Mike Lizun

A Blog That Gives Them A Voice -- And Influence

Last week, I wrote a post about Blogger As Influencer And Building A Community.  In the post I mentioned Jon Ortiz, the blogger for the Sacramento Bee.  Jon started The State Worker blog and column in 2008 as a member of The Bee's business staff, where he covered workplace and labor issues. He moved to the Capitol Bureau in January 2009 to cover state employment issues full time.

Jon sent me a comment about my blog post via Gmail, and I asked him if it would be okay to run the email here.  I think it only furthers the conversation about community, blogging and influence.  He said, "feel free."  So here is the email that Jon sent me in response to my post and the topic of creating influence via the community on and around your blog:

"Hi Mike:

 Just picked up your blog's mention of what I said to Pat Thornton about blogging and community buildiing. I appreciate it.

 I think you're absolutely correct about "influencer marketing." The Holy Grail for bloggers, I believe, is identifying blocks of Internet users who feel helplessly influenced and then crafting a blog that gives them a voice -- and influence.

 I have seen this in action several times via The State Worker blog. Users will bring up a policy or law, debate it and then those points surface in a legislative hearing or courtroom, attributed to the blog.

 As I look at the blogosphere, I see three keys to developing this:

 Creating user stickiness (through accurate insider information, insightful analysis, news-you-can-use posts, and -- to a lesser degree -- compelling writing).

 Exploiting the opportunities to mine for blog posts the high premium users/consumers/readers now place on interactivity, transparency and responsiveness.

 Embracing the fact many times, the users know more than the blogger.

 Well, I'll stop here. But I'll be checking in to Lizun Eyes regularly. Keep up the good fight!"  - Jon

Interesting how Jon talks about "them" and "giving them" a voice.  So many blogs are focused on the "I" instead of the "we" or "you".  By creating a blog on a high-profile, highly trafficked site, with the focus being on the issues that the people, the readers are interested in, the blog becomes much more of a community blog. It transforms reporting and even the art of column writing into a reader driven, citizen driven, voice of many, instead of the opinion of one.  Pretty powerful.

A blog by the people, and for the people.  Interesting.  You too, Jon.  Keep up the good fight!

Blogger As Influencer And Building A Community

Here is word that you can't escape from today if you are in Marketing, PR, Media, or Social Media: influencer.  I decided to check the entry for the word on Wikipedia and found "Influencer marketing" so I thought that would do for the purpose of this discussion.

The entry "defines" the phrase this way. "A form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole." 

Therein lies the current change, the shift.  It's not entirely new and exclusive of today's marketing, but the Internet has created more influencers and opinions than any other medium, and because of this the discussions around the word have increased.  Instead of relying on or having to move your product, subject matter expertise, opinion, or good reporting of facts through an entire medium, it now only requires the opinon, written, blogged, spoken or tweeted word, of an individual, just one, to influence a lot of people, or perhaps another influencer, and another.

In some cases influence is more about loose interactions between various parties in a community.  So in this case, the community creates the high level of engagement and interaction, comments are added to a blog or a particular post, and the blog itself, not so much the blogger, becomes the influencer.  The collective effort of a good solid post that draws in the community and the most passionate, usually, leave their comments behind to move the conversation forward.  They share what was written in a post via social media sharing, or word of mouth, or by forwarding the post to others in email perhaps.

Not trying to be right or wrong in my discussion of the topic, merely sharing an opinion, an observation.  I like how Jon Ortiz describes good blogging in this story on BeatBlogging.org.  Jon writes a "The State Worker" blog for the Sacbee.com.  In the article on BeatBlogging he says, "Good blogging is about building community, and engaging users is one of the best ways to do that."

Is this when influence comes into play?  The blog rises in the ranks, becomes popular, more people are involved and become aware; they get involved.

One thing is for certain, you will most certainly be reaching a lot of people.  So in that, there is some influence. 

What do you think?  Who or what are you influenced by?  How do you determine and measure influence?

Got Gmail?

As Google continues to tie a nice tidy social network around a lot of its offerings, I thought it might be a good time to ask you something.  Got Gmail?  If you do, and you use it and other Google services, I'd love to add you to my Google contacts, and in turn, to my Google Social Net. 

With Reader, chat, social search, Google Profiles, Wave and lots of other Google services starting to work very nicely together and become integrated, I'd like to do the same with those of you I interact with on twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and via blogs I comment on.

So, if you don't mind, and would be so kind, add your Google profile in the comments, or shoot me an email, and we can connect there, too.  And thanks, looking forward to connecting with you there, too. 

I'm mlizun@ or http://www.google.com/profiles/mlizun

 

The Power, Price, And Risks Of Potential

After reading this column from the Detroit Free Press this morning about "Tapping Twitter's Unrealized Potential" it got me thinking about the power and the price people are willing, and sometimes not willing, to pay for and invest in potential. 

A lot of people and things have potential, and I have no idea what the current tabulation is if we could tally up all the things and people that have or had potential, versus what really came to finally reach that said potential, but I would have to guess that the numbers would not look so good for Mr. or Mrs. Potential.

But every once in awhile something or someone comes along with potential that gets a second or third look, maybe more than a normal amount of conversation or press, and really starts to show some of its potential, but not all, yet. 

I remember standing up in front of a group of people and saying, uh, this twitter thing, it might not just be another shiny thing. If this is a new way of communicating, I am going to figure out how to use it to communicate and if it has the potential to help my clients, I will soon figure that out, too.

And, NO, no way am I trying to say I am the only one who said that.  Obviously there are at least 15 million other people (and $100 million in investment) who agreed.  But what I am saying is potential is risky.  Potential is hard to sniff out.  Potential is a gamble sometimes.  But one thing is for sure, never, ever be too quick to dismiss potential.  Some said blogs would be a fad.  And many still say twitter is.  Twitter as a company?  Maybe.  But what twitter has created, real-time conversations and observations communicated in 140 characters or less with the potential to reach millions in seconds? 

That's not potential, that my friends is a reality, and it's here to stay whatever it's called tomorrow

Following What Influencers Read...Before They Write

As the noise gets louder with more and more social media services, content and participants, and noise, it's important to continue to tune your instruments.  Keep the tools in good working order, and keep them sharp and focused.  Turn up the signal, decrease the noise. 

He's a great new way to keep your signal clear.  Google Reader just expanded it's Power Readers list to include journalists, techies, fashion critics, foodies, and more.  Now you can follow what these Power Readers (Influencers) read, before they take fingers to keyboard. 

Focus.  Get Ahead.  Stay strategic.

He's Right. Try Something Different With Your Blogger Outreach.

About a year ago I approached some social media, social media marketing, entrepreneur bloggers with a no-strings-attached opportunity.  Monitor your blog, comments server, ad server, whatever they wanted, for uptime performance using a client's technology.  This is good, solid technology, some might say the best.  Not a start-up.  This company has been around for almost 10-years.

The technology is easy to set up and with bloggers counting on their blog being available to readers, and advertisers, they need to know it's performing well, delivering a great user experience 24/7, and that means when the blogger is sleeping, too.

Instead of offering this to tech bloggers, I offered it to influential bloggers.  They have audience, they have influence, and technology like this just makes sense to them.  I told the bloggers, if you really like it, maybe you will decide to blog it, maybe not, either way no strings attached.

I only reached out to a handful of bloggers.   Some set it up and used it, some didn't.  One said thanks, but no thanks.  One shared it with his audience, others didn't.

Why am I sharing this?  Because I read a post tonight by Chris Brogan, "A Different Kind of Blogger Outreach," and he's 100% right.  Most only do what's been proven, tried, ROI'd.  Others try something different.  Take a different approach.  Give attention to those who receive little.  Think strategically and think how can I make an impact using social media instead of mainstream media.  Get right to the people I am trying to influence.

My outreach isn't over.  It's repeatable, not only for this client and this technology, but with and for many others.  So, try something different in YOUR blogger outreach.  Good luck with the Sony cams for Dads, Chris.  It's a great idea.

Why do you leave comments on blogs?

11 Twitter Related Services I Use Everyday (almost)

Twazzup

http://www.twazzup.com

Twitturly

http://twitturly.com/

Tweetmeme

http://tweetmeme.com/

Muck Rack

http://muckrack.com/

What the Trend

http://www.whatthetrend.com/

TweetReach

http://tweetreach.com/

TweetBeep

http://tweetbeep.com/

DailyRT

http://www.dailyrt.com/

Twitter for Busy People

http://www.twitterforbusypeople.com/index.html

TwitterAnalyzer

http://twitteranalyzer.com/Default.aspx

Topsy

http://topsy.com/

TweetDeck

http://www.tweetdeck.com

 

I have a lot of these in tabs along the top of my Flock browser.  How about you?  Which twitter apps, tools, services do you use almost everyday?  How do you remember them all?  ;-)

One of my favorite tools

One of my favorite tools for PR, and one of the smartest tools you can use, is the AP News Calendar.  Major scheduled events during the week.  In other words, AP will be covering these events and news.  You can plan around it or plan with it, or plan to avoid reaching out about your news, or news from your client, because of what's on the calendar. 

If you are in the media relations business, you better be up on the events of the week ahead, in addition to following news of the day and breaking news.

Frugalpalooza

http://frugality.alltop.com/