“The Ultimate Last Minute Christmas Gift for Bloggers” plus 2 more

The Ultimate Last Minute Christmas Gift for Bloggers
Blogger Outreach: Center of Cirque’s Social Efforts
How to Manage Expectations with Your Blog Readers

The Ultimate Last Minute Christmas Gift for Bloggers

Posted: 23 Dec 2009 07:15 PM PST

If you’re anything like me you’ve probably left your Christmas shopping to the last minute (as I write this post there are less than 3 hours left til the shops close here in Australia and I still need to get one more gift)!

If you’re still searching for a great gift for that special blogger in your life (or perhaps a treat for yourself) we’re happy to provide you with a solution here at ProBlogger – the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook.

While an e-book is a little hard to wrap I’ve had a lot of readers from both ProBlogger and DPS email me today to tell me that they’ve just bought copies as gifts for family and friends. It’s particularly good because you don’t have to leave your house to get it and there’s no delivery fee – just pay for it and download.

Some are being quite creative in how they give them too with many burning the PDF onto CDs/DVDs so that they’re able to wrap it up. Others are buying them and then forwarding the download link onto the receiver of the gift via an email.

PS: In mid January I’ll be offering a special limited time bonus for all buyers of 31DBBB. I’m not ready to announce it yet but both those who get a copy that week and those who already have at any time in the past will get the bonus. Just a little extra sweetener for buying the e-book – stay tuned.

PS(2): Of course if you’re buying a gift for a photographer – you should look no further than the Essential Guide to Portrait Photography :-)

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

The Ultimate Last Minute Christmas Gift for Bloggers

Diversified Brand, Diversified Approach

Cirque is quickly moving toward delivering the right information to the right audience at the right time in the right place. This hyper-targeted approach allows Cirque to directly connect with its customers during their discovery journey. It is especially important to the brand because Cirque features 20 shows that are unique in character, story line, demographic and appeal. According to Jessica, "Each show has a little bit of a different audience demo so we know what type of content and language would work better. For example, people who are fans of Zumanity, our sexy show, are interested in much different things than Wintuk, our family-oriented production."

Matchmaking Consumers with Content

Much like the entertainment industry, Cirque is the umbrella brand that features a variety of shows and experiences. So the task is not only to match the right content with bloggers, but also to connect readers with content. Jessica does not only need to think about what the blogger would be interested in, but also: Will the reader be convinced? Will they care? Will it help them decide? Will that show be appropriate for their 5 year old?

Earned content holds credibility and weight in prospective customers' eyes. When bloggers detail a show's elements, a customer's decision-making process is impacted in two core ways: 1- Learn about Cirque as an entertainment option, and 2- Consider attending a show. Jessica says, "Bloggers help us because they really give detailed accounts of their experiences at a show. They help explain the differences between the productions. If they've seen more than one Cirque show, bloggers are great at describing what's different. If they're new to Cirque, bloggers help explain why Cirque du Soleil is so unique."

Experience the brand through the Content

Despite the variety of show genres, there is one common element across all Cirque shows. Cirque is about experiencing the entertainment. Attendees are engaged from the moment the theme-clad staff scans their ticket to the moment they exit the theater. Bloggers draw a picture that allows the customers to visualize the experience. Jessica added, "While seeing our shows is entertaining, it can also be an emotional experience and no one tells that story better than a blogger. So many bloggers like to express their feelings and not just report on the "facts", which is great for describing a Cirque du Soleil performance."

It was interesting to see how Cirque has essentially come full circle with customers always centered right in the middle. As Jessica said, "Twenty-five years ago, Cirque du Soleil was built on grassroots efforts. In a way, social media is bringing us back to our roots."

Reem Abeidoh writes on Social Media, Current Affairs, Marketing and More. Subscribe to her blog here and follow her on Twitter.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blogger Outreach: Center of Cirque’s Social Efforts

As bloggers – how do we manage expectations better and minimise these kinds of complaints?

A few thoughts come to mind:

1. Know what your own Goals and Expectations are

As I look back on some of the instances that I’ve had with readers having unmet expectations of me I can honestly say that in some instances the reason was simply that I didn’t have a very clear understanding of what I was trying to do or achieve.

I’m sure many bloggers are similar – we can be an impulsive lot – experimenting, tweaking, changing directions and starting new things at the drop of the hat. While this often leads to great discoveries and creative new directions – it can also leave readers reeling a little and feeling disappointed.

I’m still quite impulsive – but over the years I’ve learned a little more to take my time with new ideas, to test them with small groups of people before launching them publicly and to force myself to plan and think about over arching goals and objectives in order to make the road a little less bumpy for readers.

2. Communicate Your Expectations Clearly

Once you know what your readers will get from you and your blog – communicate it clearly to your readers.

For example – if you have a newsletter and intend to publish it weekly – state that in your subscriber page. If the newsletter is simply an update of what’s happening on your blog – let them know that so they don’t expect completely new content.

If there are strings attached with any aspect of your blog – it can be well worthwhile letting your readers know about them up front.

This particularly applies when you change any aspect of your own expectations or goals.

For example if you’ve been happily posting at a frequency of 4 posts a week but suddenly decide to start publishing at a rate of 10 posts a day – you’ll want to communicate your decision and reasoning to readers. Changes in your own approach might make sense to you but if you have readers who signed up for something completely different you’re setting yourself up for a clash of expectations.

I’ve seen this problem on numerous occasions including about post frequency, changes in topic/niche of a blog and even changes in the way that a blog is monetized (suddenly adding lots of ads, or paid posts, or affiliate promotions).

3. Identify Common Unmet Expectations and Preempt Them

Over time you might find that you constantly get the same complaint from readers. This could be an indication that you need to consider changing your approach – OR it could simply mean you need to work harder to get the reader’s expectations right earlier.

For example I worked with one blogger a few months back who kept getting nasty emails from readers complaining that the blogger didn’t respond to emails quickly enough. The blogger was inundated with emails and found it hard to answer everyone (and it could take a week or more to do so when he did get to it). He was frustrated that readers expected too much and readers were frustrated because they expected more of him.

We added a simple sentence or two to his contact page explaining that the blogger received 100+ emails a day and was not able to respond to everyone. We also added alternative places that people could interact with him (on Twitter) and also added a FAQ section to his blog and linked to it from the contact form to help readers find answers to some of the more common emails requests that he received.

The complaints he received by readers dropped dramatically.

4. Don’t Hype

Many unmet expectations are just simple and understandable misunderstandings between blogger and reader – however at times bloggers could be a little more at fault by falling into the trap of hyping themselves, their blogs and their products up to a point where they’re setting themselves and their readers up for a clash of expectations.

I know this temptation – you slave over what you do, you want it to succeed and you stretch the truth just a little in some of your claims or promise things you probably can’t deliver on in order to convince potential readers that you’re worthy of their readership.

The problem is obvious though – you simply can’t do what you say you’ll do and as a result you end up with a disappointed (at best) or an angry and aggressive (at worst) reader. At the more aggressive end of the spectrum you might also have the reader tell others about how you’ve let them down.

5. Under Promise and Over Deliver

There’s nothing wrong with big promises and claims – IF you deliver on them. However if you’re not sure if you’ll be able to deliver on an element of what you’re tempted to promise – leave it out and add it later.

For example when we launched ProBlogger.com I always wanted to add a featured content area where I would produce extra and exclusive content for paid members. However at the time of launch I didn’t yet have the time allocated in my weekly schedule to be able to commit to delivering regular extra content.

It wasn’t until recently that I was able to do this and I’ve since added the area to the community. The reaction of adding it later was that readers are thanking me for the bonus – something extra to what they signed up for expecting. Perhaps we could have signed up more people earlier by promising this area earlier – but I’d rather a smaller number of happy members than a larger number of angry ones!

What Would You Add?

By no means am I perfect in this area. I still get readers telling me that I’ve not delivered upon what they were expecting from me – I’ve still got work to do. As a result I’d love to hear from you on how you manage reader expectations in comments below?

PS: I promised that I’d tell you how the gift exchange that I witnessed above turned out. Here’s what happened about half an hour later!

It’s not quite an ‘under promise and over deliver’ situation – but both went away happy with a story to tell!

PS: just been told by people on Twitter that ‘pearl necklace’ might have a double meaning. It was not my intention to be funny or offensive with this, it’s really what the gift was!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Manage Expectations with Your Blog Readers