Online Marketing Blog

I wonder how many people reading this blog right now work for a company that:

1) Doesn’t have a blog
2) Has a blog but it’s on life support
3) Is considering blogging but not sure where to start
4) Has been blogging for a while, but wants to make it to the next level

Well, I’ve got some really good news.  On the heels of the OMMA New York conference Sept 18-19 comes Blog World Expo in Las Vegas Sept 20-21. What better place to have the world’s largest conference dedicated to blogging than the city that never sleeps because most of the active bloggers I know don’t sleep either.

In a recent study by Omnicom Group’s Brodeur and Marketwire about how journalists use blogs, it was found that blogs are are a regular source for journalists for improving the speed of reporting news as well as guiding tone, but not for improving quality:

• Over three quarters of reporters see blogs as helpful in giving them story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue
• Nearly 70 percent of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis
• One in four reporters (27.7%) have their own blogs
• About one in five (16.3%) have their own social networking page
• Almost half of reporters (47.5%) say they are “lurkers”
• Over half said that blogs were having a significant impact on the “tone” (61.8%) and “editorial direction” (51.1%) of news reporting

This is actually the first session that I covered at the San Jose Search Engine Strategies conference, but I did not get a chance to clean up my notes and post until now. It was a good session about a topic that is very close to the consulting practice of our PR and marketing agency.

Part of the ClickZ track, this session was moderated by Rebecca Lieb and included Gary Stein of Ammo Marketing, Scott Meyer of About.com, Hans Peter Brondmo of Plum, a new social networking service and Brian Monahan from IPG.

First up is Gary Stein who introduces the notion of “clique-through”, which means to use social media to spread your message deep but not wide. The “clique-through” approach is to get specific segments to adopt a particular message. It offers more long term value than the “lightning in a bottle” associated with buzz marketing.