Tag Archives: blogger

Women drawn to Woolies, Amazon and lifestyle: Nielsen Online Ratings

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In the lucrative digitally-active female segment, Woolworths and Amazon are the most visited retails sites, Disney Online and kidspot.com.au win out in the family and lifestyle category and taste.com.au is winning the battle of the food websites.

Nielsen’s Online Ratings found that the highly engaged 25-54 year old female group accounted for 30% of the total online population in June, 33% of the total audience for mass merchandiser retail sites and 45% of all page views on Big W, Amazon and Kmart sites.

An average member of the group, which accounts for around 4.6 million Australians, spent 89 hours online for the month, viewing more than 3000 web pages across 86 sessions. Shopping is one of their favourite activities; they access Australian retail sites most frequently and have a strong relationship with online auction sites, being 11% more likely than the general online population to use eBay.

The major discount department stores all feature in the group’s most visited retail sites along with DealsDirect.com.au, Westfield, Coles, JB Hi-Fi and MYER. The Iconic also featured as one of their most visited sites, giving the Sydney-based online fashion site the lead in the pure-play fashion category, with 308,000 unique visitors in June.

According to Nielsen, the vast majority of women in this market segment regularly access major Australian publisher sites, such as Google, Yahoo!7 and Facebook.

In the overall rankings, Google held on to its position as the most visited site, followed closely by Facebook which still dominates the field for time on site. NineMSN’s group of sites retained third spot, followed by YouTube, Microsoft and Yahoo!7.

Small declines in page views were recorded across the board due to one day less of tracking for June than in May, however unique audience sizes for many of the top ten most visited websites dipped slightly.

 

Nielsen online ratings: YouTube falls, online retailers surge

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Nielsen has released its online ratings for November reporting a fall in the rankings for YouTube and significant uplift for online retailers in the lead up to Christmas, with Westfield experiencing the highest increase, up 115% in the past month.

The top 10 website rankings were relatively stable between October and November, apart from a small decline in visitation to YouTube which saw Microsoft leapfrog the video site into fourth place.

Small declines were seen for seven of the top 10 sites due to a smaller active universe in November, the report says. Slightly more men were active during the month, but their activity rates dropped significantly on the previous month to put their usage levels below that of females.

Google and Facebook continue to dominate the top 10, with one in every four minutes that Australians spent on the web in November coming on Facebook.

Top brands in November 2011 

In the media category, NineMSN led in terms of reach, however smh.com.au experienced higher visits per person and time per person.

While in retail, strong uplift in audience and activity has been noted across a number of retailers including Westfield (115% uplift between October and Novemeber), Big W (71%), Target (49%) and JB Hi Fi (39%). Based on previous years, another month on month uplift for online retail sites is expected in December.

A marqued improvement

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Background

Renault’s Koleos marque had a relatively small market share in Australia and Renault wanted to increase awareness of the versatile family vehicle with the key decision-makers in the purchase of such vehicles – women, in particular mums.

With a confidence in the quality of its product and against competitors such as GM Holden, Toyota, Mitsubishi and their commensurately larger marketing budgets, Renault wanted to increase quality leads, motivating people to test drive the Koleos.

Campaign: ‘Mummy Blogger’
Client: Renault
Agency: Soup

Objectives

Some of the core issues the campaign sought to address were:

  • Renault is not generally on the consideration list for a new car
  • it currently has a low market share
  • coupled with a low share of voice
  • it was late to enter the SUV market with the Koleos, and
  • credentials in the SUV market were relatively unknown.

Key to the campaign’s goal was delivering the message of safety and versatility – important factors for mums considering a family vehicle.

With any word of mouth campaign, the vital elements in a successful communication are authenticity and advocacy, both of which were central to the Koleos blogger review campaign.

Strategy

Women, in particular mothers, have taken to the blogosphere with élan, using it as a way to close the distance that has emerged as families no longer live in an extended community, and to share information and insights into family life and childrearing.

‘Mummy bloggers’ have carved out a significant niche online and were the clear choice of the types of influencers to engage in the campaign.

Core to the success of these mummy blogs is the authenticity of the communication. What they discuss and recommend must be real and relatable to their readership, or it will be regarded with scepticism.

With this in mind, the mummy bloggers who participated in the campaign were involved in its entire development, so what they eventually presented on their blogs was something that presented value for their readership, rather than being a paid endorsement, about which their audience is quite cynical.

Execution

The campaign began by identifying the top tier mummy bloggers and briefing them on the project, as well as building a relationship with them. Once the qualified bloggers were brought into the campaign, they were welcomed and briefed on the expectations for the campaign and the tailored program was developed in collaboration with bloggers. 

When the program was established an information booklet, personalised delivery and briefing from a Renault representative were organised for the bloggers, with them to test drive the car for one month, and share their experiences with their blog audience. 

The bloggers were sent an online survey to gather feedback on the campaign and an audience survey was sent out. The bloggers were also informed of the impact their participation was having on the brand.

The Koleos test drive program shared its core elements with each of the bloggers who participated. These elements included:

  • a test drive of the Koleos for a minimum of two weeks, a maximum of four weeks
  • write at least one review/post of the experience of test driving the Koleos
    to write about an ‘experience with the Koleos’ on the blog (sideways support)
  • run a promotion on the blog that encouraged users to experience Koleos (test drive or online), and
  • let their audience know about an exclusive purchase offer for the Renault Koleos on website.

Each of the five bloggers was handed creative freedom to build something engaging and interesting to their audience: one blogger took the Koleos for a family road trip to the Zoofari experience at Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo and blogged about it – combining a test drive with an interesting and engaging family expedition.

The creative execution also tapped into the bloggers’ motivations by allowing them to build engaging content for their audience (not just a review).

Results

The campaign achieved very positive and authentic Koleos editorial across all blog sites – the bloggers genuinely loved the car, which generated many positive posts.

The posts also have longevity beyond the campaign period and still appear on the first page of search results.

The campaign delivered more than one million Koleos conversations as a result of blogger posts and more than 35,000 people engaged with posts about the Koleos during the campaign period. It also contributed to an increase in interest (79%) and ultimately consideration for the Koleos among those who read posts on the blogs.

Outlined are some of the key performance indicators of the campaign:

  • authentic communication: the bloggers reached a combined audience of over 118,000 with a credible engaging message about the car with an average frequency of six-plus times
  • conversations: from the blogger reviews we predict we were able to generate 1.2 million conversations about Koleos
  • brand engagement: 33% of those who visited the blogs read one or more posts
  • shifts in perception: 79% of people who read the posts were more interested in the Koleos after reading
  • action: 36% of people who read the posts went on to seek additional information (online) and 18% mentioned taking a test drive (in person or online), and
  • media permanence: when people are searching for Koleos test drive information the blogger reviews are featured in four of the top 10 search results.

Twitter predicts ad surge

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Chief operating office of Twitter, Dick Costolo, has forecasted an advertising boom as the micro-blogging platform prepares to launch a new advertising model.

According to the company’s blog, its ‘Promoted Tweets’ platform will take the form of ordinary Tweets that businesses and organisations want to highlight to wider groups of users.

It has so far signed up Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks and Virgin America to the platform.

Costolo told Wired.com that he believed the company will eventually become profitable, but he declined to provide a timeframe for achieving profitability.

“We were valued at over a billion dollars last September, so we’re going to live in a world where we need to be generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. We’re thinking about big, big numbers,” Costolo told Reuters.

Moments with marketers: Darren Rowse

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Marketingmag.com.au chats to Darren Rowse aka ProBlogger – founder, editor and blogger. If you
would
like to see a certain
marketer profiled, please email your suggestion to Kate Kendall, online
editor, on kate.kendall@niche.com.au.

1. What do you do?

Im the founder, editor and sometimes blogger of three blogs – ProBlogger.net (blog tips), Digital-Photograhy-School.com (photography tips) and TwiTip.com (Twitter tips).

Im also a co-founder of the blog network b5media and co-author of the book ProBlogger (Wiley).

2. What was your first job?

I worked as a shelf technician (I stacked shelves at night in a super market) while I was at high school, worked selling stationery and office products during uni and as a minister (church, not governmental) after university.

3. What did you study?

Out of high school I studied Marketing at RMIT and then Theology at Whitley College (Melbourne Uni).

4. Describe a typical day?

  • 6-6.30am: One or both of my boys wake up and the day begins with the normal routine seen in most households with kids (utter chaos).
  • 8.30-9am: I head to work (which involves a 15 meter walk to our front room).
  • 9am: The day starts with checking for anything urgent, angry emails, crashed servers, injury list at Carlton Football club etc. – this time of day I sometimes schedule US-based interviews and meetings.
  • 9.30am: Most weekday mornings I head to a local cafe and spend 1-2 hours writing or editing posts for my blogs.
  • 11am: Back home, the rest of my morning is spent uploading and scheduling posts on blogs, networking on Twitter, interacting with readers in comments or via email
  • 1pm: Lunch.
  • 1.20pm-5pm: Afternoon activities vary from day to day and can include more writing and editing of blog posts, recording and editing of video posts, marketing/promotional activities, networking and Twitter.
  • 5-7.30pm: Chaos resumes as the dinner/bath/bed routine begins.
  • 7.30-11pm: More work (as above, a mixture of activities). In the evenings (depending how timezones/daylight savings lines up) I also spend time on calls with US partners.
  • 11pm: Bed.

5. What is on the agenda for 2009?

This year Im working hard to expand the two main blogs that I have both in terms of content, mediums and income streams. It has seen me release an e-book on ProBlogger, expand DPS with two new areas/blogs and will see the development of a new area on ProBlogger in the coming months.

While the economy has hit many hard I see it as an opportunity for growth and diversification and am working hard to position my web properties as more significant players in their niches as things bounce back.

6. What brand do you love the most? Hate the most? Why?

Google – I greatly admire their growth, their innovation and their vision. I also love that they send me a tonne of traffic each month and deposit enough cash in my account each month to pay my mortgage (and some). I also cant imagine my day without some of their products. Of course theres also moments of hate (or maybe frustration would be a better word) with Google – theyre such a big company which can make interacting with them as a solo-entrepreneur difficult at times.

7. What do you believe has been the most significant moment in the history of marketing?

I think were living in it. The development of the internet and the opportunities it opens up are mind boggling (and were still right at the beginning).

The fact that an ordinary guy like me living in the burbs and working from his front room (and local cafes) can be communicating with three million people a month while making a living gets me pinching myself every day.

8. Where can people find you?

ActionAid Australia launches social-media initiative with prominent political blogger

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ActionAid Australia, formerly Austcare, is currently in the process of launching the new brand and has taken a unique approach to open its work up to the Australian public.

The organisation will drop Stilgherrian, an independent political blogger and writer for Crikey.com, into a remote area of the United Republic of Tanzania.

ActionAid has charged Stilgherrian to set up a live video outpost in the remote region, training the local community to use it, thus enabling their voice to be heard and broadcast across the internet.

Using the power of social media for political change ActionAid Australia will raise the bar on much-needed awareness on the reality of life for the poor and marginalised in developing countries, as well as directly question corporate social responsibility policies, bringing the public into the heart of the debate.

Archie Law, CEO, ActionAid Australia said:

We know from research that for the public to engage with social causes, they need to see outcomes from their dollar donations, not just the devastation. This activity demonstrates both in the most visible way.

Law continued:

We know that engaging with social media is an important part of communicating with our supporters, that’s why we’ve chosen to launch in this way. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that any anti-poverty agency around the world has established blog outposts in this way. Using social media sites such as Twitter as well as engaging with bloggers also gives us a great way of reaching out to the Australian public in a more direct way.

Stilgherrian has only been outside of Australia once, on a holiday to Thailand. In Australia he is known as a vocal and often irreverent political commentator, however we are aware we will need to mentor and support him, as he will face things many people never see in a lifetime. We hope this opens up the conversation on the issues of social negligence, and our social responsibilities regardless of where we live in the world.

In typical social media style, Stilgherrian announced the ambitious project on his personal blog: http://stilgherrian.com/toto/project-toto-the-secretmission-has-begun/#more-4303

Over the coming weeks, a number of other initiatives will be revealed as part of this program. There will be numerous cultural and technology issues to address, both from Silgherrians’ reporting and the set up of the technology left in the field. The social activity will invite open discourse with ActionAid Australia as to solving those issues, getting them on the political agenda right through to enabling the unheard voice from the ground to live broadcast and be heard web-wide.

Law finished:

“We hope that Stilgherrian’s inaugural journey will be successful to generate the interest and engagement with what our organisation does and consequently paves the way for us to send other Australian bloggers into other countries to set up a community of blog outreach posts around the world, for the silenced voice to be heard and the social activist to be released.”

Marketers who dont understand online distribution can give up on viral success

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Marketingmag.com.au welcomes Mary Henderson the CEO of GeekIT Group. Before founding GeekIT,
Mary worked in senior business development, marketing and sales roles
at companies including Tech Pacific and Belkin. You can follow her
on Twitter here. Mary will be blogging fortnightly. 

I have a bit of a problem with the term viral to describe a piece of marketing communication passed from peer to peer.

It suggests that the goal of the campaign is simply the means of distribution in and of itself. I prefer to think of the piece of communication as the virus.

I cant comprehend what the viral campaign means if we haven’t established how were going to touch the consumer first.

And the reality is that you cant, or won’t, go viral until you have a virus thats worth catching.

A good understanding of online distribution channels is essential if you want your communication (or virus) to go viral.

Marketers are in completely the wrong headspace when they think that a brand can start a virus. From an online standpoint, a virus cant be created by a brand first. It can if its supported by massive mainstream advertising campaign, but thats not really happening in this environment of drastically slashed marketing budgets.

The virus is created by the consumer after theyve been able to learn from the product or service or idea, share it with their friends and create dialogue among their friends and family. And there are certain processes that one needs to go through and establish before a virus can take place.

We look at it from a reverse value chain perspective, in that customer comes first and then we take them to product. So, the question is:

“How are we going to get the customer to have an interest in the product, the service, or the idea?”

Apple is the great example of how to a brand can harness consumer-to-consumer communication for the health of the brand. Apple has done it brilliantly offline and online – as have other software and hardware vendors.

They understand their customer, and they go to their customer without waiting for their customer to come to them, and I really think that’s the key to the brand’s viral success.

Software and hardware vendors are great at this sort of communication because they have defined their distribution models and they inherently understand the way people communicate in an online environment.

Where marketers are getting lost is that theyre expecting old media consumption habits from new media like social networking sites. People don’t sit back and wait to be entertained by Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter. They make it happen themselves.

And of course, the internet gives consumers an entirely different interaction with a brand. They may not be your customer right now, but could be in 12 months time when theyve had a look at what you offer and have decided your brand is for them, so you can’t target them in the same way you do with a mainstream campaign.

Its a complex proposition to understand the way all the online distribution channels for a virus work, but that’s just what you have to do if you want to have any hope of creating a successful virus.

Next time, I’ll look at these online distribution channels in more detail.