Case study - Sony Reaches Out To Bloggers
July 2nd, 2008 by Mark Hanson 
A lot of PR and ad people are asked by clients how to ‘reach out’ to the blogosphere. The key is to treat bloggers as super-users. People who can influence conversation about your brand within their community. In the old days their community was a neighbourhood, factory, church or club whereas now it’s interest based and faciliated online.
OK, OK I’m massively over-simplifying this but I need to.
Anyway, here is a great example of a brand, Sony, doing it well. They have made somebody, in this case Rick Clancy, Head of Comms, their human face. If you are going to interact with bloggers ie social media then you have to be ’social’. You can’t say sending people press releases or plastering ads everywhere is social:)
As well as responding to queries personally and joining conversations online, Rick is also planning to tour 40 Sony stores in 40 days to get involved in real face-2-face conversations with real customers - WOW!
The big talking point in parts of the PR/ad industry is how to do good blogger events. Is it a bit naff? Will the bloggers be nasty to us? What do we actually do and will they go away and write about us?
First point is DON’T treat bloggers like mass media. They are customers or service users. Their opinions really matter in terms of feedback on your product, your competitors and your marketing plans.
”OK, OK I’m a PR person, will they write about us?” It doesn’t matter if you get good feedback about your products but by involving them in your brand and offering them something directly relevant to what they blog about then why wouldn’t they?
Here’s the experience of a ‘Mum blogger’ that attended a Sony event.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I think the most impressive part of this activity is the investment of time and man-power from Sony. A tour of 40 stores in 40 days shows incredible dedication and I’d be interested to see how many bloggers actually turn out to these ‘events’.
The indication from many PRs (aside from the fact they don’t know where to start with social media) is that communication with bloggers takes time. I couldn’t agree more. I just think about the amount of time I spend talking to myself!
But let’s be honest, it’s now part of our changing jobs and the sooner PRs follow Rick Clancy’s lead, the better.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
It’s an interesting development and I look forward to seeing how Sony’s tactics pan out in the blogsphere…
Bloggers have egos and this one-to-one approach may pay dividends…