Loic Le Meur - A day in the life of a [super-]blogger
Loic Le Meur spoke during the final session of the Forrester Consumer Forum EMEA 2006. His presentation was humbly titled, "The day of a blogger."
LOL! If Loic's life as a blogger is representative, then Davos would be a bunch of ordinary people sitting around chatting about the weather [is it already?]. I prefer to call Loic's discussion "A day in the life of a super-blogger."
Le Meur is EVP/MD of Six Apart Europe. His presentation style is very engaging and entertaining - the audience was clearly hanging on every word from the stage. Some insight on what it's like being Loic Le Meur:
- in: 100 emails from blog (not spam) – including corporate pitches, 100 comments, learnings, 2 requests to speak, 2 journalists
- out: 3 or 4 posts, 3 to 5 comments, 1 video podcast, 1 speech/paper/TV, 2 interviews
- why? My ego (downplayed greatly) - My brain’s memory assistant - Pleasure to share (even if 100 people hate what I write, there may still be one who thinks it’s interesting) - Learn from the others - Collective intelligence - Get background on anything/everybody - Self-promotion - Business opportunities that come to you - Incredible opportunities (Davos, TV, press…) - Could be revenue (but I am not pushing it - approx. 3,000 euro/month) - International network - High level networking - Ability to do amazing projects in a short period of time
Le Meur's recommendations for the audience on how to approach bloggers:
- Read what they say!
- Identify the influencers and sort them (by influence, number of links, audience by expertise)
- Treat them as journalists
And conversely, how to NOT approach bloggers:
- lies
- fake blogging
- fake comments
- comments spam
- press releases in standard form
- ask for positive reviews
- no response to criticism
- no follow-up
But being successful means having to "unlearn marketing."
Traditional: imagine a product; market survey; test market; production; heavy marketing; success or failure
New: share; create a community; understand what the users want, get feedback; launch ‘beta’; launch the product
Some glimpses into the future: la Fraise, WoW, the Venice Project, SL, GooTube, Vox.
