The world of blogging came alive for participants of Quinn Interactive’s September 26, 2007 Meetup. Enthusiastic participants interacted with Beau Smith, Interface Design Engineer for Six Apart, and Marjorie Kase, President and CEO of Blogger Reps, both highly experienced bloggers with infectious ideas for current and new bloggers.
Beau made the case for blogging as both an informal and formal marketing communications tool. In his introductory presentation, which outlined his personal transformation as a blogger with friends and family to working professionally in the blogindustry at Six Apart, he presented several case studies that demonstrated the effective marketing impact blogs have had for major international corporations, including a CEO who used a personal blog to create buzz around new product releases and a human resources department that elicited employee feedback through internal blogs. He also reviewed several tools for effective blogging.
Marjorie built on Beau’s presentation by focusing on one blog-oriented marketing campaign for a major entertainment company. With charts and data, she demonstrated the direct impact that outreach to bloggers had on the success of a new television show. In this instance, bloggers were included in the campaign in the same way print critics have been in the past, helping to legitimize blogging for future marketing efforts.
The diverse and exciting world of blogging was on display during the Meetup. The conversation was lively and the question and answer time was stimulating.
Both entries had some funny slogans, but both were lacking a bit in the“ design” portion of the t- shirt design contest. So I slaved over a hot PC the past few days and came up with some new designs of my own. The two guys who worked hard to get me some designs will each get a classic RescueMarriage t- shirt, or some swag to be determined later.