Brand Equity and Mascots?
WHen I built my blog in 2006 it was completely by accident that I stuck to some sort of branding in the form of an insect (the title of my blog is “A Bugged Life”). Four template changes later, I’ve managed to keep this brand and it’s been known by the local community. I’ve contemplated on going crazy with the idea by building a full mascot outfit of a huge cute bug which can be displaced during new media events. Mugs, tees, stickers — yeah you get the idea.
What sort of personal branding have you done as a blogger to enhance your equity in other spheres apart from the online space? Have you gone crazy with the idea or are you happy with the way your blog is now? Is your blog ubiquitous, allowing it to take on many shapes even off the Internet?
I write this in reference to the resurrection of UK’s Ask Jeeves — based on surveys, despite Jeeves’ departure from the Internet in 2006, he still brings forth a lot of brand recall as “Jeeves” is easier and more fondly remembered than a corporate logo. And in Asia, just look at the brand recognition Ajinomoto has achieved with it’s “Dapur Umami” online cooking class.
8 Recipe Portals You Can Leave Bookmarked in the Kitchen
It’s not that cookbooks are a thing of the past. I have a ton of them at home and they sure weigh a ton and become an inconvenience to carry around. By experience, we usually tend to stick to one or two good cookbooks for recipes, bookmarking them with a piece of paper. On the other hand, the age of the tablet has allowed chefs — whether at home or at the commissary to prop up a tablet on the kitchen counter and browse through an endless list of recipes on the Internet.
Here are 8 great recipe portals you’d want to keep in mind.
All Recipes
Considered a staple by people who cook, All Recipes has been around for quite some time. All the recipes are generated by community members who sign up for a free account.
RecipeLink
Yes, we know RecipeLink looks like it as left behind in the days of Geocities, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. If you look beyond the ugly design, RecipeLink boasts one of the most active online communities through old school forums and message boards. You will most likely get any question you have about your kitchen answered here. The site also boasts a “copycat” corner where people post recipes to almost-exact replicas of dishes you can find in popular restaurants and cafes.
Epicurious
What happens when two of the biggest recipe authorities combine forces to form a mega site for food? Epicurious is a product of childbirth between Bon Appetit and Gourmet, two of the most popular recipe brands known worldwide. With over 15 years worth of recipes, apps for your tablet (yes it even has a Windows Phone 7 app) can easily be downloaded and browsed while you’re preparing your meals.
Food.com
Formerly known as Recipezaar, Food.com is the resource for finding thematic recipes, alongside being a very decent recipe portal. Festive dinner themes, 10 minute preparation meals, and the ability to filter search by members and types of recipes make this a powerful recipe finder.
Food and Wine
The name says it all. If you’re looking for a site that helps you with Vino 101, wine pairing, and chef features, this is a resource worth visiting. Food and Wine is the web version of the magazine and they have also since expanded to versions on the iPad and eBooks.
Martha Stewart Living
OK we may have our different opinions about Martha Stewart but we have to admit that she’s really built an amazing brand around the home, with a lot having to do with the kitchen. Martha Stewart Living isn’t just a recipe finder site, it’s also a portal that helps you build an ambiance around your recipes: from table setting, to themed designs, to floral arrangements, to kitchenware and dinnerware pairing. If you’re looking for the total homemaker package, this site is for you.
Food Network
Everybody knows The Food Network. It is only the most popular TV Channel that features cooking show after cooking show, gastrononic treats, food travel and celebrity chefs.
Recipe Finder
What differentiates Recipe Finder from all these other sites is its orientation — more than being a portal, this is the ‘Google of kitchen recipes’ having indexed over 1,100,000++ recipes and counting. So, if you don’t know where to start looking but already have a particular type of dish you want to prepare, rather than use a typical search engine like Google or Bing, Recipe Finder filters out all the irrelevant stuff and gives you only recipes.
If you’re going to opt for a paid blogging platform, Squarespace is top of mind
I am of the impression that a lot of the best things from the Internet is built out of a vast chasm of unsatisfactory services that exist — or used to exist online. For me, Anthony’s vision of building Squarespace out of frustration of finding “the” blogging platform fuels whatever magic they’re doing behind closed doors.
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Explaning Niche and Community using the Reverse Maslow
I sat in a series of sessions of a co-professor who projected stuff from the Authenticity Book for his marketing class. Part of it had to do with understanding new media, the Internet — that sort of stuff, really. So I borrowed it. And it’s been a “formula” I use to introduce or summarize “new media” from a different perspective. Let me share this.
You may be familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Before aiming for higher and more profound functions of self actualization, the basic needs need (food, clothing, shelter) to be addressed first. Today however, with the advancements of technology and the “fast paced lifestyle” seem to push people to want to be “accepted” first in order to function properly. An argument here is that every human being ideally needs to belong to a family. With new media, it becomes easier for individuals of similar niches to find one another: Star Wars forums, Macintosh zealots, Trekkies, Trekkers, food bloggers … the list goes on and on. There seems to be a community for everything. Seth Godin refers to this social structure as “Tribes.”
With that mindset, it becomes more apparent how communities work, and how authentic messages can be distinguished from those that are canned from press releases or below the line gimmicks. Authenticity is still key, and this is where the machinations of A-listers, authority figures, conversion and credibility come along. Forums, blogs, microblogs … these are all manifestations of this.
If you’re a marketer, do you believe you are treading on sacrosanct grounds when you wish to involve communities?
Engaging Bloggers by Running Surveys
Apart from seeding press releases and product demos, another way to tap bloggers and online publishers for help would be to engage them in a partnership to run consumer surveys within their niche if influence.
For instance, you can discourse with three technology bloggers to run a series of surveys on consumer insight about mobile phones and in turn give out a good enough prize to a random draw of survey respondents. It gives you insight on the different sub niches of each blogger and you also get a more reliable and diverse sampling of the data.
The important thing here is that survey respondents should be able to immediately WANT the prize, so if you’re raffling off a 10USD coupon for Amazon, you may have to think bigger.
“Fair Use” and Publishing Media for Blogs and Videos
Lately I’ve been building videos of my dives in the Philippines for a SCUBA blog and one thing I’ve noticed is that it is becoming harder by the day to find a video service that recognizes fair use for ambient audio tracks. Sure there are always the royalty free audio selections but most of the “good stuff” are from records, independent label or not. Youtube started this, removing audio from edited videos despite the credits. Facebook is doing this as well. The subject of “fair use” can be scrutinized on and on.
In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. Another way of putting this is that fair use is a defense against infringement. If your use qualifies under the definition above, and as defined more specifically in this section, then your use would not be considered an illegal infringement. [source]
So if I use only a partial track from a song, that’s considered fair use? If you’ve been editing videos and posting one man acts on your blog, what experiences have you had with material being taken down? Look, I’m not here to challenge the policy. I just want to initiate a discussion on what can and cannot be done. The reality of the situation is that on the web, the actual practice seems to overshadow the real policy.
Case: Measuring Word of Mouth via Bloggers
Back in 2007, I partnered with a PR agency that handled a french inspired fast food company serving mainly breads and pasta. They were looking into doing a “blogger meet up” and experiment with the idea of measuring word of mouth. They were in the process of launching a new product, which happened to be a special blend of spiked coffee; one of those amaretto or Bailey’s infused mixes.
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9rules opens its doors to nominations once more
Back in 2003, 9rules established itself as a premiere collection of blogs highlighted by great content and a passionate community. The codex of the 200 and so blogs were summarized by the “9 Rules:”
1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function.
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.
Today 9rules has just opened up a new round of submissions and the door will be open for 24 hours. The submission form can be found here. If you think your blogging philosophy fits the nine rules, then by all means, submit.
9rules is part of Splashpress Media, of which Performancing is a member.
A ‘Personal Blog?’ Just use Facebook!
Okay so maybe I was a bit brazen with the title, but after writing about technology for more than 5 years I had wanted to reboot and open up a personal blog where I talk about the more mundane “let your hair down” moments which only close friends can truly relate to. So I erased some content from domains I didn’t use and decided to install WordPress.
Actually, I initially did an iWeb install, then got frustrated over it, and went into WordPress. Then it dawned on me that these platforms were not what I was looking for. All I wanted was Facebook. The updating of status message, getting very personal comments, photo uploads of the weekend dive trip … these were all the things I ever wanted to do in a personal blog. And the whole stats thing, really — did I need that?
So I scrapped the idea of a personal blog because all along, Facebook was there. I’d like to ask you — how extensive is your Facebook use? With the introduction of the custom URL, I’m able to include my Facebook address alongside my Twitter, email and IM when I print business cards.
Do you feel that your readers own you?
“Can you give me a list of all your recipes?”
“Why are you putting ads on your site?”
“I think you should stop posting about fashion and concentrate on your make up tips instead.”
“Can you write about that new steak place that opened in the city?”
The new phone is out. How come it’s taking too long for you to post a review?
Do you often get these kinds of comments? When you started writing, you probably, and I sincerely hope, did it for the passion. Time passed, and your readership scaled and you blog grew up faster than its neighbors. All of a sudden you received email from PR companies, and yeah the freebies started to pour in as well. Event invites, blog roadies, and yes there were the haters as well.
All of a sudden the passion started to fade and you felt disillusioned, looking back at something you started as sharing your passion in reckless abandon which turned into a chore you needed to do once, twice, thrice a week. Sometimes everyday.
At one point, did you feel that your topics were dictated not by your own personal accord, but by your readers who demanded your time?
