March 8th, 2010 Update:  ”Bloggers are not slaves of brands” was the original post title.

If you run a blog, you probably notice a surge on the number of brands that wish to either buy coverage on your site, ask to write a guest post for free or for money, or my “favorite”, the ones that offer you a link exchange buried I do not know where on their ecommerce site because they work on their link building.

With all the social media books and gurus that tell businesses that they can seek coverage from influencers, any bloggers with a certain level of popularity see the good and the bad. The goal of this post is to talk about the best practices.

I do not think that all the brands do that to exploit bloggers. Many, including PR and marketing professionals, are clueless when it comes to approaching bloggers. Others listen to the advices from the wrong people. The rules are clear with traditional journalists but defining the best practices is still in the making when approaching social media influencers and bloggers.

In light of these facts, I think that bloggers should take the initiatives to be treated the way we deserve. My advice to every blogger is to think about your values and to clearly determine what is acceptable for your blog. Then, write down a policy that you will publish on your blog.

For a while now, I published my editorial policy. I also have a comment policy that is more there to explain the fair use rules of comments to merchants, marketing staff or PR people that seem to think that blog comments are free classifieds. Any business should know that unsolicited promotion on comments is not playing fair.

With the current boom, I needed to put a stronger message. But I did not know how to do it until I read the About on Cool Hunting. They started in 2003 and they are way bigger than me. So, I cannot imagine their inbox in the morning. My revelation came when I read this:

Money can buy you a lot of things, but it can’t buy you coverage on Cool Hunting. All of our content is editorially based using the standard of “stuff we like.”

One thing that I learned in social media is to avoid the legal jargon that nobody understand and say the things like they are. They could not have said it better.

+ image: Cool Hunting

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• My Interview on Blog Out Loud
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• Turning a Hobby into a Business on Etsy

Rebecca Orlov interviewed me for Blog Out Loud. I thought she asked very good questions about blogging and how to use social media for small business. When I read her introduction, I blushed. I feel really honored to have earned her respect.

Giving interview and interviewing other bloggers are effective ways to get word around about what you are doing and share with others. You should include both in your blog marketing strategy.

I am taking the opportunity to spread the word further about the next Blog Out Loud event that will happen March 4th, 2010 in San Francisco. The first 4 Blog Out Loud events were a success. I encourage you to do. It is good for learning, mingling and networking. Get more details here.

+ My Interview
+ Event 5 of Blog Out Loud

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• Need for Standards for Web Badges

More and more brands ask you every day to become a fan of their Facebook page. As a blogger, we often get requests from brands that we never heard of. In light of this fact, I share here how I decide to become a fan or not of a brand on Facebook. I feel my social netetiquette guide could be useful to marketers who wish to pitch bloggers.

The first thing I suggest to any marketer is to know the blogger first. Chances are that if we never connected on social media and that I never talked about your brand on my blog, I do not know you. Second, know what are the values and the scope of interests of the bloggers you targeted. Third, read my editorial policy as it applies to all the content I produce.  [Update: If after that it still seems like a good fit, maybe you can inquire if I know your brand or if I tried your products/services before?] Four, do not insist.

My brand At Home with Kim Vallee is based on providing a curated experience for my readers. My profile on Facebook is an extension of my brand. Using kimvallee.com as the domain name excludes the idea of separating the two identities.

On Facebook each brand is subject to the same principles I apply when I write a post, that is I feature only things and stores that I like. For me, being a fan symbolizes that you like a lot. Therefore, I may even go a step further with fan pages. Plus, if I become a fan of everything it will lose its purpose. But more importantly, if I become a fan of everything that is pitched to me I would betray the trust that my fans, my readers, my Facebook friends and my Twitter followers put on me as a curator.

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It is no secret to everyone who knows me a little that I love Etsy. I bought items on Etsy. I feature my favorite Etsy sellers on my main blog, At Home with Kim Vallee. When I talk about the business opportunity of the Web, Etsy always comes to my mind. Etsy opened the doors to many women, and men, by giving them access to a suitable marketplace. The past business model was solely based on local market and exhibiting at flea markets and fairs. By running an online store, more people could buy their products.

Let’s be clear, most Etsy sellers do not make a good living and will probably never will. But with hard work, a business plan and perseverance, you can do it. The New York Times published a good article on how people turned their hobby into a business on Etsy. Towards the end, the article missed the boat. Being a small entrepreneur asks for sacrifices at first. As a Web developer, I recalled doing rush jobs once in a while that meant working 16 hours a day.

Starting any mom and pop shop requires a lot of work, regardless of the products or services you sell. The sellers mentioned on the NY Times articles seem to be at a transition point where they moved from a mom and pop shop to the SOHO stage. Once their employees or freelancers are trained, they will be able to get more free time. In fact, this already happened for Ms. Vasquez.

Mixing Life and Business at Home

About that quote “At dinners, she and her husband talked only about business.”, it is normal at this stage. It requires discipline to find other topics to talk about. For the last 15 years, I have a business with my husband. We make sure to find time every day to talk about something else. We make sure we have hobbies outside our business. But it is also good to exchange about our respective business projects, where we want to go and to dream together of a successful outcome. It energizes us. Plus, talking about it ensures that we are both comfortable with the way we live together.

But you also need to network to grow your business and for your well-being. Meeting people provides new conversation topics. If you do not go out enough, it is not healthy.

Why Etsy?

If you are thinking about selling handmade products online, I suggest to any creative sellers to do three things:

• Have a blog where you not only talk about your products but also about other people products, design ideas that you like. There is an Etsy widget that will allow you to feature on the sidebar a few products from your Etsy shop. Make sure to add the Etsy widget to your blog.
• Open an Etsy shop. Bloggers love Etsy and being active in the social media community is key for promoting your shop.
• Use Facebook and Twitters. Make connections with people online and offline.

SOURCING:
+ photo: The Journey Journal by Cracked Designs on etsy $12 USD
+ That Hobby Looks Like a Lot of Work on The New York Times

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Many events and causes produce web badges so that bloggers and sites can show their support. It is a wonderful marketing tool. If I attend a conference, I usually will put a badge on my site. But generally, I need to ask the event to produce a badge for me or make my own from their available materials. It is not practical.

The problem is that the Web Badges do not fit AIB standards. Bloggers with advertising on their site typically have blog templates that fit the IAB Ad Unit Guidelines. The Universal Ad Package (UAP) is composed by 300×250, 180×150, 728×90 and 160×600. These 4 ads are the most popular.

A good format for a Web badge could be 300×100 since it would satisfy bloggers who support the widely popular 300×250 ad unit. You must also take into account popular blog templates.  Many blogs were designed to fit banners that measure 120×120, 125×125 plus various heights for either 150 pixels or 200 pixels in width.

Adopting both the AIB standards for your Web badges and the popular widths for blog templates means that it would fit the needs of all bloggers. Remember that any sidebar looks cleaner and more professional when everything has the same width. If you design a Web badge for an event, make sure you support all these standards.

MORE:
+ AIB Ad Unit Guidelines

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I am always amazed to see how many brands and organizations have not adapted to the new reality of Web communication. Brands and organizations spent a lot of money on marketing and advertising. Yet they fail at the cheapest and probably the most efficient promotion tool: the words of their fans.

If a blogger decided, on their own initiative, to write about one of your products or your event, chances are that they give you free publicity that their readers will trust because it is their honest opinion. People prefer to write about what they like than what they do not like. So why are you making it difficult for bloggers to write about your stuff?

I go through my checklist before writing a story. The first thing on that list is the availability of great pictures. If they are none, I moved to the next story. This is because pictures sell a story.

Asking people to fill a form and wait for your staff to send me a password to access your media kit is so passé. Blogging is about what is hot today. What is hot today is what caught my attention at that instant. If I cannot find the material right away to write my story, I will pass to the next story. They are no shortage of good topics when you know how to research and have imagination.

As a blogger, I want direct access to promotional pictures that are at least 500 pixels in width (80% jpg or png-24). Simply protect your content under a non-commercial Creative Commons license and request that bloggers clearly give you credit and put a link to you (the source). If more people knows about what you are doing, you will be more successful. At the end, we all win.

By the way, the free Trend Briefings produced by Trendwatching.com is a must read. I am one of their 160,000+ business professionals in more than 180 countries who is looking for it every month.

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I happened to fall on Hellmann’s Real Food Movement Web site this morning. Hellmann is using social media (blog, Twitter and Facebook Connect) to raise awareness about the need of eating local food. Using a higher social motive to raise the profile of a brand is nothing new. What is new is how brands tap into our social networks to achieve their goal.

I wish to talk about is the execution of the campaign. It is an opportunity to learn the good and the bad.  There are lessons that any brand or blogger can learn from.

What They Did Right

The #RealFood hashtag campaign linked to a $25,000 donation to Evergreen is a good start. They are raising the bar today (July 29, 2009) by quadrupling all day how much they donate per tweet showing the #realfood hashtag. But it is not enough to raise a movement.

On their blog what I assumed to be their blog section (Real Food Conversations), they are not only talking about themselves. They are linking to other blogs. This is one thing that I always tried to emphasis with brands that try to build a community. You have to talk your movement in a larger spectrum. It cannot be just about what you do. Update: the principle that I wish to convey is what you have to remember here.

The same is true for the Twitter account of a blogger; you have to promote stories and content done by others on the topic you cover. As the blogger and promoter of the movement, you must act as an inspiring figure, be a leader.

Where There is Room for Improvements

It is ironic that their blog section is called Real Food Conversations but that we cannot comment on their posts. Many brands made this mistake. It is Blogging 101: you MUST allow comments.

All their posts are written by Admin. Ideally, you should put the name of the spokesperson. A first name can be sufficient but the full name is better. At least, display a username more engaging than Admin. Naming a person humanizes the process; it increases your chances to connect with them. Remember that we are more comfortable talking to a person than an organization.

Finally, the tweets are not engaging. It seems that all actions stopped at “I am supporting Eat Real, Eat Local”. It is missing passion, commitment on both sides. It is up to the brand to seed the passion. I suggest them to expand more about their movement on the Bio message. The same as with the blog, naming the person who is writing the tweets will enable you to build stronger relationships with your customers.

On a marketing side, I see too many angles. The URL site and twitter account are EatRealEatLocal but the movement is call the Real Food Movement. And then, they is a Choose Canadian ad campaign. I am not a marketer but it seems confusing.

MORE:
+ Eat Real, Eat Local on Twitter
+ Real Food Movement’s Web site

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