Category: Blogging

Universal McCann present Wave 5 – the Socialisation of Brands

Universal McCann have just released the fifth installment of their global social media survey: Wave 5 – The Socialisation Of Brands. It is further evidence that social media continues to have a huge impact on brands. This time UM surveyed 37,600 active internet users (that go online every day or every other day) in 54 countries.

Decline for company/brand web pages
Among all the graphs I found the one below to be one of the most interesting. It shows how many of the respondents that visited an official brand or company website during the last 6 months and the percentage is declining quite rapidly. From 85% to 75% in the last two years. It is clear that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get consumers to visit your company website and that brands (also) need to reach out to consumers on social media platforms.

wave 5 fig 20

The percentage of internet users who follow or become fans of brands on social networks has increased from about 10% last year to about 30% in 2010.

wave 5 fig 21

Another interesting conclusion from the Wave 5 survey is that face to face meetings is becoming the least used means of staying in contact with friends. Text messages is still used more seldom but is growing in importance.

wave 5 fig 8

The entire report can be found below.

Social Media Wave 5 – OCT2010 (Universal McCann)

Media Culpa One Of 25 Essential PR Bloggers You Should Be Reading

I’m proud to read that Media Culpa has been named one of 25 Essential PR Bloggers You Should Be Reading by the online news distribution and online publicity service PRWeb, owned by NASDAQ-listed software company Vocus. PRWeb writes:

“Keeping up with what’s new and interesting in public relations news is important – vital strategies, tips and trends are shared each day that can impact your business.  Whether you’re looking for best practices on press release distribution or simply how to take advantage of social media, these blogs will prove invaluable. To keep up with the hottest and highest quality content, below are 25 essential public relations blogs you should be reading:”

It’s a great list of industry luminaries that you should start reading, if you’re not already doing so.

Media Culpa celebrates six years of blogging

six On Feb 4, 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched his Harvard student social network Facebook. At about the same time, I was goofing around with this new thing web log, and on Feb 17, I published my first blog post. Six years later Zuckerberg is a billionare and, well, I’m not. Either way, I’m happy that I have managed to keep this blog running for six years today and during that time I have published in excess of 1,400 posts.

During the years, the number of visitors peaked during the tragic Asian tsunami, in late December 2004, much thanks to a number of links from some mainstream media sites. Another day with thousands of visits was on Nov 2, 2005 when Media Culpa was pick of the day by the Blogger team.

A quick look at Google Analytics from Jan 1, 2005 and onwards shows that Twitter.com has sent a lot of traffic my way, it is fifth in the list of top referring sources. On July 18, 2009 the blog received the highest amount of traffic from search engines and my guess is that is from the post about the fake Zlatan Ibrahimovic on Twitter who was quoted by the AP.

I may not be blogging as frequently now as I used to (the last year I have also been running a blog in Swedish about social media), but I promise to keep it going for a little longer. And please don’t be too hard on me if you read the first few blog posts. It was a period of testing and trying to understand the concept of blogging.

Footnote: Image by Marie-II.

The 25 most valueable U.S. blogs

24/7 Wall St. lists what they believe are the 25 most valueable blogs in the U.S. The latest ranking estimates that the top 25 US blogs are worth $729 million in total. That is a considerable increase since the previous ranking in February 2009 that valued the top blogs to a total of $482 million. For the analysis, the site has moved up the multiples assigned to blog revenue and operating profits because of the recovering economy, so that the blog value better reflects the increase in prices paid for online media properties.

1. Gawker Properties, $300 million.
2. The Huffington Post, $112 million.
3. Perez Hilton, $44 million.
4. Drudge Report. $42 million.
5. TechCrunch. $32 million.
6. PopSugar Properties. $26 million.
7. Politico. $23 million.
8. MacRumors. $20 million.
9. Boing Boing. $18 million.
10. Mashable. $17.5 million.
11. Seeking Alpha. $16 million.
12. GigaOm. $15 million.
13. Breitbart Sites. $11 million.
14. SB Nation Network. $8 million.
15. ReadWriteWeb. $7 million.
16. The Business Insider. $7 million.
17. Destructoid. $5 million.
18. Apple Insider. $4.5 million.
19. //film. (SlashFilm). $4 million.
20. SearchEnginLand. $4 million.
21. Smashing Magazine. $3.5 million.
22. Talking Points Memo Sites. $3.5 million.
23. VentureBeat. $3 million.
24. The Superficial. $3 million.
25. 24/7 Wall St. Network. $???.

Related: In 2007, an estimate by the media agency Wisely said that the top 20 Swedish bloggers had a potential combined annual advertising income of 100 million kronor (14.5 milllion USD). That turned out to be vastly exaggerated.

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Hans Kullin – why blogging about yourself makes total sense

Taking control over Brand You online requires that you are active, otherwise other people will define the image of you. By using different types of social media you can influence your own brand because many web 2.0 services like blogs and micro blogs rank very high in a Google search. Already back in 2005 I noticed that journalist blogs trump articles in traditional media – an entire career on a newspaper can’t match the high rank of a personal blog.

My own blog and social media tools have ranked high in a search for “Hans Kullin” on Google but other channels are beginning to eat their way into the very top results. Tags are beginning to have a huge impact on Google. The top ten results for my name on Google.se are:

1. The “About me” page on this blog
2. This blog
3. Blog posts tagged with my name on www.s-bloggar.se
4. Blog posts tagged with my name on mindpark.se
5. Blog post at fyranyanser.se with my name in the headline
6. My profile page on profsweden.ning.com
7. Blog post at bisonblog.blogs.com/blog with my name in the headline
8. My page at micro blog service bloggy.se
9. My page at micro blog service jaiku.com
10. Blog posts tagged with my name on sv.wordpress.com

So this blog still claims the two top spots, although I have chosen 1) not to name the blog after myself, 2) not have my entire name as the domain name and 3) not have my name in the title tag.

The first traditional media link comes in at result number 16 and the first professional link (my employer) is at #25.

It is interesting that two blog posts from 2006 still rank so high (#5 and #7) on my name. I wonder why that is. Either way, the conclusion is that although I am extremely active on social media I only “control” five of the top ten results. And although I am certainly no SEO expert, here are some quick advice on how to make your own channels rank higher up in Google in a search for your name.

1. Choose your name as the domain name for your blog.
2. Put your name in the title tag of your blog.
3. Name the title of your “About me” page with your name.
4. Publish at least one blog post with your name in the post title (see title of this blog post), especially if you already have your urls set up so that they match the title of the blog post.
5. Where suitable, use your name as a tag in your own blog post.
6. Register for a few micro blog services and use your real name in the profile.

But what about Facebook and MySpace? Yes, valid question. I thought that these pages would rank high but I guess no one is linking to my profile page which means that my Facebook profile is only at #52 in Google. But of course, a presence on networks like Facebook, Ning or LinkedIn is important too.

These are my random thoughts. Any SEO experts out there that would like to add comments?

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Media Culpa’s five year anniversary

On February 17, 2004 an outbreak of dengue fever killed 91 people in Indonesia and the board of directors of the Walt Disney Company rejected a hostile offer by Comcast. But more importantly (?), the blog Media Culpa was launched. Well, I had actually been fooling around with the blog for some time, but that is the date with the oldest remaining blog post. In other words, this blog is celebrating its five year anniversary today.

So much has happened through these five years that it is hard to summarize or pick out the most important moments. But I felt that it would be appropriate to highlight a few blog posts from these five years.

Here goes:

May 14: 2004: Link love from Dave Winer’s Scripting News

May 14, 2004: Steve Rubel already the most influential PR blogger. I’m at #17 of 28.

May 24, 2004: First corporate blog post to find its way into (Swedish) mainstream media

June 24, 2004: Link love from Doc Searls.

June 24, 2004: I get in touch with Iranian PR blogger Hossein. At this point there are more PR bloggers in Iran than in Sweden.

June 29, 2004: Answer to the question “does your company use blogs”: 7 out of 10 Swedes reply “what’s a blog?”

July 12, 2004: I participated as the only Swede in Global PR Blog Week: a number of pioneering PR blogs (such as Elizabeth Albrycht and Mike Manuel) together created a week long blog event about PR and communication.

August 12, 2004: Link love from Engadget. PlayStation banned from Swedish prisons

August 25, 2004: First Swedish daily to launch blog (Svenska Dagbladet)

October 13, 2004: Kryptonite crisis talk of the month.

October 15, 2004: Number of hits in Google for the word “podcasting” rises from 20 to 66,000 in about one month.

November 10, 2004: This blog ranked as Sweden’s fifth most influential blog by Observer (now Cision).

November 15, 2004: First Swedish blog forum, Bloggforum. I participated in the media panel along with PJ Anders Linder, chief political editor of Svenska Dagbladet, Billy McCormac and Jonas Söderström.

December 13, 2004: I was nominated to the 2004 Weblog Awards, category Best European (Non-UK) Blog. Finished at #8.

December 14, 2004: I’m on the cover of Internetworld.

January 27, 2005: The power of blogs. Blogger made L’Oréal pull ad.

February 18, 2005: Media Culpa nominated for Internetworld’s award, Best Swedish blog in the IT and Media category. I didn’t win.

February 25, 2005: Microsoft distributes press releases via RSS. I beat them with a few months for the law firm I worked for.

March 2, 2005: Swedish media RSS feeds reaches 100 – Nordic reaches 200

May 25, 2005: First blog survey published – BloggSverige 1/BlogSweden 1

June 14, 2005: Honorable mention in MarketingSherpa’s 2005 Best Blog Awards

July 11, 2005: Citizen journalism in the London bombings

February 15, 2006: Link love from Boing Boing.

June 27, 2006: My new blog disclaimer

August 25, 2006: Second blog survey complete – BloggSverige 2/BlogSweden 2

September 17, 2006: Marketing managers not willing to invest in blogs

September 22, 2006: Link love #2 from Boing Boing.

October 14, 2006: Sweden’s Minister for Trade brought down by blogger

November 2, 2006: Media Culpa is pick of the day, by the Blogger team.

December 20, 2006: Media Culpa’s 2007 predictions – it’s not a pretty sight

February 17, 2007: 1,000 blog posts published

March 14, 2007: I defend blogs in an article in Computer Sweden.

March 23, 2007: I totally dismiss any value in Twitter 🙂

April 5, 2007: Media Culpa is listed (at #71) on Advertising Age’s list Power 150 as one of only two Swedish blogs.

November 13, 2007: Media Culpa’s top 10 blog pitch pet peeves

November 13, 2007: I published a column in Aftonbladet about the media landscape in 2012.

January 30, 2008: Third annual blog survey – BloggSverige 3/BlogSweden 3

June 15, 2008: I reveal that Dagens Nyheter uses a 12 month old interview as their top story about the wire-tapping law (FRA).

September 15, 2008: Media Culpa listed under Social Media on Alltop.

November 24, 2008: Research – Corporate blogging among listed Nordic companies

Febraury 12, 2009: Media Culpa is ranked as the third best Swedish media blog (YABA)

January 8, 2009: Has Twitter reached a tipping point in Sweden?

And finally, some stats from the last few years (since I installed Google Analytics):
– 67% of all visitors are not from Sweden.
– Top traffic source: Google, 36% of all visits
– Day with most visits: Nov 3, 2006

[Photo courtesy of matski_98]

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