokes from Appelogen, an arty project featuring Doctor Wolf, YourMama and Chris Dust. Doctor Wolf, as his name might indicate is ummm… an impressive man to say the least. Those three guys… :) Really :) Wow.

I also met the team behind TenderFeelings and HungryFeelings, and I’m quite impressed about the results they made with their out of control hobby project. I’ll try to keep an eye on that more often.

Somewhere later in the evening, Kris Hoet from MSN managed to drop in on his way home from his trip to Amsterdam and also the most famous chest in the blogosphere, Schenkr, and the sophisticated Mister Druppels arrived to have a little chat.

Amongst other people that were there were also the Netlash team, MouseOver, Asfaltkonijn on a marketing frenzy with balloons and Pietel.

Last but not least, I had a really interesting chat with Stefan Kölgen about how f*cking hard it can be to produce something that Coolz0r would blog [not hard at all, just send email :) ] and about the importancy of the upcoming event they’re organizing next Friday, which I’ll have to pass on to my colleague Tom over at i-merge, because someone should really be there.

I’m really glad I went to BlogCom to network and meet some new people. That’s the good part of it: you come home with a bunch of links and you have a few extra feeds to start reading (or podcasts to listen to). Fresh input, new opinions… That’s a really positive thing.

Lesson of the evening: good mothers always bring the power cables to the Nintendo DS gadgets when bringing along the kids. It’ll make sure you’ll get some peace and quietness, for as long as level one takes. :)

The full list of participants is after the jump.

Jeroen De Cock – http://www.lichtgeraakt.be
Michael Dierckx – http://www.7seconden.be
Rik – http://rikboey.be/blog
Bart Claeys – http://www.mouseover.be – http://www.creativeskills.be
Dieter Vander Velpen – http://www.asfaltkonijn.be
Anne – http://www.tenderfeelings.be – http://www.hungryfeelings.be
Frederick – http://www.frefre.com
Bart De Waele – OndernemerInGent – Netlash – Kopje Koffie
Valérie – http://www.flickr.com/photos/valeriew – http://www.inspiredlunacy.be
Bruno – tienvijftien – flickr
Tom Bernaerd – Schuppe.be blog
Stefan Kolgen – http://www.chipsvzw.be/ – http://www.KandL.be/
Kevin De Mulder – http://www.clopin.be – http://www.moofsbrothers.be
Tony De Telder – http://www.chipsvzw.be/ – http://www.KandL.be/
Ann Laenen – http://www.chipsvzw.be/ – http://www.KandL.be/
Robin Wauters – MarketingBlog.eu – Gizmodo.be
Wesley Cabus – http://about.pirho.be
dramoghe – http://dramoghe.wordpress.com
James – denjames – blogsaland
Iris – www.tantieris.blogspot.com
Iphi – http://www.iphimeda.be
Andy – http://blog.crowolf.org
Bert Pattyn – http://www.druivensuiker.be
Jurgen – http://www.ikbenpink.be
Vincent Latré – http://www.webstermc.be
Nick De Mey – http://www.mouseover.be
Clo Willaerts – http://www.bnox.be
Peter Dedecker – http://peterdedecker.net
Mark Creeten – http://www.gigadesign.be – http://www.gigastyle.be
nathalie – http://kleinekeizerin.blogspot.com
Jeronimo aka Lord CMS – http://cms.skynetblogs.be
Sven Marievoet – www.adhese.com
Matthias Vandermaesen – http://www.netsensei.nl
Luc Van Braekel – http://lvb.net
Frédéric De Vries – http://druppels.be
Karel Titeca – Webpalet
Christophe – http://www.voetbalenzo.be – Christophe3.0 – flickr
Thorgal – http://www.tenderfeelings.be – http://livelongandprosper.deviantart.com/gallery/
Dries – http://dries.ulyssis.org/rpm
yab – http://gelebanaan.blogspot.com
Bruno – http://bvlg.blogspot.com
Sofie Van Tendeloo – http://www.xulon.info
Pieter De Wit – http://pieter.blogsource.com
Wim Le Page – http://absurdnet.com
Olaf Muliawan – http://absurdnet.com
Johan Pauwels – http://absurdnet.com
Goya Bauwens – askatasuna.be
Chris Dust – appelogen.be
Dokter Wolf – appelogen.be
Uw Moeder – appelogen.be
Bjorn – www.outrospective.be
Pascal Van Hecke – http://pascal.vanhecke.info
Pieter Baert – Pietel.be & PieterBaert.be

It looks like this:

Get your own on RSS-2-Gif

Weird thing is: if you want to right-click and save the generated image, it says it’s a .png file. Hmm. That doesn’t match with the concept, but let’s not start nagging about that.

You can edit the generated HTML code and cut out the promotional image for RSS-2-Gif, but to be nice, I’ll add their button here anyway. What you see below is normally added in the middle under the light blue image that displays your feed items. I think they should work on a more sophisticated way to promote theirselves because the button isn’t really fitting in right with the rest of the project. If I’m going to use this in my e-mail footer, it’s going to be without the button. I mean, they already have the text in the generated image of my feed items, no?

Wikipage to sign up

See this week’s list at The Viral Garden

• 31st Second
• 7CM Internet Marketing Blog
• A Clear Eye
• A New Marketing Commentator
• Ad Age Small Agency Diary
• Ad Arena – Sex Sells
• Ad Busters
• Ad Feast
• Adforesult
• Ad Hunt
• Ad Parade
• Ad-Rag
• Adfreak
• AdJab
• Adotas
• AdPulp
• Adrants
• Ads of the World
• AdScam/The Horror!
• Adverb
• Adverblog
• AdverBox
• Advergirl
• Adverlicio.us
• Advertising/Design Goodness
• Advertising For Peanuts
• Afvragingen
• Agenda Inc. Live Feed
• American Copywriter
• AntennoBlog
• Babynox Links
• BannerBlog
• Be A Design Group
• Be Connected
• Being Reasonable
• Bert Van Wassenhove
• Besting Adwords
• Better Live Than Dead
• Beyond Madison Avenue
• Beyond the Brand
• Billboardom
• Blog Herald
• Blogebrity
• Blogologie
• BoingBoing
• Born On The Web
• Brains On Fire
• Brainstorm 9
• Brand Architect
• Brand Autopsy
• Brand Flakes for Breakfast
• Brandplay
• BrandShift
• BriefBlog
• Bright
• Business 2.0 Blog
• B.V.L.G.
• CaffeineMarketing
• CarPark
• Church of the Customer
• Coloribus
• Consumer Generated Media
• Conversion Rater
• Cool Hunting
• Corante Marketing Hub
• Coudal Partners
• Creative Criminal – How Advertising Spoiled Me
• Cross The Breeze
• Customer World
• David Boschmans Weblog
• Dead Insect
• Decent Marketing
• Decker Marketing
• Diablogue
• Digital Hive
• Digital Influence Mapping Project
• Doc Searls
• Download Squad
• Duct Tape Marketing
• Dutch Cowboys
• E-Media Tidbits
• Encyclopedia Hanasiana
• Engadget
• Ernie Schenck
• Eug
• Experience the Message
• Experiencing MoSoSo
• Fallon Planning Blog
• Freaking Marketing
• Fresh Creation
• Fresh Glue
• Futurelab’s Blog
• Gaping Void
• Geek Marketing
• Geek News Central
• Google Blogoscoped
• Guerrilla Innovation
• GuinnessBlog
• Hans On Experience
• Hans VB’s Weblog
• Houthalen – Maarten Schenk
• Houtlust
• Huug&Druug
• iBLOGthere4iM
• iHaveAnIdea
• Influential Interactive Marketing
• Influx
• Inside Google
• Inside Microsoft
• iPub
• It’s All Advertising
• i-Wisdom
• Jack Cheng
• Jack Yan
• Jaffe Juice
• JasonBlogs
• Jason Kottke
• John Battelle’s Searchblog
• Johnnie Moore’s Weblog
• Joi Ito’s Web
• Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting
• Joystick
• Kinetic Ideas
• Lab Reports
• Lichtgeraakt
• Lifehacker
• Lip-Sticking
• LiveSide
• Loic Lemeur
• Logic Emotion
• Luc Van Braekel
• Make The Logo Bigger
• Maneuver Marketing Communique
• Marketing.fm
• Marketing Alternatif
• MarketingBlog
• Marketing Departure Lounge
• Marketing Facts
• Marketing Post
• Marketing To Women Online
• Miami Ad School
• Micro Persuasion
• MIT Advertising Lab
• MocoBlog
• Modern Marketing
• MouseOver
• Netlash
• Neville Hobson
• Niall Kennedy
• Obesessive Consumption
• Onnozelheid Mag!
• Pascal Van Hecke
• Peter Forret
• Phone Scoop
• PicturePhoning
• Pietel
• PopGadget
• Ringtonia
• Room 116
• Russell Davies
• Scobleizer
• SeaSpace
• Seth Godin
• ShinyShiny
• /. News For Nerds – Stuff That Matters
• Smart Mobs
• Spare Change
• SpringWise
• SwissMiss
• Talent Zoo
• Tales From The Crib
• Tales Of Drudgery & Boredom
• tBLOGwa
• TechCrunch
• TechDigest
• TechDirt
• Textually.org
• The Ad Geek – Johan H. Ohlson
• The Brand Builder
• The Bullshit Observer
• The Bold Approach Method
• The Consumerist
• The Hidden Persuader
• The Long Tail
• The Origin Of Brands Blog
• The Ranch
• These Days Blog
• The Social Customer Manifesto
• Threadwatch
• Tom Peters
• Tom’s Corner
• TrendWatching
• TV Scoop
• TwentyFour
• Viral & Buzz Marketing Association
• Vitamin
• Waxy Links
• Welcome to Optimism
• We Make Money Not Art
• What’s Your Brand Mantra?
• Why Advertising Sucks
• Wonder Branding
• Ypulse

1. www.photoblog.be : $875,601.54
2. www.brusselsjournal.com : $810,679.44
3. www.mess.be : $623,816.70
4. veerle.duoh.com : $597,847.86
5. www.el73.be/drunkey-love : $362,434.68
6. www.tenderfeelings.be : $186,862.74
7. blog.coolz0r.com : $160,329.36
8. www.dopplerradio.net : $154,119.42
9. www.zattevrienden.be : $139,441.38
10. fantomaster.com/fantomNews : $132,102.36

For the record: I’m not selling yet, but it’s ok if you want to invest :)

• Tactic #1. Offer bloggers valuable content
• Tactic #2. Build personal relationships
• Tactic #3. Give them hotlinks
• Tactic #4. Reward top performers

Some statistics:

“on a typical day this June, 18% of total referring sites were search engines and 71% were bloggers.”

“65% of total referred traffic (representing thousands of prospects each day) comes from just five blogs.”

“27% of referred traffic arrives at the stock profile pages, and 13% at various glossary pages.”

Read the full article on MarketingSherpa

For those amongst us on the sales rep department, making cold prospect calls is often hell. It’s the last thing you want to do because you’ve got to start at the bottom of the chain of familiarity, introducing yourself and the product from zero. Suzanne Falter-Barns attented a teleclass with Wendy Weiss, the alleged ‘Queen of Cold Calling’ and has listed up seven points you should pay attention to while making cold calls. – [check it out]

When you’ve created a good product, other people will start to give it away for free. There’s a few reasons why they do that. First of all because your product is good. The other reason is that it would place their product at least on the same level of quality. One thing you’ve got to do is ask yourself if your product is good enough to give it away for free. StopBuyingCrap takes an interesting look at the how and why. – [check it out]

I don’t know who Patty is, but apparently you can ask here anything. [hold your jokes] – Patty influences 80% of all vehicles purchased in the US and buys aproximately 50% of all new and used cars and 40% of all trucks sold in the US. “Ask Patty” invites all women to share their stories, books, ancedotes ( good, bad, funny or sad), ask questions, offer answers, information and news for the benefit of all consumer women. I really had no idea that it was so big. Jody DeVere, president of Ask Patty writes about her organization and reaches out to the online women/consumers. In the post she sent in for this carnival she explains all about Ask Patty – [check it out]

David Maister has moved a terabyte in data from the free stuff he’s been putting on his website. That’s pretty neat. The resources he’s sharing are podcasts, videos and articles in .pdf format. There’s some really interesting stuff over there, but of all those things you should really take a look at his latest article “Adventures in Modern Marketing”. This article is about some of the lessons he has learned (or relearned) about marketing in an Internet world, through his own recent marketing activities. – [check it out]

Jack Yoest is thinking about why the web-based competitors are winning the readership. ‘Reach’, ‘frequency’ and ‘awareness’ drive the marketers’ attention on placing ad dollars. To know where the future is, and how, when and where you can have a moment to grab the attention of your audience, read his article. – [check it out]

Nedra Kline Weinreich wrote a really nice review about Katya Andresen’s new book “Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes”. This is not a how-to book, but it should be the first step for nonprofits who want to understand how to apply marketing concepts to their work. It will give you a good overview of the lens through which you need to filter your messages and materials. Head over to Spare Change and tune in, if you’re into nonprofit things: order the book. – [check it out]

The Long Tail is also applicable in real estate. The long tail phenomena that’s most relevant to the Tomato is how online real estate searches in your area are not always as obvious as “San Francisco real estate.” Showing up in the top 10 for such a search is not happening. Not to worry, being found online by your next lead doesn’t have to depend on which searches are most popular. Getting exposure online is as easy as writing about your industry on your website. Find out more about this and… – [check it out]

Marketing and advertising are very closely related. That’s why I’ve decided to also point in the advertising direction. It’s always nice to see what visuals are being used, which tricks, what sort of billboards or print ads… because very often you’ll get some inspiration or find new ways to market your products. So, here are a few links from the land of ads:

There’s two archives I frequent a lot when I’m looking for inspiration. One of them is AdsOfTheWorld, where Ivan is archiving ads and billboards from all over the world. It’s really a wicked large archive, you can spend hours and hours browsing the ads, seeing what has been done, thinking about how you could integrate one idea or another in a marketing campaign of your own. Daily updates. – [check it out]

Another fine archive to drop by is adverlicio.us, the world’s tastiest collection of online advertising. It’s in fact a large archive of all sorts of banners and teasers that are being used on the internet. If you’re considering an online campaign, be sure to drop by here and see all the good ideas that have been launched and that have proven to be successful. I’m sure there’ll be some things you can ‘redo’ or ‘make better’ if you want to promote your product or service online. Note that the ads don’t always link to their target, but that they’ve been listed to see what has been done, so clicking doesn’t always take you to the advertiser’s site – [check it out]

So, thanks for joining me this week for the Carnival of Marketing. The next episode is going to be hosted at Seeds of Growth. Submit your blog articles here!

Submissions can be sent through coolz0r at gmail dot com, and should be no later than Sunday morning 10 AM CET. The post will be online somewhere around 2 PM. (European Time -6 hours equals NewYorkish time, to be clear)

I’m looking forward to your contributions.

Because a lot of people find it difficult to write Coolz0r (c o o l z zero r), you can also send submission to miel at vanopstal dot info. So don’t tell me there was no way to reach me in time :)

Rulez:

1. Don’t submit an old post. The post needs to be from at least the past couple of weeks, and preference will be given to posts from the past week.
2. Submit posts that are actionable. Tips that people can actually apply will almost always win out over abstract stuff. “How” beats “Why”.
3. Submit posts that are complete. As a corellary to the above, posts that refer out to articles or other sites for more information, or that have anything to the effect of “Watch this space for more information” are going to be among the first to be cut.
4. Don’t submit posts that are nothing more than a pitch. It’s possible to sell subtlely within a good, actionable post (see the Joe Vitale example above). But a couple of the submissions were basically an ad for the company’s product. An occasional post like that may work in the context of your blog, but if you think it’s a good idea to submit that for a carnival, you’ve definitely got a thing or two to learn about marketing via blogs.

From the Press Release:

Responding to the warmth and enthusiasm received from the online community when the ‘Bouncing Balls’ advert went live last year, Sony Bravia is to share exclusive ‘behind the scenes’ footage, interviews and insights for its soon to be shot commercial. The first peeks backstage for the new advert, to be directed by Jonathan Glazer, will be available on www.BRAVIA-advert.com from the 19th July 2006 as the shoot is progressing.

“Last year bloggers and members of online communities spontaneously sourced and shared the Bravia ‘Balls’ advertising information. This year, we want to meet that demand and return the compliment by sharing even more content with access to pictures and video footage,” says David Patton, senior vice president, marketing communication, at Sony Europe.

The site’s Editor (Ed) has posted a “does what it says on the tin” comment to explain how content will be revealed throughout the shoot. Pretty self explanatory! – http://www.bravia-advert.com/paint/obligatory-first-post/

Nice move from the commercial-makers towards the bloggers:

1. We’re going to publish regular video diaries from the set as the shoot proceeds
2. We’re also going to publish behind-the-scenes photos, accounts and further video reports
3. We’ll be showing the completed television commercial online a week before it goes to air.

I’m curious, I’ve got to admit. I’d love to see where this is going. The marketing factory is really doing its work already, creating buzz… let’s hope the commercial turns out to be totally worth it. I’ve never looked forward to a 30 second-clip with such high expectations.

Related entries on Marketing Thoughts:

Sony Bravia
Swansea North Residents Association, Bravia Spoof