Originally uploaded by alex*c.
Here’s a summary of The Global Microbrand (“Because Real Jobs Suck”) session, with:
David Parmet, Owner, Marketing Begins At Home LLC
Gabe Rivera, CEO, Techmeme
Kathy Sierra, CreatingPassionateUsers
Hugh MacLeod, Blogger, gapingvoid.com
It may be a little known fact that Hugh MacLeod studied at the University of Texas and drew cartoons for The Chronicle. He defines the Global Microbrand as any local brand, except for “Mom and Pop” stores, pizza parlors and the like, that can build a global client base. An example is Holland & Holland, who only make 200 very high quality shotguns a year which are sold worldwide.
Blogs have opened new possibilities to build global microbrands. When Hugh started with Stormhoek, he provided free wine to bloggers. They didn’t have to be influencers, but he wanted bloggers to understand that the wine was real and that it was good. So, when he started, they were selling 40,000 cases a year. Two years later, they’re shipping 40,000 cases a week. Gabe Rivera mentions that the effect of blogging is great for TechMeme because a lot of bloggers have great knowledge and an axe to grind, which makes for very interesting news.
With English Cut, he tripled sales within three months. And Thomas from English Cut cares about making the best suits in the world and about his customers. He never checks his Technorati rankingsm and as Gabe Rivera says, sometimes your stats will improve when you stop worrying about them.
Creating a Global Microbrand is not about making a buck the easy way. For instance, Hugh works 18 hours a day. But it is about the freedom that working for yourself provides. It is very tough to quit your day job, but “change is not death … fear of change is death.”
Kathy Sierra started blogging because she lost her job at Sun and now she can’t imagine going back. And when her blog audience surpassed her publisher’s, her life changed. People are asking her daily about how to create a good blog, so she came up with these 7 principles:
- Be grateful: every moment anyone gives us a tiny amount of attention to read our blogs is a very big gift. There are 55 million blogs and it’s not possible to read very many blogs per day.
- Be humble: don’t make it all about you. Don’t blog about the cat. And don’t name drop! Make it about helping the user become more brilliant.
- Be patient: don’t think about monetizing. Just build the blog and give them information that’s helpful and respect the gift of attention.
- Be brave: for example, Hugh uses raw language … but that’s the type of readers that he wants. Kathy has had to grow thicker skin because as the blog grows more popular, people can be really brutal. If you’re doing something that you love, obviously some people will hate it. So if no one hates what you’re doing, you’re being mediocre.
- Show respect: enchant your users with the time that they’re giving you. Give your readers superpowers.
- Be generous: give away every bit of knowledge you have. Send people slides and give them help.
- Be motivating: “it’s all about the neurons”. Talk to the brain, not the mind, and a great way to do it is by showing pictures.
Kathy tries to respect people’s time with her posts, and pictures help. Pictures convey about 90% of the content. She also does not believe that you have to post daily and at times has even gone two weeks without posting.
Tara Hunt from Citizen Agency is in the audience and she mentioned that she felt relieved she could start blogging not just for her clients, but for herself as well. Don’t try to copy what others are doing, but do what you want to do. Find your own path.
Hugh has long mentioned that blogging is a great way to make things happen to you indirectly. Blogging is about bonding with other people, about creating “social objects” around which people can connect with you. For instance, Kathy has a seizure disorder and over a year ago things started to deteriorate. She had been to every neurologist and had found no solution to her worsening condition. However, she posted about it and there was a reader of her blog that recommended a new medication. If that hadn’t happened, she feels that she wouldn’t be here today. For her, that was a major life victory that resulted from her blog.
It was really inspirational to hear from this great panel and a perfect way to end what must be one of the best interactive conferences, SXSW. Hope to see you next year!
Technorati Tags: kathy, sierra, hugh, macleod, gabe, rivera, david, parmet, techmeme, gapingvoid, passionate, users, sxsw, sxswi, sxsw2007, sxswi2007
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