Brilliant move Gold Coast football club

Not a rant based on social media but one on marketing. This event is one of the greatest and most innovative sports marketing moves I have ever seen.

It has just been annouced in the Herald Sun that the new Gold Coast franchise have signed Rugby League player, Karmichael Hunt to the football club for 3 years. Hunt has played AFL football for a club in his youth and the Gold Coast believe he will add a dimension to their midfield.

What a coup. What a marketing move..

Gold Coast need a drawcard. They need someone with some credibility in the Queensland market to bring numbers to the Gold Coast games. He may not turn out to be the best player in the league but imagine the dollars he will bring through the gate with curious, non-AFL loving Queenslanders coming to check him out. This will ultimaetly (hopefully) get Queenslanders hooked on the game and build the market up there.

I think this is a very impresssive move by the Gold Coast...

Just who's blogging in Australia?

The blogosphere in Australia has been growing exponentially for the last 5 - 10 years. But only now is a clearer picture of the demographics of those who blog being documented and expressed to the mainstream market. And therefore it is only now that advertisers are being presented with metrics that they can sell in to clients and finally take advantage of this lucrative market.

In Australia according to the Nuffnang database (the only guage of Australian blogs), bloggers are 78% female. This is great news for advertisers especially considering that 70% of the biggest bloggers (ie those who drive the majority of the traffic) are over the age of 25. In other words those who are the most prolifferic bloggers in this country are grocery buyers.

Throw into the mix that these guys are influential and you have a great equation for advertising effectiveness. BlogHer Survey and Compass Partners, 2008 published that over 40% of women consider blogs to be reliable sources of advice and information and 50% say blogs have influenced their purchasing decisions.

As this database grows demographics are certain to change. And of course there are many big bloggers out there that we haven't managed to reach. But for now at least the puzzle is starting to form a bit of a picture.

Reviving Myspace

According to Hitwise General Manager Bill Tancer, in 2006, MySpace used to provide over 35% of worldwide traffic to websites in the Entertainment-Multimedia category. Ultimately, its contribution to music and band websites specifically was over 10% in 2007, a reflection of its strength at the time.

New figures now show that MySpace has slipped down some pretty slippery slopes. In just three years that 35% contribution has slipped to just 9.4% (Thanks Mashable). Sure just a % figure and doesn't reflect true traffic numbers (ie the pool of websites available has grown), but the diminshing of this figure together with declinging uniques (down to 1.7 million in Australia this month) still shows that the brand is losing its grip on it's value in the entertainment world.

That said, MySpace has a very exciting launch in September of this year which I think will provide some much needed, and much deserved (hey they were the first) street cred. MySpace Music will provide users with a one-stop shop for streaming music, purchasing concert tickets and merchandise, checking out band information and tour dates and more! This will hopefully reposition MS as the cool brand that for many doesn't exist anymore. It should also help drive more traffic to bands' websites and thus help it climb back to the top of the online entertainment world once again, where it belongs.

Michael Jackson Flashmob

What a tribute!

The idea is still king!

This fantastic viral video came across my desk today. So far it has gained over 500,000 hits on YouTube (not bad for an unknown band)with many more surely still to come. We can learn a lot from this execution in terms of how to run a sucessful social media campaign. Some lessons below:

1 - Be unique in your execution. Don't just do whatever everyone else is doing. You won't get much cut through this way.

2 - Create a campaign that will generate some buzz within your social community. One of social media's greatest strengths is its ability to virally get you in front of an expodential amount of people.

3 - The idea is still king. No matter how far the world of marketing has come, this video still shows that great campaigns are the result of great ideas.

Now check this out!

Why advertising through blogs will work!

So you would have noticed that in the last week I have finally put some Nuffnang ads on my blog. No surprises there considering my role at Nuffnang is to help brands integrate into Australian blogs. The question is, can this platform work for advertisers?

Advertising on blogs throws up some pertinent questions. Does advertising contradict what blogs are about - honest views and unbiased opinions? Will people lose faith in a blog with a sponsored post the same way they might lose faith in a musician the minute they sell their song to an Sportsgirl commercial (I used to love you Lily..)? Ultimately if people do lose faith in a blog, the advertising will not be effective and therefore there is no point in advertising there in the first place. On the other hand if blog advertising does work then it becomes a goldmine for advertisers, giving them the opportunity to reach the influencers, those who can spread the good word.

Following are three reasons why the blog advertising model will work:

Sponsored posts are highlighted - At Nuffnang we make it mandatory for bloggers to section off sponsored posts and highlight that they have been sponsored for writing about that product. This protects their integrity whilst at the same time allows brands to reach those important eyeballs.

We encourage honesty - If a blogger thinks a product is poor, he or she will say it's poor. Yes we also ask them to find and blog about the positives (so money is not wasted) but by giving bad feedback as well as good, their personal reputation is preserved which allows the continuity of the advertising's effectiveness.

The importance of giving something back - Blogs want readers, readers love to get something for free and brands want to reach the right people. So if a nappies brand runs a competition to giveaway nappies to those readers of parenting blogs who tell a story of the most embarrassing time their child pooped the poo, the brand is reaching the right audience and starting the conversation. Tick. The blogger is giving something away which means readers will be more likely to return. Nice. And the readers are winning nappies and probably don't even realise that they are being advertised to - Why? Because it is relevant!

It will take some time to learn how the Australian market responds to brand integration through blogs. But if our bloggers in Singapore, Malaysia and The Philippines can be any benchmark, Australia might also have some full time bloggers earning some very big money in the very near future!