Over the last year or so, there have been a number of posts declaring the so-called death of blogging citing reducing blog volumes, lack of uniqueness and a number of other metrics. I would however suggest, that it is not so much that blogging is dying, more that is has matured.

In particular it was the recent announcement by Hewlett Packard (HP) , highlighting an 85% increase in sales - as a result of a targeted campaign using blogs. In an environment were hyper sales increases are becoming less and less common - such figures are all the more suprising, and even more so - when it is considered that this has been mainly attributed to activity focussed primarily online.

The figures primarily centre around the HP Dragon, a range of laptops whose sales were mediocre to say the least, a laptop whose specs should not be frowned at - sporting a 20.1 inch screen, 500GB disk space, and weighing in at a mere 15 pounds.

Following a social media campaign, aptly named ‘31 days of the dragon‘, in which 31 prominent blogs (based on influence andpower (links, rank and recommednations)  were targeted and given the chance to offer 31 laptops as prizes in 31 days - effectively a months worth of competitions where the blogs made up their own competitions with their own rules - but agreed to promote the contests of everyone else in the group.

The result was that the first five pages of Google results for searches on HP and HP Dragon were blog posts about the contest. At the last count HP they had over 380,000 links to the 31 sites discussing the contest. Bloggers got over 25,000 contest entries and an average 150% increase in traffic.

The sites included were:

02 May - 09 May www.absolutevista.com
03 May - 10 May www.arstechnica.com
04 May - 11 May www.osnn.net
05 May - 12 May www.jkontherun.com
06 May - 13 May digitalmediaphile.wordpress.com
07 May - 14 May www.bostonpocketpc.com and www.techronical.com
08 May - 15 May www.the-gadgeteer.com
09 May - 16 May www.thedigitallifestyle.com
10 May - 17 May www.digitalhomethoughts.com
11 May - 18 May www.windows-now.com
12 May - 19 May www.windowsconnected.com
13 May - 20 May www.geekstogo.com
14 May - 21 May bink.nu
15 May - 22 May www.mediablab.com
16 May - 23 May www.last100.com
17 May - 24 May www.labnol.org
18 May - 25 May www.notebooks.com
19 May - 26 May www.slashdotreview.com
20 May - 27 May www.neowin.net
21 May - 28 May www.geek.com
22 May - 29 Mau www.lockergnome.com
23 May - 30 May www.planetx64.com
24 May - 31 May www.thegreenbutton.com
25 May - 01 Jun www.istartedsomething.com
26 May - 02 Jun www.bleepingcomputer.com
27 May - 03 Jun www.hardwaregeeks.com
28 May - 04 Jun www.geeknewscentral.com
29 May - 05 Jun www.geekzone.co.nz
30 May - 06 Jun www.thetabletpc.net
31 May - 07 Jun www.gearlive.com
01 Jun - 08 Jun www.gottabemobile.com

The Result: An almost 85% increase in sales of a computer that was released over nine months ago.

Startling, and even more impressive if you consider the ongoing benefits

• The amount of positive brand coverage relating to the brand is immense - with the knock on effect - that many of these sites have significant followings - and thus considerable influence
• The increase in natural buzz is significantly better, given both the nature of the sites targeted, and the natural syndication from there. Certainly stats such as those released above are all the more likely to increase the awareness of both the product and brand itself

Certainly a significant argument that blogs are not dead. In my opinion what we are starting to see is a maturity in the channel - don’t get me wrong - there is certainly room for manouvre and improvement. For those that remember some of the posts that were released following Jason Calacanis retirement announcement - and the insuing blogging is dead posts , I would suggest that the above data highlights the power and influence that blogs have and how they have matured, and that blogs are likely to be around for a while yet, because:

1. Many blogs are now established resources - one look at my - and many other peoples RSS readers will display a plethora of blogs amongst their regular online haunts. Many of these blogs have become media properties in their own right - and have built up followings and fanbases.
2. Blogs are evolving - new sites such as Twitter and Tumblr are providing innovative new ways of interacting with audiences
3. Social Media Hybrids - Sites such as Facebook allow you to interface your blog with your social media profile - thus creating a hybrid of technologies
4. Blogs are interactive - Many blogs don’t just contain content - they are  a mix of video, content and imagery.
5. Many businesses have not embraced blogging let alone social media

Certainly the opportunity gap is shortening - however from a commercial perspective I would suggest there is still room at the table…..

Twitter has become the new bloggers playground, with Andy Murray (Tennis Player) and even Obama twittering on a fairly regular basis (although I would suggest the Obama postings may become slightly less frequent ;)). However it has also become a commercial tool recently with brands like ComScore, Dell and even the likes of Oracle and IBM getting to grips with the Twitter phenomenon.

However, why do so many brands suck at Twitter?

Size

As many of us know, large organisations often have more defined rules and regulations than smaller organisations and individuals. This lack of flexibility often restricts brands from either

• Responding quickly to potential issues
• Corporate guidelines can sometimmes restrict the level/tone of response particularly in larger organisations
• Senior decision makes sometimes don’t have the familiarity with new technologies and can sometimes be wary of new technologies, and thus slow to adopt

Late to the show

As highlighted on the above point, larger organisations in particular are often slow to react to new technologies, and thus often can be beaten to the punch by competitors or just keen admirers. For example @disney is owned by Cherie Thomas from Los Gatos, California - https://twitter.com/Disney

Those that do adopt, come in two guises

1. Those that embrace, brands such as Dell and Comscore are perfect examples of this and…
2. Those that merely sit and do nothing, reserved with little or nothing to say, unsure on how to deal with the new guest to the party - such as Microsoft - twitter.com/microsoft

Intention

Lets face it, nearly all of us hate being preached to. Thats one of the beauties of the web. We invite who we want in, in particular search. Twitter is a very personal channel, if people don’t like you they will just stop following you - and thus your Twitter activity will go unnoticed. This lack of direct business return, can often restrict just what activity occurs - and for those that do go down the direct sales channel, can often end in disappointment unless done correctly (The Dell outlet example being a reasonably good example of this.

The Big Brother aspect

There are a number of brands out there following individuals, some as a direct response to previous follows (Starbucks for example returned in kind a follow for me), however others go out directly and follow indivuals in the hope of getting a follow recipricated. However there are a lot of Twitterers who do not like bing followed by corporate followers, and thus such tactics can fall on deaf ears.

Lack of familiarity with brands

With some brands such as IBM and Oracle, individuals have created so called hybrid profiles, such as RichardATDell. Whilst Dell do actually have a brand persona, there are a number of brands out there where hybrid accounts operate, and where these operate without brand compliment, can potentially mean a disassociation with the brand.

The other potential issue can be job migration. People don’t stay in jobs forever and these hybrid accounts can often become obselete very quickly - OracleJulio being one such example.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound

With big brands it is likely that people will naturally search for that brand, however this isn’t often the case with smaller brands. For this reason, active commercial use of Twitter in these instances can merely result in lots of effort with little or no return.

Lack of buy-in

Whilst brand monitoring is become more popular by the day, there is still a long way to go. Many brands do not follow what is being said about them online, even by simple devices such as Google Alerts. Without knowing what is being said, it is unlikely some brands will have a justifiable reason to operate in the Blogosphere, let alone Twitter.

There is no doubt the effect Twitter has had within search circles, one only has to look at the people using it (most of the UK and US search welebrity circuit (term coined from Ciaran Norris) are on there including Matt Cutts, Jill Whalen, Jason Calacanis, Danny Sullivan, Lee Odden, Will Critchlow and Richard Scoble,

As an individual, are you on Twitter - if not, why not?

If you are a brand - what are you doing on Twitter. Its not for everyone, however if you are going to enter the brave new world, take your time, do your homework and enter it with your eyes wide open

Yes, we are looking for you to contribute content to the Holistic Search blog. Whilst this will not be an opportunitity for an unashamed linkfest and plug ofyour latest product or service, it will be an opportunity for the lucky contributors to share the views with the wider public.

I will be approaching a number of prominent search marketeers to try and get their views, however we are not just looking for the Andrew Girdwood’s and Danny Sullivan’s of the world on this, but also some budding up and coming bloggers.

If you are interested in contributing to the cause, drop us a line, dm or email with an outline of the topic. Thanks and happy writing….