FRANKthoughts

After experimenting with brochure blog: “Now we are talking” Telstra is finally taking the time to do something they rarely do well: Listen. After following their tweet above, I’ve reached a social survey page and was asked to answer these questions:

1. Which of the following best describes your relationship to Telstra?
2. How did you find out about this survey?
3. Have you ever interacted with Telstra through the following social media sites?
4. How likely are you to prefer the Telstra brand as a result of interacting with Telstra through the above mentioned social media sites?
5. On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend Telstra services to a friend or colleague?
6. How often do you engage in social media?
7. What are your favorite websites, blogs or community forums for reading or commenting on the following topics?
8. Please rate your level of interest on the following topics (1= very interested, 5= not interested at all)
9. If you could ask any one question to Telstra’s senior leadership team, what would it be?
10. Thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey. We greatly appreciate it!
If you would like to receive a small token of our appreciation for completing the survey, please provide your email below. ( I will let you know about this mystery small token when I’ll get it)

This is the first thing I like from Telstra in a long time. I like the survey, the questions, the tone of Scott on twitter. Lets hope they get it right this time.

I was blogging about taking this kind of approach to social media, treating it as a business strategy not a marketing add-on. This is the process we take with our clients who are interested in a social media solution.

To find out more about social media you’re invited to RSVP to our final free social media session + drinks FRANkademy on the 30th October.

After an elaborate digital strategy process (aka Immersion) we’re very proud to launch Melbourne’s GPO new website.How did we start? The brief was to create GPO’s online experience. Here’s what we did:

1. Created an annual digital strategy which includes SEM, SEO and most importantly the community element that works alongside our media plan, creative, events and PR.
2. Found and employed the right person to manage the community of Melbourne’s GPO lovers and retailers (Welcome Sarah Willcocks -  Hi Sarah!)
3. Developed the new website with a strong focus on fashion editorial followed by an annual content plan featuring articles, photos, videos, competitions, events and more. Check out our first competition for your chance to win VIP tickets to GPO’s exclusive ‘Fashion at Altitude’ evening parade as part of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week on Wed 2nd Sept-  here.
4. Started a youtube, facebook, twitter and flickr profiles with measurement and management in place. (We didn’t jump at the tools. These were picked from the research and support our goals)
5. Understand that this is only the beginning, not the end product.

I’d like to thank all the people who worked on the project so far and to our clients ISPT and Tracey Winn.

It has been a good seven months since we launched Nuffnang a blog marketing community into Australia.  Nuffnang’s Asia Pacific blogger network currently comprises over 100,000 bloggers. Nuffnang Australia has attracted over 700 top Australian bloggers to our community.

Our blog community gives us a strategic advantage in providing brands, social media agencies, media agencies, creative agencies, and PR agencies a one stop solution to connect with bloggers.  We have provided measurability to blog marketing campaigns where clients used to count Technorati and Google Blog search as their only tools to find the best bloggers for their campaigns.  We have demonstrated our ability to implement campaigns in a few days that previously used to take months. Some notable clients that have engaged Nuffnang Australia include ANZ bank, Village Roadshow, Seek Volunteer, and Destination Gippsland.

Building a blog marketing community takes time. We’ve travelled around Australia to organise blog meet ups. We’ve met bloggers that are attracting over 10,000 blog views a day – eclipsing many magazine readerships such as Harpers or Madison. We’re constantly surprised as each fantastic blogger leads us to another even bigger blogger. Our goal is to build a lasting and trusting relationship – ultimately we have built a community of over 700 members. As part of our next growth strategy, we will look at further improving our connections with our blogging community. There will be structural changes to Nuffnang’s touch points (more to come) to better the experience (because it matters!) and a drive to increase our community members.

Meanwhile, we have also been tracking great research coming from Forrester and leading social media strategist Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang. It’s interesting to see the trends in brands in the U.S. engaging bloggers in different ways… here is a comprehensive list of sponsored conversations by Jeremiah.

A Running List of Sponsored Conversations

Here is Forrester’s report on the 3 common ways to market with bloggers – something we’re already achieving successfully through Nuffnang.