Below the Line

BritBlog.com is no more!

BritBlog.com, the British Blog directory, has closed its virtual doors. A reliable resource for over four years (a lifetime in the blogosphere), BritBlog.com closed on April 23rd because of “a recent hacking incident and the constant battle against spammers and spam blogs”.

BritBlog.com was a valuable resource for finding British bloggers – I’ve found many blogs and been found this way. However, it was a labor of love for founder Mark Sweeting rather than a source of income and he was unable to continue the massive time commitment required to run the site.

This highlights a problem that many corporate sites should consider – vetting inappropriate comments, monitoring spam and otherwise policing a community site takes considerable effort.

The only way most sites can manage this is to rely on the community to report infractions. Wikipedia has a host of avid users who are quick to remove any user-added pages that don’t meet their notability guidelines and Flickr has managed to generate a friendly community that does not thrive on slamming other users’ contributions. However, YouTube has had on-and-off legal battles over copyright infringement for not screening users’ content (they only remove illegal content after it has been reported).

On another note altogether, the departure of BritBlog.com leaves a gap in the marketplace – someone, act quickly!

Social Media: what Clinton should be doing

Recently the Hillary Clinton campaign asked for ideas on how they might do things differently. Here are my top-of-mind thoughts:

Clinton needs to up her game in blogging and social media. Obama is getting a lot of support from the "young" people online, but Hillary could tap into certain social networks and make an impact – social networks that are topic specific rather than just a generic MySpace / Facebook presence.

Clinton's campaign should appoint someone on staff to take the lead on social networking. They should:

• Identify blogs with a mid-level of readership (forgetting about the likes of Huffington post) and engage with them.
• Offer these bloggers content and/or access not available to others.
• Consider hosting an online chat with Hillary that is available only to key bloggers, or create a video / commercial that they can post on their blogs prior to being aired on TV – this could in turn become a "news" story and garner the campaign some free press.
• Search for relevant blogs based on popularity on www.technorati.com – it is free to do, but labor intensive – a perfect opportunity to use some volunteer resources.

Other groups they could focus on are topic-specific social networks. For instance, they could approach women's groups on sites like NING or gather.com.

There is a Hillary Clinton blog on the campaign site. The campaign should promote the blog at the bottom every e-mail they send. They should encourage people to sign up via RSS, digg the posts, etc.

However, I'd advise that this blog from a cursory view just looks like a diary of events. The blogosphere is more about a person showing their own voice and letting their personality come through. If Clinton is too busy, then have a staffer write an official – yet uncensored – blog, giving people a real behind-the-scenes view. This will also encourage other blogs to link to yours

These were my top of mind suggestions. I'd be interested to hear what other ideas people have. I also think the Democratic Party has a long way to go in terms of branding, an area where the Republicans have them beat hands down. This is something the party should think about in advance of the general election.

Cupcake: ingredients for a strong brand

Cupcake, the private members’ club and spa for mums and mums-to-be, opened its first location this week. It has already been deemed the most exciting news to hit the mummy market by The Sunday Times.

Karen Hastings, Cupcake’s founder (and a client) has had a strong vision for the brand from Day 1. Everything about Cupcake has been built with mums and mums-to-be in mind, from the class schedules, to the spa treatments, to chairs that are easy to get out of – even when heavily pregnant.

Cupcake asked for input from mums along every step of the way through informal focus groups. This was combined with rigorous research into the target market to create a luxury brand that fills a gap in the market. Cupcake spent time at the outset developing a clear definition of their target audience (besides the obvious) and invested in the creation of branding guidelines to ensure consistency with everything from on-site signage to their indulgent spa menu.

I'm thrilled to have played a small part in the building of the brand by developing The Icing on the Cupcake. This e-newsletter helped Cupcake establish itself in the marketplace and build a substantial customer database before construction even began.

This is a brand to watch in the next five years. You heard it here first!

Everything you need to know about web design

Everything you need to know about web design - in rap format from the Poetic Prophet, AKA the SEO Rapper. This could put a lot of web consultants out of business!

Special thanks to Diane Parker for the tip!

I Don't Feel Like Dancin'

Is creating a brand dance a new trend? Here are three examples of companies who have tried to get customers engaged with their brand through dance. Just think what would happen if they combined their brand dance with a brand scent!

Lambrini

Becks

Comfort

Comfort has even released the single to this song on iTunes and was given to club DJs to incorporate into their live sets.