I’m not a hardcore blog advocate, but I cannot deny (at the same time) how corporate blogs can help in conversations with customers. In the process which, you develop a relationship with them and possibly more. Many companies are still wondering how they can have a blog and not jeopardize the brand. There are also those who are considering but have not taken the big leap. The fear (or misconception) of stepping into the unknown world (even with tonnes of “best practices” floating around the internet) is something many companies still cannot come to terms with.

I was sharing some ideas how the client can pre-plan a post schedule, rendering any extra contents as bonuses. With it, I also suggested some likely topics the client can touch on. One of his replies greatly reinforced the misunderstanding with how companies should operate their corporate blogs.

Isn’t this information already available in that website? It’s as easy as copy and paste.

1. BLOGGING ISN’T COPYING

In this connected era, a lot of information are easily available with just a Google search. While some frown upon repeating the same topics, I see the opportunity for the client to take up the “educator” position and explain issues in his own words. Or rather, from the company’s perspective.

Selling a product these days isn’t just about pressing the cash register and providing a receipt. It can also be guiding the customer in making a sound decision. Hence, a corporate blog becomes a point of reference for those who are in seek of these. Moreover, there are too many copy-and-paste stuffs on the internet. If customers find it hard to understand from one site, it is likely that the customers will find it equally hard to understand the rest of the same exact contents unless explained in simpler terms. Better still, if the company can take it one step further by covering factors not mentioned by others. Knowledge is power.

Much like how the corporate blog is being used as a reference for your customer, the other contents are your references when discussing about various topics that matter to your customers.

2. BLOGGING ISN’T OUTRIGHT SELLING

Not surprisingly, many companies still look upon blogging as a direct selling tool equivalent to that of an online catalog or blog-shop (not that it’s impossible). I always take great effort to clearly define the differences between objectives and resultant effects. More often, most folks tend to think the same of them.

I am not saying direct selling isn’t achievable through blogs, don’t get me wrong. Some of us are already questioning why we are spending time on corporate blogs if the eventual result is not about sales. It’s a valid question but allow me to direct you towards an analogy.

A singer loves producing her own music but that does not automatically imply that she loves the fame. The immediate objective is to showcase her works to the world and the subsequent fame is just a matter of the resulting effect. And that, brings along the sales of her album. It certainly doesn’t say anything about the singer taking on singing for the fame.

Hence, companies must first identify what they are hoping to achieve.

3. BLOGGING ISN’T JUST TALKING

Chances are, customers will be comparing the company’s perspectives (or claims) with their realistic experiences on the ground. I can’t stress this enough. If companies think that they can bluff their way through with a blog and yet delivering nothing close to what was presented, they had better tighten their seat-belts for a rough ride.

A corporate blog can come in handy when required to explain certain policies implemented by the company. It is also this opportunity that the company should take to gather some constructive suggestions when seeking a better solution to appease dissatisfied customers. This is also the window which the company can use to re-emphasize corporate values. Simply, what you say is what you’ll do.

4. BLOGGING ISN’T GHOST-WRITING

Companies tend to think they can get by with ghost-writing, but that’s precisely the thing that is killing the authenticity of a corporate blog. Writing casually on an ad-hoc basis, surely I will be able to help kick-start the corporate blog. That said, the faces in the company should also gradually (and quickly) pick up the ropes and eventually take over the writing themselves.

Nobody knows best what information to deliver and what not to, apart from the very same people who manage the company. Engaging a ghost-writer also brings the possibility of being out of touch with customers. Are you actively engaging your readers, having a good feel to sentiments on the grounds? Or, are you going to rely on “what’s-being-said reports” that the ghost-writer is going to offer you?

5. BLOGGING ISN’T A FREE-WHEELIE

Democracy of opinions is always a good thing. However, I discovered through my own time in blogging that too much democracy can be equally fatal too. The company should employ a mixture of moderation towards the kind of topics they touch on. Trust me, I just had the experience of one such uncontrolled blogging episode. So much so, I decided to remove myself from the non-profit organization.

Definitely, there will be an opposition camp that feels this is such a “top-down” approach. This is something that cannot be helped. Allowing your corporate blog to spin out of control (both blog writers and commentators) is building a new PR disaster equally. Especially in a space where there are increasing calls for accountability and transparency, to be in control of our own blogging space (some call it self-censoring) is not necessarily a bad thing.

There are still much other stuffs I have not covered but feel free to share them in the comments below so others and myself can learn from it. Take for example, you might want to consider how much time you can spare for your corporate blog and a monitoring schedule so you do not spend excessive time away from other important tasks at work.

Bloggers database are like media contacts. Therefore, it is not unusual that bloggers become a critical aspect in any PR strategy nowadays. For some agencies to convince their respective clients, this statistic is an extremely powerful tool. That’s as good as selling the expertise and capability of the agency team to rally bloggers behind their publicity.

Before you go ga-ga over the stocks of this agency, there are some things that I feel we will need to put into perspective.

To declare such a statistic to a potential client or partnering businesses, you are deemed to be selling the capabilities of your agency. With such a big database being “delivered” in almost every company profile or proposal, I would have assumed that the agency has sought permission from each and every blogger on that database to be included in their pitch. But is it really so? How do you sell something that does not belong to you in the first place?

Truth be told, permission weren’t sought from more than half of the database they are offering to clients. Possibly, more than three quarter even. Keeping track of bloggers is one thing, but, to be pitching along with this statistic is another issue altogether. How possible would it be for an agency to be speaking to more than 1,500 bloggers and gaining their permission one by one?

It is of little wonder why companies take agencies’ advice with a pinch of salt. Some time back before this latest meeting, I queried another dear friend who’s at the top of his communication department. Why did he (or his department) rejected so many proposals?

His answer was short and simple, “There are too many fictitous statistics presented by the agencies.”

Why am I not surprised? Based on the blogger database alone, it’s a big question mark if all of the bloggers had actually agreed to be “sold” on the proposals of agencies. Bearing in mind, these bloggers are not even working for the agencies unlike that lucky blogger who will be flying to Queensland. How many of them agreed to be included in the database? How many of them agreed that the agency can include them in their statistic over their selling pitch?

It’s a tricky situation definitely. Such a practice can easily be tuned to sound like “we’re just keeping track of these bloggers”. Very naturally, that becomes a selling proposition. What transpires inside the board-room between the agency and client is what these bloggers will never get to know. Yet, at the same time bloggers are literally being “sold” to the financial benefits of the agencies.

Is this a matter of ethics? Is this a matter of principles? Or is this outright deceiving? I find it hard to determine.

One thing I do know though, this is bringing on a bad name to the industry. It is not benefitting the betterment of the blogosphere with such shady practices too. And yes, once again, agencies wouldn’t want to engage in such talks for fear of being exposed.

Isn’t it laughable when we have marketers and PR sitting on their high monthly salaries, reaching out to their fanboys? Nothing seemed to be wrong since we know they’re paid to do that as part of the job.

Ironically, I hardly see marketers and PR reach out to their critics. Wouldn’t that be part of their jobs? We hear the same bunch of people spitting the holy word “influence”, so that means shaping, maintaining or changing public perceptions surely. Yet, how do you change public perceptions when you’re not even reaching out to the disgruntled customers?

To make matters worse, these people who should be rightfully addressing these unhappiness goes *poof* when they are most needed. You figured there will be nobody ever, to compete against David Copperfield’s disappearing act. You’re definitely wrong and Tina got it. Just when you thought everything’s fine, there’s always the INTERNET!

Perhaps, somewhere and someone hit it right on the nail. If they can’t control a certain aspect of an activity, they rather not appear at all.

Too many marketers and PR are in their comfort zone. Compiling happy and satisfied customers on their reports solves only half of the clients’ concerns. What about the rest? Are clients getting a full picture? An honest picture?

Tina Fey just made a whole bunch of these “top” marketers and PR look nothing more than little kids. Of course, I don’t mean to say you should response with the final those two obvious words she used.

The mocking fact is, she got the applause. They don’t.

It took that short phrase to realize how little I have attended services over the past year. Much like some of you, I began detaching myself on what’s necessary and essential to the root of my life with countless activities going on around me. Such that, it automatically qualifies as a legitimate reason to explain my absence.

What if the same understanding is used at work? Will it be something like this?

The customers are the bodies and life that feed the brands.

As much as many marketers tend to cite branding as a form of convincing tool to convert customers, I would like to see it differently. Along the way, it’s not unusual when companies get overly obsessed with what the branding can do. Can it win customers from their competitors?

I see this inherent need to clearly dissect between branding and marketing. When we’re speaking of winning over the customers from competitors, that’s marketing. The marketing mix itself would have given you quite a wide variety of functions to push your products on the streets. Where does branding comes in then?

Branding, to me, is like the soul of the company. It can also be described as the “character” of whom the customers are dealing with. When we armed ourselves with that branding message, that’s what the customers will see us as. What follows on is a variety of expression modes to allow this branding to shine. Try asking yourself, what do your customers see you as?

In short, that’s how important customers are to branding.

You may have a fantastic idea of placing your company in the most favourable fashion, but disconnection with the customers is what’s going to do you in. You have a branding, you need to send it out. When you need to send it out, you need to connect. How do you connect, you look for your customers. This loop would have fulfill the theory on why the customers are feeding your brands. And still, you’re not selling anything yet.

One of the greatest examples can be found in Jaguar’s 2005 award-winning effort. Although the entire “Gorgeous” campaign focused more on advertising than branding outright, it did shaped a little on Jaguar’s future would-be customers without sacrificing their current ones. Moreover, the slogans were just too catchy to resist.

Just like how it was once known as the old-man’s car, you will actually find younger and more exciting drivers behind the wheels of a Jaguar these days. In that sense, there is a shift in the way car owners are looking at Jaguar. There is also a change in public perceptions of drivers sitting in a Jaguar.

How much will my words account for? I wouldn’t know. But, the success I see in this “Gorgeous” campaign laid in two specific questions.

1. What do the Jaguar’s owners want?

2. What can we make them look at Jaguar differently?

These branding questions were answered beautifully with style. It’s all about the customers.

I am not particularly an early adopter. I would be at best, what some know as, a settler. And much of my reasons for not crashing into any tools at first notice can be found in both Twitter and Plurk. Some early adopters often exaggerate the soundness of a new tool. As life will tell you, realistic performance is quite another matter.

Plurk is now testing the patience of its many users. Since the later half of 2008, it has given its users more and more downtime. Considering the withdrawal symptoms of those who use Plurk heavily (like myself), we would have thought Plurk would undertake some serious fixing. While Plurk’s downtime is still a frowning factor, we actually see more bugs and error messages.

Fair enough, the Plurk team DID post in their timeline that the team is always working on something once in a blue moon. Posting these aside, the user experiences have been atrocious, I must say.

I always find Plurk’s users a lot more connected than Twitter’s. Conversations flow a lot more than what you would find in Twitter. This is so because Plurk is more topic-centric while Twitter is more user-centric. With other integration tools springing up, topics in Twitter are often brought off its channel and discussed elsewhere. In this aspect, Plurk is better off in terms of sustaining conversations within its compounds. You must admit, Twitter is not exactly conversation-friendly.

That said, it only means Plurk needs to harness on its advantage - conversations! But, users are getting unhappy with these frequent downtimes and bugs. These are the downsides that are proving to be obstacles to conversations. How would you like it if you’re in the mist of a discussion or chat, everything just went out abruptly?

The unhappiness of Plurk users doesn’t reside in just the downtime alone. It is the recurrence of the same problems that is obstructing all of us. Users are asking that your problems be fixed once and for all, while they understand that there will always be new bugs along the way. When you have old bugs left unfixed coupled with increasing new bugs, that is certainly asking for a good tongue-lashing.

Much like Twitter, the predecessor still sees outages especially during the US elections. Now, Twitter seems to be back in business. Plurk isn’t.

Plurk need to also recognize the spiraling factors beyond the media & technical aspects - user experiences! How does Plurk’s users feel about these frequent outages and bugs? Do they enjoy logging into Plurk first thing in the morning and realize they have new obstacles to overcome?

We need whales no more…

Check out the comments in SMT’s feature.

It throws us back to the social media debate of what is and what’s not. Many have attempted to decipher the term “social media”, including Joseph Thornley of Pro PR, Kimberly Bock has a small collection of definition by various A-list bloggers, Liz Strauss of Successful Blog and many more. Notably, many have referred to the Wikipedia version of what social media is all about.

I had also attempted to break down social media in my own ways previously, emphasizing on the information flow which brings about the subsequent influence. That’s the closest I have been, so it’s absolutely mind-blowing to read something that says it’s not about the media even. Is there any right or wrong? Oh well…

What I do like about Mark’s perspective though, is casting away all articificial tools and has gone back to the basics - humans! Does that mean the focus of social media in  2009 should revolve around human activities (and the interaction) more than the platforms available to us? It’s a hint.

I behold a doubt though. If it revolves around the participants strictly, will companies be likely to adopt social media without the boring ROI in tangible forms? When companies adopt social media, what values can they draw out of it if it’s not about the sales figures and branding? As we know, companies will forever be working to justify the effects of social media in such manner. That’s if Mark got it right with his closing statement;

It’s about people. People watching and listening and interacting with other people.

Are we using the media? Or are we - the participants - the medium? If so, all these Web 2.0 innovations can be deemed obsolete almost overnight. Tupperware was a big thing in the 1970s and 1980s, possibly achieving this before the term Web 1.0 was mentioned anywhere. Better still, without using any of our advanced tools.

When it comes to humans, again it leads us to wonder who’s owning social media. Some feathers were ruffled when I read some time back that social media belongs to the consumers at large. Gaurav Mishra wrote in his blog that social media belongs to nobody, not even the PR folks especially. But isn’t it a big difference realistically, watching how various PR agencies and technologists dominate the scene?

There’s one certainity nevertheless, the technology will aid us in this peer-to-peer interaction. I am secretly smiling… perhaps I made the right decision to focus less on innovations and more on usage next year.

In fact, every year has been a great year. Especially having migrated out of MySpace blogs into open-platform blogging, the things I read and the people I interact with increased by several folds. It’s always great to recall what has been done/discovered over the past year and relate to action plans the next.


WHAT HAVE I LEARN IN 2008?

1. Singapore is still metric-obsessed.
Undeniably, readership ranks above qualitative considerations. No doubt there have been a lot of preachings from all over, the deliverance says otherwise.

2. Empowering conversations.
As much as they proclaimed to conduct “conversations”, it has been far from that. The conversation primarily remained between the PR agencies and bloggers. Not that between the brands and bloggers. Conversations also require more than just showing a face at an event and a single blog post that heads nowhere.

3. Companies are interested to participate, but they are lost.
Many brands are looking towards social media but since the bulk of participants here are merely followers, there is a lack of thought leaders to guide the companies forward. This is further compromised by metric-obsession.

4. Bloggers are obsessed with fame.
Many social media participants are not adding values to the readers at large. Fame of their blogs and their identities supersede the desire to share truthful opinions. A direct effect can be seen in how companies still cannot tolerate negative sentiments because they have not been presented with the real feel from real customers.

5. Lack of responsibilities and accountabilities.
Bloggers have been caught with their pants down again and again. Especially so with ambiguous attacks, they have shown a clear indication of not wanting to be held accountable for their own publications.


WHAT I HOPE TO DO IN 2009?

1. Media law workshops.
I have yet to speak to Law Society of Singapore, but I am hoping to strike up some educational workshops for bloggers who are keen to have a clear understanding what they can do with their blogs. Topics range from defamation/slander/libel to even false advertising. Keen readers of blogs can also be educated how they can spot such deceiving acts in the blogosphere.

2. Writing & photography workshops.
Writing is the core skill of a blogger and so is photography, a keen interest shown by many bloggers. Hopefully, these will help those bloggers who would like to improve their skills. The workshops are NOT conducted by me of course.

3. Corporate education.
How can advertisers or marketers go beyond metric-obsession? The true values are not in the statistics unfortunately, even though anyone can justify it easily with these numbers.

4. Begin exploring the China’s market.
China is primarily a closed market to the rest of the world. It will be interesting to read into the social media scene in China, if there’s one. I certainly believe there is, but I have always not taken a lot of notice on it.

5. Less focus on innovation, more focus on usage.
Every month, heaps of technological tools and Web 2.0 websites are being conceptualized and launched. While it is a good thing to have a wide variety of choices, we hardly get to extract the full values of a certain tool when we moved on to a new one too quickly.

Sales-talk has become increasingly dreadful for one simple reason. The conversations often revolved around the brand and product. The conversation is all about those instead of taking greater care in discovering the customer’s immediate needs. If you’re speaking to me only from that perspective, you’re telling me you only need my money. It’s a complete breakdown between the company’s product objectives and the customer’s requirement.

When was the last time a salesperson mention nothing about the product, but spend a great deal of time asking questions about your problems? I can’t recall a lot of such experiences. Likewise in public relations, many news releases don’t provide what customers need to know.

Tailoring and customization are what companies will need to do next. Of course, it isn’t possible to custom fit all the products. We’re talking about billions of customers and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have billions of variations. Despite that, we can still be creative with the way we do selling. Being creative doesn’t mean coming up with a whole load of junk to confuse the customer. Being attentive and thinking of the needs of customers before the revenues can sometimes be more fruitful. Afterall, that is why customers are coming to you. “You are paid” to offer them a solution.

At age 17, I was working part-time with City Chain as a sales representative. It’s just another teenage part-time job that gives me a little moolah to spend over the holiday. I don’t earn a lot being a part-time staff and considering the kind of watches we are selling (compared to Patek Phillips or Rolex), it wasn’t really a lot of commission to talk about.

This humble looking man walked into the shop and wanted something as a wedding anniversary gift for himself and his wife. He wanted something addressing prestige but not too glaring in public. I didn’t put a lot of emphasis on the prestige aspect even though I knew I had a whole series of watches to recommend him. I chose to concentrate on his requirement, not wanting to attract unnecessary attention on his time-pieces. After more than 10 pairs of recommendations, he still didn’t like any. That was when I resorted to the unthinkable - the most expensive pair of watches - as my last resort. He left the store, with that pair of…

Cyma 18k Solid Gold watches with tiny diamonds on the dial.

Most sales-person would have readily served up the pricest products upon the word “prestige”. But is it what the customer really need? So often, customers also have other considerations apart from pricing. More importantly, it’s about what the customers want. I wasn’t expecting him to get that anyway, but he walked out with it. The first pair ever sold in that branch in 3 years.

And me? I laughed at my commission that month (it’s three times more than my salary) and bought another watch for my mom.

Related Read:
How did you get what you wanted?

Allow me to quote Marc Meyer’s question.

Are you ready to be human?

Before any conversation can take place, we first need to listen. As more companies attempt to reinforce their relationships with their customers, there’s a lot of noise but why are we still looking at a lot of trivial problems gone unsolved? The conversations are for formality sake, if a company fails to listen to the core messages a customer is trying to express through the unhappiness.

Recalling the short 3-weeks course I attended in Civil Service College, the topic and exercises on listening took the entire first week. Five other topics (classification and respond techniques etc) were clustered into the remaining two weeks. It just showed how much emphasis the speaker has placed in listening alone. Without listening, the subsequent conversation is less likely to address the real problem of the customer.

To fully experience that, we were made to face the mirror while relating a genuine unhappiness at one of the products we are using in our real life. It can be anything. Coming back from the lunch break, we had to face the mirror again but in the position of a marketer or customer service officer. All of us were dumb-struck as some of us conveniently omitted important details (however trivial) that were left unanswered. The exercise exposed us all shamefully. We were our own greatest enemies.

One of the worst mistakes many companies commit is pretending to listen. If patronizing the customers’ complaints solves anything, it is all but temporary. Perhaps, this explains the recurring complaints that revolve around a specific problem over time. As we know it, time and patience are extremely valuable. There will be a time when customers will eventually turn their backs. Simply, enough is enough.

Why wait until a customer walk away from you? For every customer that walks away, it takes twice or thrice the effort to bring them back. In some markets, that’s the last you would see of them. If only you had listened carefully, the problem is really not that severe afterall. How do you listen then?

Listen for content
What is your customer’s main unhappiness? You need to have a complete picture of the unhappiness and the only way to retrieve this information is when the customer tells you so. Most companies put themselves on defensive mode the second a complaint comes through the door, they have their ears literally muffed out.

Listen for other messages
Is your unhappy customer expecting something from you? Is your unhappy customer making references to your competitors’ practices? Or, is your angry customer actually giving you very precious advice on possible improvements to the product?

There’s always this underlying message hidden somewhere and you need to surface this gradually. Some customers will not tell you what they truly want and will be expecting you to make that offer instead. To them, companies are expected to readily take responsibilities and offer alternative solutions.

Summarizing
Companies are too quick with a “Yes, we can do this” and “No, we can’t do that”. Instead of taking the time to understand the problem, unhappy customers are turned away with no solutions. That is bad after-sales service in my opinion. Needless to say, offering solutions that do not solve the root problem will not appease the customer any more.

Try repeating everything from the start to the end, to the customer. This allows you to double-confirm the real problem. If you’re wrong, be assured your angry customer will point it out to you right away. You don’t even need to ask, so don’t guess.

Summarizing the emotions
What you did above was merely summarizing the facts of the issue. Most companies miserably neglect the psychological state of unhappy customers. You will also need to analyze and deal with the emotions of an unhappy customer. This is a separate issue from understanding the problem itself.

If you do not trust what I say here, try going around asking. How many customers around you are refusing to come back to you even though you have provided the solution for them? Fact is, you understood the problem but not their anger. This affects customer loyalty in the long run.

Testing the assumptions
You may have certain queries and doubts but do not shoot them off too quickly. You can be assured the angry customer will dwell even deeper in anger. They feel that you’re not listening to them and is trying to wriggle your way out of the situation. Ever noticed how your customer get even angrier even with an innocent question from you?

Allow the customer to finish their stories. Let them rant for all they want. At the back of your head, you should already be analyzing all these information and planning on your response approach.

We feel insanely tortured whenever we have to face such customers. But hey, the whole idea is that you can never avoid them. Be a friend, share a listening ear and lend them your shoulders. That’s the time they will feel that you’re truly listening to them.

Mind you, this is only listening. You’re not even responding yet!

The year of 2008 has seen a sharp rise in the number of blogger events compared to 2007. I seriously meant EVENTFUL as bloggers are seen in all kinds of corporate and media events. I may have doubted the genuine objectives of some events, but the movement to engage consumers at large is ever growing.

Therefore, I am not keen to read too much into predictions. What I can offer though, is the progresses and improvements I hope to see in the coming year.

Qualitative over quantitative
It’s easy to bring in a whole bunch of people to flash your product, but many times harder to bring in a series of interactions that empowers you to build a rapport with your customers. Many PR agencies and companies are still dwelling in the pits with metric-obsession and their expenditures could be better placed in SEO or web advertising services.

Companies will always prefer opinion leaders through such events. Some of you call them influencers. It will be more beneficial for companies to spend more effort studying bloggers and take a deep consideration if they are indeed opinion leaders. The eventual bloggers will/should bring your brand alive.

Clear objectives
I have long grown sick of reading hullabaloo about how committed companies are to talking with consumers. Fact is, they’re not even anywhere close to who their real customers are. So, quit all the funky words. The objectives should be clearly described in the invitations. If your true intention is publicizing your new product, don’t even attempt to bluff your way through with appreciating whoever it is. Especially in where I am, web traffic overrules content quality.

Open communication
I shared a short example of controversial differing viewpoints made openly in my blog and the subsequent private email previously. Too many people are advocating “private settlements” instead of an open and transparent conversation. This solution sends a major doubt on what’s so hideous and pretentious that cannot be discussed openly, especially when there is an important message that is needed to be conveyed to the mass. When customers are able to see your dedication to conversations, it tells them you are always available to be engaged. Here’s a superb case study of how open communication is done. Imagine how nasty it will get if it wasn’t conducted this way.

Matt Rhodes of Fresh Networks touched on showing that companies do listen and focus on the needs of customers, so I am not going to repeat it here.

Customer service engagement
Noticed how many companies started their blogs only to end up with a statement that says no request for assistance should be made in them? I figured a blog is one of the most ready tools to be reaching out to customers who are facing problems with your products or services.

This is no excuse for any official corporate blogs seriously. If you’re updating your blog regularly, you are deemed to be reading the comments left by readers enthusiastically too. If you decide to let a call for assistance go unattended in your blog, it only means your company can’t bring itself to go the extra mile to keep customers happy. If your competitor can accomplish this, I feel sorry for you in 2009.

Leading as mentors
Especially so for PR practitioners, they should adopt the role of mentoring instead of stooping down into “political warfares” as initiated by a small handful of bloggers. In the arena where bloggers are vying to be invited for blogger events, all the more it is important for the hosts to step out and restore order. Being involved in such games will not help you build rapport with customers or with the bloggers’ readers, it only damages your brand.

Putting your foot down when it matters tell customers you are in control and believes in what you do. To improve on this one step further, avoid engaging one single blogger and leaving the entire invite engagement to that blogger. If a certain attendee does not fit into the demographics you are looking to reach out to, do not feel obligated even if they are close friends.