FRANKthoughts

A year ago, I hadn’t heard of Nuffnang and yet next month I am very honored to be on the judging panel of the inaugural Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards.

All thanks for our partnership with Nuffnang must go to David Lee, my fellow Director in Nuffnang Australia. Dave approached Ming and Tim, Nuffnang’s co-founders, about our potential involvement, about 11 months ago and since November 2008 we have been building Nuffnang’s blog advertising community in Australia. Today we have over 1,000 bloggers who have signed up to our network with ads seen by 90,000 people daily.

However our numbers are dwarfed by the collective might of Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines who have over 100,000 blogs with ads seen by 3 million people daily.

The awards have created a frenzy with over 400 bloggers, plus partners, being flown to Singapore for a grand Gala Dinner and accommodation at Nuffnang’s expense. The sponsors are Pringles and The Singapore Tourism Board.

There are 12 blog awards in total Best Blog Shop, Best Food Blog, Best Fashion Blog, Best Parenting Blog, Best Travel Blog, Best Geek Blog, Best Celebrity Blog, Best Entertainment Blog, Best Original Blog Design, Most Influential Blog, Best Hidden Gem and the top award of Region’s Best Blog.

Nominations have closed so now it’s down to the serious job of judging.

As the need for sound social business strategy becomes more apparant in Australia its fascinating to observe how brands are trying to engage with bloggers. Australia is at a relatively early stage of development in terms of engaging the blogosphere and it’s good to be at the forefront of the understanding process. The key consideration in social media is to originate and sustain a healthy dialogue with the view of building a long term relationship.

The challenge for many brands is to recognise this and not to approach the blogosphere with the intent of ‘taking’ or ‘using.’ The opportunity is to give and share, as with any healthy relationship.

The inaugural blog awards is part of Nuffnang’s commitment to our blogger community and i can’t wait until i visit Singapore for the first time in October to witness first hand the raw energy of our Nuffies.

The traditional purchasing funnel defines the consumer journey as Awareness > Interest > Preference > Action > Sale > Repeat Customer.  From a media perspective, the most common approach is to use performance networks and relevant contextual placements to drive users to the brand’s website/store to convert to a sale.  But do consumers really take that journey?  To see an ad, visit the website, and make a purchase.

Probably not always the case.

Even more so if it is a high involvement purchase.

The traditional purchasing funnel is not dead, it just needs to be updated to recognise users that engage in active research.  Using search to seek opinions, reviews, and feedback from a community in forums / blogs / twitter.  SEM can only provide limited help to drive users to the product’s website… but does not help users fulfill it’s current need for research before purchase.  What are other people saying about it?  Who buys this product? “Because if I can trust the maker, I can buy it now and worry about it later.” – The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier

If we don’t understand our consumer’s journey, spending big $$$ campaigns, fancy creative messages, and site optimisation will only limit a brand’s potential.  Alice is just not going to fit into the rabbit hole.