Blog Case Studies

Social Media Headhunter Video

Viral Video: BlogCaseStudies

One of my clients, Flektor, is launching a video series called Crossbows and Moustaches.  To launch the site, we contacted bloggers about embedding the videos and running an ad on the right sidebar.  The hard part was separating the idea of paying for posting and sponsorship.  On the one hand, we wanted people who liked the content and wanted to promote it.  On the other hand, there's a fine line between promoting and asking bloggers to sell out.

We figured with sponsorship, disclosure, and fully transparent dealings, we balanced the demands of independence and editorial control.  Not surprisingly ,most bloggers opted for straight advertising. 

  Crossbows and Moustaches is a buddy cop parody that pits Bruce and Steve up against a crime lord touting a drug called Mutagen X.  The series has nine episodes, and they get progressively funnier. This is the first.** You can watch them from Flektor, or all nine can be found at MySpaceTV. If you embed it on your blog, forward me an e-mail and I'll link to your page from brandstorming.com (as long as you're not a spammer). *The content is adult, and may not be safe for some workplaces.

J.C. Penney As A Blog Company?

I picked up my deadtree version of AdAge, and found to my surprise, a great case study on the use of blogs by J.C. Penney. The key was aggregating content around a community of blogs (in this case, mommy blogs), and reaping the search engine rewards without investing heavily in their own SEO.

The site aggregated content from blogs such as Heather Armstrong's Dooce, The Mommy Blog and Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. JC Penney didn't have rights to review or influence content. The site launched mid-September; a few of the contributing bloggers mentioned it on their blogs, some did not. But traffic started to grow. Federated execs started to notice traffic coming from places such as StumbleUpon, a social-bookmarking site, and RSS readers, which meant people were beginning to subscribe to the content. "Once people start engaging in that, they feel part of the experience. And when they feel part of the experience, they share it with friends and upload it to social-bookmark sites," said Chas Edwards, publisher and chief revenue officer at Federated Media. "And then Google starts to take notice of this. ... A month after the campaign, this site was showing up." Today, it shows up as No. 5 of 13 million results for the search term "fall shopping" and second out of more than 4 million results for "fall shopping guide."

We make it clear to all of our clients that the single best SEO option the can pursue is to get involved in an active blog community and take advantage of the SEO benefits of links, relevant content, and built-in audiences. It's very difficult to build a community, but it's relatively easy to join one. This was the tactic pursued by J.C.Penney and Federated Media, and in a short time, they appear in the search results for a highly sought after search term. I spend time with clients who spend thousands per month on SEO, and more thousands on PPC, but none of them have blog strategies, or at least none of them have coherent blog strategies. Blogging takes time and effort, but its miniscule in comparison to the giant ad budgets that are accepted media buys. For a price starting around $10,000, you can join the communities most relevant to your company, and for less than $50,000, you can replicate the success of J.C.Penney and also bring that expertise in house. What are you waiting for?

Wordpress For Dummies

You have no idea how excited I am! When I read iPentimento's blog and heard about Wordpress For Dummies coming I almost did a jig right here in my home office.

I have been using Wordpress for my personal blog for about a year and sometimes I just don't get things. Call me dense, call me dumb, whatever you want, but this book is so totally for me.

As far as I know, there is no Typepad For Dummies, yet, but there is a Blogging For Dummies, which talks about different blogging platforms and the basics of each.

Lisa Sabin-Wilson has made this a fantastic advancement for the blogosphere, which can only mean that a blog is becoming an even more valuable tool in the world of Web 2.0 than we even imagined.

Release day is today, October 29th, but it will probably not hit the bookstore shelves for a couple of weeks. Amazon should start shipping on or around November 2nd.

Women's Small Business Expo

Long gone are the days where women are chosing to stay home to be barefoot and pregnant. It appears that today's women entrepreneurs are starting their own businesses at twice the rate of men. Girls Who Network reports that...........

"Women make or influence over 80% of all purchases in America. Currently there are over 10.6 million women-owned businesses employing 19.1 million people and generating $2.5 trillion in sales."

So where are these women going to learn how to do what they do? Evidently, these fast forward business women are taking their high-octane entrepreneurial power to Los Angeles, California for the Women's Small Business Expo on November 6th, where they will learn ways to shape their future, plan their success, create their destiny, and increase their profits.

Topics include: financing, power selling, “potato chip marketing”, branding, success planning, internet wealth, and how to avoid the most common business blunders.

Recruiting Blog Case Study: Employment

I started StlRecruiting.com in November of 2004, and wrote regularly from February of 2005 to today.

The site was a local recruiting blog, focusing first on my position as an account manager for a technical staffing firm.

I wrote advice to job-seekers, covered the local economy, and discussed the technologies that my clients were using.

The site brought in about 60 visitors a day from regulars and search engine traffic, and it's prominence quickly helped me gain a Google Page Rank of 5, requests from online employment magazines for articles, and eventually attention from reporters looking to write stories on the use of blogs in recruiting.

Today, the blog traffic averages 90-100 visitors, though traffic spikes sometimes push the average to over 300 a day.

I have 125 subscribers on Feedburner, and 80% of my traffic comes from Google.  In the last year, over 45,000 unique visitors have come to read my thoughts on employment, staffing, and blogs in the St Louis area.

Comparing that traffic to that of local job boards, considering this is a hobby, and no longer my regular job, is nothing short of astounding.  The blog has put me in national magazines as an expert source, increased my social network to include recruiters and executives all across the world, and most important - if you search "Jim Durbin Recruiter" on Google, the first sixteen pages of Google are covered with positive information - either my writings, or positive writings from others referencing my work.

The StlRecruting Blog, in this example, has clearly turned me into a thought leader and branded my name as a top recruiter in the St Louis market. 

Supply Chain Daily Picks Up Freight Dawg Blogger

Does blogging run in the family? It does for the Joiner Brothers. No, it's not another boy band, but rather Eric and Harry Joiner, an unlikely pair of professionals who have used blogging to further their careers.

Those who know me, know Harry.  Harry is the Marketing Headhunter, the owner of an Atlanta-based staffing firm specializing in e-commerce consulting. Harry is a fixture in the recruiting blogs firmament, having been featured in the Wall Street Journal, and more important, recently passing 10,000 downloads of his v-card from his blog. The Marketing Headhunter brings in a lot of qualified candidates for Harry's clients, and the secrets to his success apparently can be passed on.

Eric Joiner is new to blogging, having picked it up at the behest of his brother, before spinning off to start Freight Dawg, his commentary on working in the logistics business.

Curious how blogging can help your career? After just a few months of writing quality content in his field, Eric's blog just got picked up as a content provider for Supply Chain Daily, a division of Reed Business, who also print Logistics Management Magazine. That's a big deal in Eric's industry - and by focusing his content just on his business, he caught the notice of an industry trade magazine.

Eric now has a platform to put his thoughts and experience out to his group of peers.  In effect, his blog has now transformed him from just another guy to a voice in the industry.  Kudos to Reed Business for being smart enough to pick up another Joiner brother, and congratulations to Eric with our best wishes for his continued success.

Logistics and Supply Chain.  Niche Blogging at its finest, and another successful Blog Case Study.

Why Do I Blog?

Carl Chapman, an executive restaurant recruiter,  gives the reasons he blogs.

Monetarily, the blog has helped drive, directly, well over $50K in business and another $120K in yet to be filled contracts since the beginning of this year. This is a measure of the direct impact to just my search firm.

Carl has been blogging less than one year.

 

Blog Case Study

These are several of the projects we are working on.

Shakadoo.com: Shakadoo launched in March, and is experiencing excellent page and search engine growth.  Kristen is functioning very well as the community manager, and adveritsers are already lining up.

Shakadoo is a family of websites about the home, including topics like mom blogs at LoveShakBaby.com, interior design at ShakinStyle, and Home Office information at Workshak.com

In politics, I've started 24thState.com to cover the Missouri political scene.  Most of the poliblogs are written by partisans from separate parties, and so I thought I'd toss my hat into the rink as just a normal Joe.

Storkcalling is the phone birth announcement service we're working on.  The Storkcalling blog is our marketing vehicle for this product, which allows parents to broadcast a recorded message to friends and family, and it's about to go a site redesign that will merge the two url's.

LifeInAVentiCup is Franki's take on international style, travel, and fashion.  We'll be adding GoogleAds to that in the near future.

If you have a blog marketing story you want so share, send us a note at info{at}durbinmedia{dot}com.

Blog Success Stories

Good Product Manager.com:  500 readers, expert label, and a new hire for a Web Analytics Manager
MarketingHeadhunter.com:  10,000 v-card downloads for recruiting blogger.
Shakadoo.com:  Community of Blogs About the Home Just Two Months After Launch