Last month I wrote a 2-part series on how many record labels are scaling back their marketing efforts for the so-called ‘female rocker’. (You can read the Women in Rock series here and here) However, Nettwerk is the exception to this trend, as they not only promote female artists, the label does so actively. While competitors are shying away from signing a female artist whose last name isn’t Spears or Simpson, Nettwerk has assembled one of the most impressive rosters of female artists and bands in the music industry. Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, Dido, Tara MacLean, The Be Good Tanyas, Hem, Sixpence None the Richer and Chantal Kreviazuk, are just a few of the female artists and bands that call Nettwerk home.

Nettwerk is openly bucking an industry-wide trend, and doing so successfully. I had to find out what their secret was. I contacted Erin Kinghorn, the Director of Sales and Marketing at Nettwerk, and Ms. Kinghorn was gracious enough to give invaluable insight into how one of the world’s most successful music labels market their artists.

BMA - Many record labels are reluctant to promote the so-called ‘female rocker’, yet Nettwerk seems to be the obvious exception to this trend. When it comes to promoting female artists, why has Nettwerk been more successful than many of its competitors?

EK - Well I don’t think you can really say that we are promoting our female artists any differently than our male artists. For all our artists, we let them develop into what they want to be. If you want to look at Sarah, she’s always stayed true to herself, and stayed true to her music. We’ve never tried to control any of our artists. We’ve allowed them to develop organically and develop their following that way.

As for our success with the female “rocker”, I think the success we had at the time with Lilith Fair, alot of these issues about women in the music industry were being brought up and discussed. Lilith put to a voice to the issues at that time, one being that women were always being told that they couldn’t be on a bill together. By putting together a tour that focused on female artists and having that tour become successful allowed for people to turn around and state “there is an audience out there who want to hear women musicians and it can be successful”.

BMA - So it’s a matter of ‘the artists know what they need to do, leave them alone and let them take their own course with it’?

EK - Right. It’s a matter of helping the artist, and guiding their career, instead of running their career. And also, looking at it as a career, and not as needing to put out a hit record. We’re in the business of developing artists, we’re not in the business of creating artists for revenue.

BMA - I read an interview recently with one of your artists, and they mentioned that Nettwerk really looks at the business from the artists’ point of view. The example they used was that Nettwerk is smart enough to realize that you can’t do a 7 am radio interview, and expect to have a voice left for a concert that night.

EK - That’s really true. We sit down with the artists and figure out what’s going to work best for them. That’s one of the core philosophies of the company, we are really artist-friendly. We know that we can’t burnout these people, because we work for them, we are their employees. And that’s a little bit of a shift in the traditional industry thinking, that they don’t work for us, we work for them.

BMA - Why do you think your competitors aren’t looking at the success Nettwerk is having with acts like Sarah McLachlan and Avril Lavigne, and saying ‘We need to be doing this too’?

EK – I think that they are trying to find female artists and develop them, but really they’d need to change all aspects of their company from the top down, and most labels aren’t able to do that right now.

BMA - So basically you’re saying that they would have to change their entire culture?

EK – Yes, they would have to change their corporate culture, and I think that’s something we are going to see in the next 5 years. That is, the major labels, and the indies, seeing that the way we do business on all levels, and the way we approach the artists, is going to be changing. I think over the next 5 years you’re going to see a new generation taking higher positions in these companies, and that’s when things will start changing, including the way they approach the artists, and music in general.

BMA – Let’s talk about Sarah McLachlan for a minute. From Lilith Fair to her incredible video for World On Fire (nominated for a 2006 Grammy for Best Short Form Video), it seems she has always used her music as a tool to help others.

EK – Yes, and this is another example of going back to the corporate culture at Nettwerk. Terry (McBride, Nettwerk CEO) and the rest of the managers try to instill a sense of giving back in all our artists, and Sarah has always done this. From the beginning of Lilth Fair and donating a dollar a ticket to a local charity in each city, to the message of “World on Fire”. When Sarah decided to do World on Fire, the video took my breath away. It was so amazing to see what she could do with such a small music video budget in this day and age, but you see how many people she was able to help with it. That was absolutely outstanding.

Other examples are the charity work that Avril is doing, Sum 41 going to the Congo and shooting a special for War Child, the charity work that Barenaked Ladies do, there is that sense of having to give back, being a part of the global community. The owners of Nettwerk give back themselves, and they always instilled in us that that’s the way to do it.

BMA - And I think the way Sarah presented the video for World on Fire really brought home her point, that you could spend this much money to buy this much time with a producer, or you could spend that same amount to build 5 schoolhouses in Africa.

EK - Exactly.

BMA - I noticed that Barenaked Ladies recently released Barenaked On
a Stick, a 128 MB USB stick that included BNL’s Barenaked for the Holidays album, as well as other live tracks, and extra goodies. How has the reaction been to this offering, and is Nettwerk looking to distribute future releases from their artists via this format?

EK - Barenaked on a Stick was a concept that was brought up during a meeting last year, our sales manager from the U.S., John Meadows, told us about the concept and told us ‘Hey we should try to do this!’. We developed it as a testrun and sold it out of Werkshop (our mailorder company), and on the road. And it took off, it’s a way of using different technology, and there are so many different mediums out there that you are able to use to put your artists’ music in the hands of the customer. We are definitely going to use this format with other artists. So far we are looking at newer technologies and trying to figure out how to incorporate that into our marketing and distribution as well.

BMA - And that will lead into my last question, we all know how big MySpace has become, what do you think will be the next big trend as far as how musicians will put their music out in front of the people?

EK - There’s so many different things that musicians can do right now. You do have MySpace, I think people are heading more toward Craigslist, there are some opportunities there. I think podcasting is going to become big over the next year or so, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens there. You also have ringtones, and you’re going to have more cell phones with MP3 players. There’s going to be so many opportunities I think musicians are going to have to figure out the most cost-effective way to reach their audience. And I think there’s also the music blogs, and the power of blogging is going to be something to watch. This is a new form of media and they are really musical communities that have great readership.

In a time when we are seeing so many instances of record labels, and the recording industry itself putting profits ahead of everything else, including their artists and their customers, Nettwerk is the perfect example of how it should be done. They work FOR their artists, and they aren’t worried about putting out a hit record, as much as they are making sure their artists are having successful careers. In short, Nettwerk gets it. There’s so much that we can find wrong in the recording industry today, but we need to support the few labels like Nettwerk that are doing it the right way. If for no other reason than to send a message to other labels that they need to shape up and get their business priorities straight if they want to survive.

Because Nettwerk will not only survive, they will no doubt continue to thrive. Thanks again to Ms. Kinghorn for giving us an incredible look into the inner-workings of a truly revolutionary record label.

USA Today has an article on how SB ads will be made available after the big game. First, the NFL announced today that all SB ads will be made available on their NFL Network, video-on-demand, NFL.com and NFL Mobile programs on Sprint. You can view the ads for 1 week after the Super Bowl. Of course, this will just feed the hysteria surrounding Super Bowl ads, since many of them were previously only seen at the SB. In fact the NFL claims the main reason behind this move was that many of the SB sponsors that were at the game complained about not being able to view the commercials, since they were at the stadium. The article also has a nice recap of expected content of many of the SB ads, many of which will also be available at their respective company’s websites after the game. I am a bit worried about the description of the Burger King ad, “A 60-second song-and-dance routine”, but then again The King hasn’t disappointed so far!

The NYTimes is reporting that 2 of the world’s most popular blogs, Gawker and Post Secrets, are both considering adding video to their content. Gawker recently asked for volunteers for their Guerrilla Video Project, which would have people go around NY filming power lunches, book parties, etc. Not sure how Post Secrets would add video, unless it would be a video confessional to go along with their posted secrets? Now THAT would be interesting!

Last August, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) filed a complaint against Dave Greubel, accusing him of using his family’s computer to illegally share at least 600 music files. The RIAA demanded that Greubel should pay a $9,000 judgment, but noted that they were willing to settle for half that, if they received Greubel’s payment in a certain time frame. Apparently, this was part of an ongoing campaign where the RIAA is going after people that they believe to be sharing 9 specific songs, including the song “Sk8er Boi” by Avril Lavigne, who is a client of Nettwerk management. When Nettwerk president and CEO Terry McBride found out that one of his artist’s songs were alledgedly being illegally shared, and that the RIAA was considering pursuing legal action to get money back, he jumped right in the middle of this fight. But he didn’t land on the side that you might expect. Instead, McBride launched a vicious salvo at the RIAA, calling them to task for their actions. “Suing music fans is not the solution, it’s the problem,” stated McBride. Nettwerk became involved in this case after 15 year-old Elisa Greubel emailed Nettwerk artist MC Lars, saying she indentified with the MC Lars song ‘Download this song’. Greubel said, “My family is one of many seemingly randomly chosen families to be sued by the RIAA. No fun. You can’t fight them, trying could possibly cost us millions. The line ‘they sue little kids downloading hit songs,’ basically sums a lot of the whole thing up. I’m not saying it is right to download but the whole lawsuit business is a tad bit outrageous.” Nettwerk agrees, and McBride has agreed to pay any and all legal fees, and/or fines that the Greubels may have to pay. McBride added, “Litigation is not ‘artist development.’ Litigation is a deterrent to creativity and passion and it is hurting the business I love. The current actions of the RIAA are not in my artists’ best interests.” No they aren’t Mr. McBride, but rest assured that YOUR actions ARE in both the best interests of your artists, and your customers. Because this is just another form of marketing. This is a company that isn’t so short-sighted that they would try to gain a few dollars from one of their customers, in exchange for alienating millions of current and potential customers. This is a case of a record label that honestly cares about their artists, and their artists’ fans. And they care about their industry, so much so, that they are willing to call to task the industry’s governing body. Well done. Nettwerk just said what a lot of us have been thinking for years.

Another day, another Go Daddy Super Bowl ad is rejected. The total, for those of you keeping score at home, is now up to 13 rejected ads, and the 14th one has already been submitted. According to Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons, the deadline to have an ad submitted and accepted is Jan. 31st, or next Tuesday. And apparently, Parsons is hearing the ‘this is all just a publicity stunt’ backlash. From his blog, posted yesterday: “This is no publicity stunt. I’ve been accused a number of times of orchestrating a publicity stunt. While I’ve been pleased with the media attention that this has attracted, it has always been my intention to simply get a commercial approved and nothing more. If we are fortunate enough for ABC to approve the current submission, we will indeed have an ad airing during this year’s Super Bowl.” Everyone that believes that….stand on their head. While Parsons is pleased with the media attention, he forgets to point out that he is GETTING that media attention because he has been updating the number of rejections every step of the way. He could have just as easily never said a word, then either Go Daddy wouldn’t run a SB ad, or they would. But by constantly blogging about how Go Daddy can’t get an ad past ABC’s censors, he has stoked the fire and is creating the media attention that he wants to imply simply fell from the sky into his lap. Whatever. There’s a fine line between hyping something, and over-hyping it. Parsons pole-vaulted that line around Jan 1st.

Over the past few months, I’ve been showing my portfolio around at 1 formal interview, and about 12 “critique my book” meetings. This is not exactly a barrage of activity. Yet my print portfolio looks like it’s been through a war. Folds, fingerprints, and unidentifiable stains on ads. Beat-up foamcore. And after a plane trip, it looks like TSA took a marker to a couple of my ads. Many smart people have said that you should show ads on the medium they were produced. So, radio should go on a CD, TV should be on a DVD, interactive accessible online or on a CD, and print displayed on foamcore. But is another solution to carry a laptop computer with you, and show PDF’s? This would be an easy way to display your multimedia samples in an interview, as well. At this time, I don’t even own a laptop. And I don’t know how interviewers would feel about it. But I’m curious if this would work. What do you all think?

Thought we’d forgotten about ya, right? No chance! But we have been busy working on some…..’items’……here at the BMA that we think you’ll enjoy. Hate to sound like an A-Lister, but ‘watch this space’!

Thinking that 2 crappy networks could combine to become one less-crappy network, CNBC just reported that WB (Smallville, Gilmore Girls) and UPN (Veronica Mars, Smackdown!) will merge this fall to create a fifth network, starting in September. No word on the name of the new network yet, as apparently they are just now holding a press conference on the move. Looks like a good move for both, as seperate entities, neither network could survive long-term with their selection of shows. Combined, the two can purge their losers, combine their few winners, and with the addition of a few more solid shows, become a viable network. Or they could crash and burn. Either way, their chances of long-term success seem to be better today, than they were yesterday. UPDATE: According to CNNMoney word is now out that the new network will be called ‘CW’.

Ah nothing goes with online love like a weak cup of coffee. Starbucks’ latest partnership is with Yahoo! Personals. From now through Valentine’s Day, Yahoo! and Starbucks will run the co-branded site Espresso Dating where singles can get dating advice, and if they join Yahoo! Personals, they’ll get a $10 Starbucks gift card. The site also includes a Starbucks locator. “We share a lot in common with Yahoo!,” said Starbucks spokeswoman Carole Pucik. “We serve the same young customers who have embraced online dating, but still need somewhere that’s safe and comfortable when taking that next step from online to the real world.” Somehow I’m betting that Pucik is hoping that place will be the local Starbucks.

According to the New York Times, IFC Entertainment is now the second movie studio to commit to bringing new films to DVD at the same time they hit theaters. IFC announced that it plans to release 24 films this year simultaneously to DVD and movie theaters. This new business model is likely going to gain steam throughout the year, and will hit the industry this Friday when Bubble, a movie produced by Mark Cuban’s 2929 Entertainment, hit theaters, and will debut on DVD next Tuesday. Smaller and independent companies will likely be the first to make the move, as the bigger companies take a ‘wait and see’ attitude. “I think the industry will resist and resist some more, and then slowly embrace it”, said producer Steve Tisch

Three months ago we saw Budget launch the first major blog-only campaign. Since that time, no other major company has stepped up to the plate to launch the second blog-only campaign. Or perhaps one company has, and we didn’t realize it. One of the biggest stories on the blogosphere the last month has been the trials and tribulations that Go Daddy has had to try to get ABC to accept an ad for the company during the Super Bowl. And this story has been fanned greatly by Go Daddy founder Bob Parson’s blog, Hot Points. Since late December, Parsons has been giving frequent updates on Hot Points about his struggles to get ABC to accept a Super Bowl ad from Go Daddy. However, some of his claims involving the process have been questionable, or flat out denied. First, according to MediaPost, Parsons claimed that ABC rejected the ‘Window Washer’ ad for Go Daddy that Fox has been running throughout the NFC playoffs. Does anyone that saw this ad actually think that ABC wouldn’t run it? Personally I didn’t find the ad that ‘risque’ at all. Another claim that Parsons made last week was that the NFL would ALSO have to approve any Go Daddy ad. This claim was refuted by an NFL rep that told MediaPost that the NFL would never view Go Daddy’s ad prior to it running during the Super Bowl, if it did. So where does that leave us? Personally I think Parsons’ 2 claims above have to leave us seriously questioning whether or not Parsons intends to run a Super Bowl ad. But if Parsons doesn’t run a Super Bowl ad, then Go Daddy is going to lose valuable exposure, right? Well……not exactly. According to Alexa, Go Daddy.com’s traffic basically doubled overnight after last year’s Super Bowl ad, from a reach per million of 2,000 prior to the ad, to right at 4,000 immediately after. As you can see from that chart, Go Daddy.com’s traffic sunk back down after the ad, but slowly rose back up to around 4,000 RPM, and stayed there till late December. At that point, which is about the same time that Parsons started blogging about the Super Bowl ad on Hot Points, traffic to Go Daddy.com started rising, and since then has jumped roughly 2,000 RPM, and is now at around 6,000 RPM. But looking at traffic for Hot Points, you see an even more dramatic rise. In late December, Hot Points traffic was around 60-70 RPM, and since then it has shot up, and as of yesterday it was at 385 RPM. So that means that since Parsons started blogging about his troubles with ABC accepting a Go Daddy Super Bowl ad, according to Alexa, traffic for Go Daddy.com has jumped about 50%, and traffic for Hot Points has spiked by about 600%. And we’re still 2 weeks out from the Super Bowl. Imagine where traffic will be after another 14 days of hyping? In my mind, thanks to constantly hyping the Super Bowl ad controversy on Hot Points, Parsons has effectively gotten as much exposure for Go Daddy.com as he likely would have from simply running an ad without the pomp and circumstance. And if it turns out that Go Daddy does NOT run a SB ad, Parsons will have trumped all the other advertisers, because he will have effectively gotten the same or more exposure than they did, without paying a dime.

You might remember our Christmas post about PETA’s use of “sexy santa” to entice people away from animal furs. Apparently, PETA in Canada is just as shameless. This photographer managed to catch PETA’s Canadian chapter exploiting women for the sake of animals:

Our local PETA chapter organized an “event” last week. they hired 2 strippers to stand with a large banner “We’d rather go bare than wear fur” and hand out pamphlets.

Hewlitt-Packard, the presenting sponsor for the Sundance Film Festival, has a crew of workers that are blogging live from the event, detailing all the star sightings as well as the behind-the-scenes news/gossip. Also, Susan Getgood is working with HP to hold a charity auction designed to benefit Habitat for Humanity. The bloggers are doing a pretty good job so far, already 9 posts. Susan will be complementing the live posts from the bloggers at the event, with links to stories around the net on the Festival.

I am such a shameless tool for anything CP+B puts out involving The King. Now The Spunker has found VIDEO to go along with the ‘papparazzi’ pics that were released a few days ago of The King going incognito with babe Brooke Burke. I’m sure this will somehow tie-in to Burger King’s Super Bowl ad. And it’s a helluva lot funnier than bitching on your pseudo-blog about not getting an ad accepted.

According to today’s New York Times, radio stations, and especially Clear Channel, have discovered that more music leads to more listeners. Fascinating! Last month we saw a 7.7% decrease in commercial time per hour over December 2004, and Clear Channel has noticed a 7% increase in the number of adult listeners, in the country’s Top 10 markets, since last summer. The largest chunk of the ad drop came from Clear Channel, who slashed the amount of time spent on commericals per hour by 2 mins on their stations. On the whole, commercial time per hour fell from 10:59 per hour in December of 2004, to 10:08 per hour during December of 2005. Looks like satellite radio has Clear Channel and the gang scrambling to re-adjust their sweet spot to maximize advertising versus number of listeners. Now if they could realize that listeners still think that chicks with guitars are hot. Apparently Atlantic and Nettwerk are the only labels that get this.

Apologies to Doc Searls, who apparently took this post literally. Sorry Doc, it was meant as a joke, and I was geniunely flattered that you mentioned BMA on your blog. It’s been a (life) long running gag for people to mistakenly call me MaRk instead of Mack. I saw you do it yesterday (and you aren’t the first to), and figured I’d have some fun with it, and poke fun at myself at the same time. My theory is that since Mack is such an unusual name, that when people see it for the first time, a voice in their head says ‘Nah…..no one is named Mack, it’s a typo he meant Mark. Call him Mark’.

Adam Finley told me and I missed it. Later when BL Ochman did as well, I dismissed it as a coincidence. But now that the legendary Doc Searls has said so as well, I have to take notice. All of these A-Listers have been telling me why I’m not an A-lister myself. The reason? My name isn’t Mark Collier. That’s right, while it seems that Mack Collier is fighting an uphill battle to be an A-Lister, MaRk Collier has been hob-knobbing with them for months now! From Doc’s blog today:

Our first guest is a lovely and talented blogger who has forgotten more about advertising than most of us will ever know. He writes for beyond madison avenue and makes a helluva lotta sense. Let’s give it up for Mark Collier!

What the hell?!? Here I am doing all the hard work to become an A-Lister, and this Mark Collier jackass is getting all the credit! And what’s worse……I think these A-Listers are TRYING to hold me back! You’re laughing at me, aintcha?!? Well check out what Hugh said on Gaping Void the other day:

A secret cabal of A-Listers got together and decided that you should be excluded from the conversation. Yeah, they sit around sipping champagne, eating caviar and laughing about you.

The nerve! So here I sit trying to be the best damned unemployed marketing consultant I can be, and this Mark Collier character is getting all the booze and chicks! He’s pulling down the big blogging bucks, while he takes Steve Rubel out to $500 dinners and they laugh about how all Mack Collier could afford would be fries at McDonalds! So I give up, the A-Lister life just aint for me. I’ll never be worthy. If my name was Mark….maybe.

This post is another kick in the ars for an all star blogger: New MBAs finding education pays off big time By Del Jones, USA TODAY Thu Jan 19, 7:16 AM ET MBAs are hot, again. Salaries and signing bonuses of fresh graduates took a double-digit jump in 2005 to a record average $106,000 and signaled an end to the “perfect storm” of sour news this decade that included the dot-com bust, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a subsequent recession, said Dave Wilson, president of the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) that oversees the test for aspiring graduate students in business. Corporate recruiters had disappeared from campuses. But, Wilson reports, “The MBA is back as the currency of intellectual capital.” The $106,000 salary and signing bonus was up 13.5% from 2004, according to a GMAC survey of 5,829 2005 grads. Salary alone increased to $88,600, surpassing the previous high of $85,400 set in 2001. The 2005 salary still trails 2001 by about $4,000 when adjusted for inflation, but the inflation-adjusted record will likely be broken this year. Consulting firms and investment banks, the best-paying employers of freshly minted MBAs, had been slashing jobs. “They’re back and hiring aggressively,” says Nunzio Quacquarelli, the London-based director of the QS World MBA Tour that recruits students to 350 business schools in 56 cities worldwide. The average bonus paid to a 2005 MBA graduate by investment banks was $40,000, Quacquarelli says. Other forces are behind the rising compensation. The health care industry craves MBAs to help manage spiraling costs, and schools such as Boston University offer an MBA for those looking for careers ranging from hospital administration to biotech. Technology hiring showed signs of life last year and is building steam in 2006, Quacquarelli says. Even the outsourcing of jobs to places such as India is driving demand for MBAs. The Labor Department estimates the outsourcing industry will need 2,000 senior executives this year, up from 100 in 2000. By 2012, it will need 9,500. Wilson says there is also heavy demand for MBAs by the U.S. government and not-for-profit organizations. Salaries are not as high, but added demand is likely driving them up elsewhere. The trend is global, according to a survey out Tuesday by QS World MBA Tour. Average salary and bonus for new MBAs was up 10% in 2005 to $114,000, also breaking the record set in 2001. More than 100,000 MBA degrees are awarded each year in the USA alone. That’s likely to rise. Prospective students who took the Graduate Management Admission Test rose to 228,000 in 2005 from 213,000 in 2004. And this year has started strong, Wilson says. There are 1,500 schools worldwide offering MBAs, a number poised to explode, Quacquarelli says, as programs in China, India and Russia take off.

My that Bob Parsons loves his controversy. Earlier this week, he gave us an update, and a monkey-wrench in GoDaddy’s ever-vigiliant quest to show Candice Michelle with as little clothes as possible during the Super Bowl. First, he said on his blog that ABC has rejected the TENTH version of GoDaddy’s submitted ad to appear during the Super Bowl. Then he added that it’s going to be harder than ever to get an ad approved, because, as he now claims, the NFL must sign-off on any submitted ad as WELL as ABC. He said earlier this week: “There’s always the possibility the NFL is getting involved for the sole purpose of simply rejecting the commercial. The NFL is a no nonsense organization where its members can be fined for openly criticizing NFL officials. This being the case, it’s entirely possible that the NFL’s request to review our commercial could be to punish us, in true NFL style, for the commercial we ran during last year’s Super Bowl.” Now the NFL has responded, and basically said that they have no idea what Parsons is talking about. According to MediaPost, the NFL won’t see the ad until it runs. I’m shocked! If ABC has really rejected 10 GoDaddy ads, then Bob Parsons by now knows EXACTLY why ABC is canning the ads, and knows EXACTLY what it will take to get an ad accepted. His ‘I’m fighting censorship! I’m fighting the man!’ mantra has long since lost any credibility. If Parsons wants to bitch about censorship on his blog that’s fine, but don’t keep sending up the same flag every day, knowing it will be shot down, and whine about it when it happens. Either Parsons is going to submit as many ads as possible right up till ABC’s deadline, and THEN submit an acceptable ad, or he never planned on running an ad during the SB, and he’s going to keep submitting ads that ABC will swat back in his face, so he can blog about it. Which will, of course, lead to the inevitable ‘finally HERE is the ad that ABC didn’t want you to see! Enjoy!’ post on his blog.

I dunno what the deal is, but in reading other blogs lately, I seem to be running into a lot of people claiming that blogs just aren’t a very effective communication tool. I’ve seen several people complain about a lack of comments on posts. For example, Amy Gahran has a post where she lists the Top 10 Reasons Why Blogs Are An Awkward Conversation Tool. One of her points is:

“4. COMMENTS DON’T NECESSARILY = CONVERSATION: Blogger Chris Edwards noted in a comment here, “How many blog posts do you see actual conversations on? You see people making points in public but they are not conversations in the conventional sense, they are public debates.” He’s got a point. First of all, most blog postings don’t attract any comments at all.”

Guess BMA is the exception to the rule, then. Before leaving this post, there were 20 posts on BMA’s frontpage, and 16 of them had comments. That’s 80% folks. And in most of those posts, you’ll notice that one or more BMA writers have joined in. Bottom line is, ya gots ta write em to get em. If a reader is kind enough to respond to your post, the least you can do is return the favor. Kent Newsome goes even further and says you can’t build a new blog in 2006, and have it be successful. He states that the vast majority of blogs are successful because the blog fills an area where there’s no competition, the blogger is an existing A-lister, or the blogger has a network of A-listers in place that will link to him from the get-go. BMA obviously didn’t have any of those advantages when we started. What we DID have was a group of people very passionate about the advertising and marketing industries, and about growing BMA. According to Mr. Newsome, BMA shouldn’t be where we are. But if you want your blog to be successful, you can’t simply throw out a post and wait for your traffic to spike. You have to get involved. You have to give people a reason to keep coming back. Sure great content works wonders, but in the end we as humans want interaction. And as others are realizing, comments many times have more interesting information than the post itself. Also, you have to get involved in other blogs. You have to find out what other people are talking about, and jump in. I’d love to think that everyone feels that their day simply cannot start until they see what pearls of golden wisdom have dripped from Mack Collier’s keyboard this morning. The reality more likely is, many people that come here keep seeing me replying on their blog, get bored, and figure, ‘well let me see what this guy’s blog looks like’. Which is fine by me. Because according to our statistics, once you come here, there’s an 87% chance you’ll come back. The bottom line is: Growing a blog takes work, at least for those of us whose name isn’t Guy Kawasaki. You have to not only put effort into your posts, but you also have to comment on both your blog, and the blogs of others. And finally…..you have to have passion. I poke fun at some A-listers, but it cannot be denied that all of them have an extreme passion for what they do. I admire them for that, and its a big reason why they are where they are. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to read other blogs…..