Apologies for the long gap since my last post. It has been a busy 2-3 weeks for Nuffnang with an Australia wide bloggers meet up in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. It was a great turn out and an insightful chat with the leading bloggers in Australia. I think we had around 40 people turning up at each event all with various backgrounds such as Social Media evangelists, Media, Pro-bloggers to Nuffnang bloggers. FYI - Nuffnang has since signed over 300+ bloggers... and it's still growing.
Lately, there has been articles about Social Media is all talk but little action... and I'd like to share my views on it.
While chatting to some of the leading bloggers in Australia ranging from Fashion, Parenting to Food blogs... one thing kept coming up.
Australian media do not "get" bloggers.
They don't pay bloggers the respect that they deserve. To highlight some examples, big fashion bloggers from Melbourne and Sydney echoed the same experience that their blogs are being featured in Elle, Vogue, etc.... in Europe. They also see trends featuring in Australian magazines... a month after their post. They know some of their posts are influencing magazine contents too.
Which leads me to think, if the general Australian media does not understand bloggers or blogging... Can Social Media strategists effectively implement campaigns in Australia? In some notion, social media needs traditional media to lift it's profile. Australian bloggers are losing out to our European, North American and Asian counter parts. It is almost embarrassing that they know more about our own bloggers and their blogging talents when Australia turns a blind eye to it.
Once Australian blogger profiles are lifted, we will no doubt see more social media campaigns. I believe we have the talent in Australia... but in today's market, to most clients, blogging still remains a mystery. Unfortunate.
Through Nuffnang, I hope to start lifting the profiles of various bloggers. The challenge in a campaign that involve bloggers is finding, contacting, and managing them. You almost have to fly blindly because they can be hard to find and you don't know what sort of traffic they have. How accountable can you be for your client?
With over 300 Australian bloggers in Nuffnang's database, I can contact them, I know where they are based, I know how many readers they have, and best of all, they want to connect with brands.
4 comments:
Hi DL, congrats on the news about the soon to be new entrant to the DL flock :)
"Australian media do not "get" bloggers"
What's to get though? Do bloggers really need validation from the wider media world (personally I think they do and that drives their distaste towards traditional media)
Thanks Shep. :)
Fair points. My post was a thought that was echoed by bloggers and I thought I'd share it.
I've found bloggers here, particularly fashion bloggers, are struggling to connect with advertisers. Bloggers approach brands but the typical response is "we don't work with blogs." Blogs just don't have the awareness it has in other overseas market.
Yes, bloggers do need the validation from the wider media world. To be respected that they are a valid source for content.
With blogger's distaste towards old media, my experience found that to be limited. Some are anti-corporate. Most are wanting to be involved.
I'm curious on what your thoughts are in blog marketing in Australia?
I think more can be done on both sides.
I've never been approached by a blogger about advertising. We have approached a lot of smaller sites (not sure if they're blogs or not ... as I'm still not sure what blog means today) about activity for our clients and as a result really widened the sites we use.
This is probably a generalisation, but agencies possibly could do more to keep up with the mid-tail/niche options they have open to them. The hurdle is either resource or ignorance or laziness ... who knows.
Blog aggregation by vertical in order to create an easier commercial proposition is one positive step to avoiding these obstacles.
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Ruth
http://muffinsnow.com
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