May 19, 2004
darwinian blogging
Everybody’s been e-mailing me, asking me to expand on what I said earlier about blogs being central to the future of advertising. OK, here are two thoughts for openers:
1. The best advertising, the old maxim goes, is word-of-mouth. And luckily for marketers everywhere, people like recommending stuff to people. It’s a way of connecting.
From a Darwinian level, whether we're talking about something trivial (e.g. granola) or something major (e.g. world peace), it's in our nature to want to appear smart, informed, and that our take on the world is a good one.
People would rather say, "Mr Jones Granola taste better because it’s the only one that gets its Brazil nuts straight from Brazil", rather than "Gosh, I think Mr Jones’ Granola tastes good because... ummmm… er… uhhhh…"
So the next time a young man is in a bar, trying to impress a young lady on the merits of various granolae, he will be thinking warm thoughts about how Mr Jones kindly put that little piece of Brazil nut trivia on the company website earlier that morning… and he will be more willing to mention Mr Jones the next time a young pretty thing comes along. More willing to spread the virus.
Blogs convey Darwinian-friendly info from producer to customer better than other media. Just my opinion.
2. I gave some advice to a company recently: "How you talk to each other is more important than how you talk to everyone else."
If you can’t sell yourselves on what you do, why do you expect to be able to do so with a mass of total stangers?
You need to start a conversation with yourself about why your product is good and why it matters LONG BEFORE trying to do likewise with the general public.
Blogs are a good way of managing this kind of conversation with a large group of people, more so than hanging out by the water cooler, or sending out memo's from above. Again, it’s just my opinion.
Any other thoughts?
Posted by hugh macleod at May 19, 2004 7:46 PM | TrackBackI think you're right on about the "Darwinian" aspect of blogging (nice term to use BTW).
I think people will take a while to catch onto your ideas though. Blogging as a phenomenon is still rather small compared to other media like TV, Movies or Radio. They have more of a broad appeal, whereas bloggs have a very niche feel for the most part (the traffic of any one individual blogger is still far below the audience ratings of a major radio/TV show).
Blogging is probably the wave of the future, and certainly one of the greatest mediums for targeted marketing, but until the numbers get higher I just don't see major executives embracing it on a large scale.
One last thought: You've mentioned before that Wal-mart is the 800 lb. gorilla of the marketing world. How many of the core Wal-mart audience pays attention to blogs? I don't know the answer, but my guess is that bloggs in general appeal to a more leet audience that is comparable in size to the number of people that have broadband. Bloggs will have to penetrate every level of society before they become the real force of advertising that proponents envision.
Posted by: Olesma at May 20, 2004 1:49 PMGood points, Olesema. Though I'm not interested in blogs replacing other media per se. I'm interested in what I can do with them now.
Heh.
Posted by: hugh macleod at May 20, 2004 1:57 PMYou talk about word of mouth as if you knew my favourite café. It is so hidden in the old part of town you can't get there alone for the first time unless you've been given a map, and the speciality, which is chocolate, not coffee, is ridiculously expensive.
The owner tells every new client what makes the drinks of the day special (origin, a method of toasting, flavour, being non-dairy, whatever).
I first went there for chocolate, then out of habit, now I go because I've made friends with the owner. And of course I've dragged about ten people with me at a time or another. Which will tell their friends too. and so on. And how did I found out? Because a friend told me "I had to meet this guy who talked about chocolate as if he was in love with it".
I wonder what they would manage if they had a better website....
Posted by: nia at May 20, 2004 3:23 PM"I'm interested in what I can do with them now."
Damn skippy! They will only reach their full potential if we actually work to make them what we think they can become.
I have to admit that I am finding that it's going to be a harder sell than we think it will be. I've been blogging now for a year or so, and I'm fairly certain that I haven't had a single visitor to my site (with the exception of a few friends right when it first started). At least that's what Technorati keeps telling me.
I'd like to create an intellectual/academic blog dedicated to neuro-psychology - but that is a proving to be a much more difficult task than I originally thought. And that is why I pay close attention to what you have to say - marketing is everything if you're trying to create something successful. And it is something I know very little about - and there just ain't much out ther about marketing for blogs. So, please, continue writing on the subject.
Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Olesma at May 20, 2004 8:38 PMNot to blow my own trumpet, but I wrote a little something about this kind of thing here: http://primz.net - Take a look at the post on Monday, April 26, 2004.
Cheers,
Nick.
Posted by: Nick at May 21, 2004 3:18 PMDarwinian blog?!?! Dude, read mine! (Shameless plug.)
Posted by: Richard at May 21, 2004 11:05 PM