Inspiration for
Innovation:
The
Blogosphere
Social Tech Training
Jun 2009

Agenda for Today
 Overview: Social Media Today
 Who are the Bloggers & Who’s Reading Blogs?
 Blog Strategies
 Open Dialogue: What’s Working for You?

Overview
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Top Takeaways
 Blogs are here to stay
 Bloggers are not who you think
 It’s not just about text
 Blogs are not newsletters, but dialogues
 Blogs are communities

What is Web 2.0?
 Web 1.0 = Information and Transaction
 Web 2.0 = Connecting People to People

What is Web 2.0?

Civilisational Shift

Who Are the
Bloggers & Who’s
Reading Blogs?
Is it just guys in their parents’ basements?

Let’s Take a Look:
Examples of Great Blogs
 Greenpeace
 NRDC Switchboard
 ThinkProgress
 Media Matters
 AK2UK.com

About blog readers
 About 22% of American adults read
blogs
 The median age of a blog reader is 25-45
 Their median household income is $60K
to $80K
 About 50% have left a comment on a
blog
 80% of MySpace Users are over 18

Arketi 2007 Web Watch Survey
 100% of journalists say they rely on the
Internet to help get their job done.
 25% of journalists say blogs make their job
easier.
 60% of journalists say they spend more
than 20 hours a week on the Internet. When
asked how journalists use the Internet:
 98 percent say reading news
 97 percent say emailing
 93 percent say finding news sources
 89 percent say finding story ideas
 72 percent say reading blogs
 67 percent say watching webinars or
webcasts

About bloggers
 10 percent of Internet users blog
 Only 11 percent of these bloggers talk
about policy and politics – most blog
about life experiences.
 Bloggers tend to be younger
 They are equally men and women and are
from all over the country.
 Bloggers tend to be more ethnically and
racially diverse.
 27% of bloggers also use Twitter

How Powerful?
 70% of journalists read blogs for breaking news and story ideas
 91% of Congressional offices track blogs
 Only 12% don’t think they matter to the media
 75% of time on local blogs, 25% national blogs

Hispanics Online
• 19.5 million Hispanics online –
most are English speaking or
bilingual
• Largest ethnic audience online in
U.S.
• 89% of Latinos who have a college
degree, 70% of Latinos who
completed high school, and 31% of
Latinos who did not complete high
school go online.
• In February 2008 the average
Hispanic-American over the age of
11 spent more time online (56%)
than watching television (50%)
• More likely than whites to use IM,
Internet TV, Mobile Internet, blogs,
and multitask

Blog Strategies
Back to the Future

Public
Relations 2.0
Media outreach now includes bloggers
Traditional Journalists Bloggers
Gain authority by being: Gain authority by being:
- Objective - Subjective
- Exclusive - Collaborative
Your organization’s blog will benefit from passionate opinions backed
with facts that attract others to follow and report the story.

Cheryl’s Tips
 KISS -- Keep it short, sweetie
 Don’t send a press release (send the link)
 Personalize & compliment
 Link to other bloggers who’ve blogged it/
media who’ve written it
 Don’t be afraid to follow up & re-send
 A blog isn’t a newspaper; it’s a
community center.

Cory’s Tips
 Have a link that’s relevant and permanent
 Don’t send PDFs
 Send downloadable (sharable) audio or
video
 Add a url to photos
 Offer high-res photos
 Contact through the stated, preferred
means

Blog Promotion
 Integrate blog into your outreach
 Send email to your list announcing blog
 Automate tweets from your blog
 Make sure your bloggers are also tweeting
other bloggers
 Send key blog posts to email list
 Include blog in direct mail
 Consider Flickr, MySpace and Facebook
links
 Check comments in all social networks

Blogs & Major Donors

Open Dialogue &
Exercise
Let’s hear from you

The Blogs and Your Org
 What’s working for you? – Success Stories
 When didn’t it work? What happened?

10 Min Workshop
 Break into groups,
 Choose 1 org
 Create a quick audience-appropriate blog
strategy that supports your mission

Blog Resources
 Find Blogs & Bloggers Using:
 Technorati, Search.Twitter.com and
BlogPulse
 Read Blogs Using:
 FireFox, Jott, Bloglines, NewsGator
 Launch Blogs Using:
 Moveable Type, TypePad, Wordpress,
SoapBlox, Blogger

Top Takeaways
 Blogs are here to stay
 Bloggers are not who you think
 It’s not just about text
 Blogs are not newsletters, but dialogues
 Blogs are communities

Cheryl Contee
www.FissionStrategy.com
email: cheryl@fissionstrategy.com
mobile: 202.487.8711
twitter: ch3ryl