Welcome to my new subscribers who have found half-geek.com as a
result of the multiple links that I received after my post about TV3's RWC coverage.
My post certainly struck a nerve with a number of people which got me
thinking about how to write effectively for the local kiwi blogosphere.
Blogs, wiki's and similar collaborative read/write style applications of the future are and will need to be a part of your strategy when it comes to realising web 2.0 success. There are not many web 2.0 start-ups that I review that launch without hosting a blog on the same domain these days. In fact, quite a number of these start-ups use their blog as a prelude to the beta launch of their new site.
As I was saying above, I have been thinking about effective blog marketing in the New Zealand market. The way I see it, a good blog post for the New Zealand market has similarities to two distinct strengths of the All Blacks: Power and Timing.
In Rugby, you need power in your forward pack and your back line needs exceptional timing if you want to win more than you lose. So lets have a deeper look into why I think these two factors are essential in creating a successful blog post that gets you some exposure here in New Zealand:
Power
Like a good forward pack presents the half-back with quality ball by using powerful brute force, your post needs to have powerful content. You need be noticed and provide so you can get lots of traffic. By taking a powerful angle throughout your headline & post content you are differentiating yourself from the mass of traditional journalists who are commercially swayed when voicing their opinion. Often it is blatant honesty that can provide the power you need.
My post about TV3's coverage and commentary of the All Blacks game against Italy was honest. I was pissed off. Like many other people, I have waited four years for this coverage and while its great that we can all enjoy a free live feed I expected a lot better.
The point here is you need to stand out. Powerful opinionated rants can sometimes help you do this. Standing out will help you get noticed on sites like scoopit or digg. These sites will often provide the platform for your traffic generating potential.
You want content voting sites like these to 'feed the backs' right? =)
Timing
A rugby back line without timing is going to struggle to score against it's opposition. Similarly, a blog post that is not on time will struggle against other posts which created powerful current content faster. This is a hard one to get right every time. It is almost fair to say that you may need a little bit of luck on your side.
The thing is that on the internet you are highly unlikely to be the only person who is about to do one particular thing. Whether it be writing a blog post or launching a new business model it is very likely that someone else has already done it or is in the process of doing it.
In the case of my post about TV3 there was a bit of luck involved for sure. I couldn't sleep on Sunday morning so I was ready to have a good old rant and put my post up at around 7am. A couple of larger & more prominent sites than mine picked up on my post as it was probably the first controversial review of TV3's RWC job they found. I would imagine everyone else was still sleeping after the late night....who knows.
I reckon that my point about timing can be quite well summed up by quoting number 3 in Google's list of the 10 truths in their company Philosophy:
FAST IS BETTER THAN SLOW
Scoopit!
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