Starting immediately, we’ll be handling all communications for the Napoleon Perdis brand including hero range, Napoleon Perdis prestige, as well as masstige offering, NP Set. Our scope of work will include media relations; consumer trial and engagement; sponsorship negotiation, leverage and management; celebrity and ambassador programs; social media and event management.

To say we’re excited would be a massive understatement!

RC/ How has blogging changed for you in the past year?

HY/ I find myself busier than ever, especially as my site, Grab Your Fork, has opened up a range of professional writing opportunities.  I now have my own column in Time Out Sydney covering hidden suburban eats in Sydney - a theme which ties in neatly with my philosophy of appreciating good food in all its varying forms and price ranges.  I was also responsible for writing the reviews for the just-published Food Lovers Guide to Chinatown, a free booklet designed to showcase Chinatown, as part of the City of Sydney’s new promotional campaign called Asia on Your Doorstep. 

RC/ Are you still working full-time and blogging on the side?

HY/ I continue to work full-time, maintaining the blog after hours and most often into the early hours of the morning.  Whilst I’d love to blog full-time, my day job is essential for paying the bills!  I’m blogging a little less often than last year, pershaps 3-4 posts a week rather than 5-7, and I’m forever trying to tackle a backlog of posts.

RC/ Has the acceptance of food blogging grown in the media?

HY/ I’d like to think so. I think that in the past, food blogs were too often dismissed as trivial or lacking credibility or credentials.  What media can’t dismiss is their growing influence, particularily as their visual format and personal writing style can attract thousands of loyal readers every day.  There is often an idea floated that bloggers see themselves as a threat or alternative to traditional print media.  I don’t think this is necessarily the case.  I believe that blog content complements, not replaces, commercial media outlets. What is interesting to see is how media outlets have themselves adapted their communication channels to incorporate many of the social aspects of blogging, e.g. adding comment functions to online articles and maintaining Twitter and Facebook accounts to provide a more personalised and interactive approach. 

RC/ What changes have you seen in the food blogger community over the past year?

HY/ The community continues to grow in leaps and bounds every year.  I maintain a list of active Sydney food blogs - 2008 saw the birth of 30 new food blogs; in 2009 that number more than doubled to 70. The explosion of food blogs means there is more content out there than ever before, covering a whole range of topics such as cooking, restaurant reviews, nutrition, travel and chefs.

RC/ Has there been any food blogger community events or initiatives?

HY/ The most fantastic aspect about the food blogger community is how tight-knit and supportive it can be.  Starting out as a new voice in the blogosphere is often daunting.  Fellow food bloggers recognise the importance of comments that provide both feedback and reassurance that yes, people are reading and appreciating your content!

Whilst we often interact with each other online, socialising face-to-face is always fun and more rewarding.  Together with food blogger Chocolatesuze, I organised a food bloggers’ Christmas picnic in December 2009 that was attended by over 50 Sydney food bloggers. Billy, from A Table For Two,  also organised a meet-up at a pub in the city that was attended by over 30 local food bloggers in April this year.  It can be hard trying to find suitable location, but it’s always fun to put faces to names, and find out a little more about the people behind the food blogs we read.

A big thanks to Helen for this interview.  If you’ve got any thoughts or comments on this interview please share them; we’d love to hear from you.

Posted by Renee Creer

It has been just over a year since Stellar* hosted a Food Blogger and PR Professionals’ Meet Up which resulted in this 15 Tips for Blogger Relations post.  A lot can happen in a month let alone a year, so I was keen to catch up with one of our panellists, Helen Yee from Grab Your Fork, to get an update and some tips and to hear what’s been happening in food blogger land.  This is a two part interview; the second part will be posted tomorrow.

RC/ Do you think PR people have improved their knowledge and understanding of how to work with food bloggers?

HY/ I’ve definitely noticed a change. There will always be a few incidents where approaches are less than desirable.  The successful PR agencies are the ones that recognise the personal nature of food blogging, and that these sites are maintained out of passion and as a labour of love.

RC/ What’s the biggest mistake PR professionals’ still make when approaching food bloggers?

HY/ Presuming that we need or want their content.  Unlike traditional media outlets, food blogs do not have blank spaces they are trying to fill with content.  Bloggers publish one post at a time - the headline story is the only story and this is why unique and interesting content is so essential.

RC/ Do you have any new insights or advice for PR people wanting to work with food bloggers?

HY/ It’s essential that PR agencies be familiar with food blogs and how bloggers communicate.  We do not expect you read every post, but it does not take long to flick through a few posts, identify the content focus or priorities, observe the writing style, and note the interaction with readers.  In many ways food bloggers are like columnists - people read them not just for their news, but their personality and opinions as well.  This dynamic plays a huge role in the type of content food bloggers will choose to feature.  Astute PR people will identify propositions that match a blogger’s values and interests and that are newsworthy for their readers.

Once you’ve done this preliminary research, a personalised approach is logical and easy.  Note that mass emails with automated address fields can be detected a mile away. If you’re going to address an email personally, make sure you get person’s name and blog name correct, otherwise don’t bother.  Take some time to tailor an opening paragraph or two.  Be friendly, honest and genuine. It makes a huge difference.

The personalised approach of blog content is often what underlies the appeal for blog readers and the perception of blogger integrity is vital.  PR people should not expect a guarantee of content after an experience or product dispatch.  If a blogger loves something, they will write about it, with candidness and fervour.

Food blogs are written and maintained, for the most part, by sole individuals as an after-hours hobby.  These are people who are working full-time or studying, but they come home, turn on their computer and edit photos, write posts, respond to comments and answer reader emails because they enjoy food and they want to share their love with others.  A blog is not just a regurgitation of random content - it’s people’s thoughts, lives, hearts and souls published online for the world to read!  Writing a post takes anywhere from one hour to eight hours and bloggers do this for free.

RC/ What kinds of opportunities and experiences are food bloggers looking for?

HY/ Food bloggers are always looking for engaging content that will spark conversations or comment by readers.  This might be an invitation to a food-related experience, a behind-the-scenes opportunity, receipt of relevant products or the chance to interview a personality or chef.  Bloggers are more likely to be interested in a new, interactive or personalised experience.  In addition, the opportunity for a blogger to take their own photos cannot be forgotten either.

It’s also worth remembering that whilst the number of food bloggers has grown exponentially, many blog readers tend to visit large patches of the food blogging circuit.  As the blogosphere becomes saturated, duplication of content will become a bigger issue and exclusive or customised propositions will offer greater appeal.

RC/ What’s the best PR / brand led experience or opportunity you’ve had in the last year?

HY/ There have been a few notable experiences but the most memorable was attending the Tasting Australia event in Adelaide as a guest of South Australian Tourism.  It was an exciting event that featured noted chefs from Australia and around the world, all congregating in a celebration of food.  The event culminated in the presentation of the World Food Media Awards.  What I appreciated most about this experience was being treated as part of the general media contingent. This meant access to the media room and facilities and being hosted for regional tours and restaurant dinners.

Other noteworthy events included attending the Wellington on a Plate Food Festival in New Zealand (Wellington Tourism); taking part in a MasterClass hosted by Tetsuya Wakuda (Openhaus); and visiting the Emirates luxury resort at Wolgan Valley (Professional Public Relations).

Part 2 of this interview is here.

Posted by Renee Creer.

If you feel like a social media island at your work the good news is that tomorrow is your day because Sydney (and the world) is having a Social Media Day. It’s essentially the world’s first unified day that celebrates online communities and a chance for social media champions to get together, share a drink, and tell war stories about fighting the good fight to make the world a better and more connected, social place. 

The folks at Mashable came up with the global idea and Australia’s Laurel Papworth, social media strategist, has turned event manager to organise proceedings which will be held at ivy.

In Sydney, visiting BBC journalist and social media expert, Euan Semple, will be sharing his knowledge and expertise around introducing social media tools into large, successful organisation such as Nokia, The World Bank and NATO.

The worldwide event has drawn interest from over 8000 people across 86 countries, with nearly 500 worldwide events taking place tomorrow.  Attendees will use the hash tag #smday on Flickr, YouTube and Twitter.

When: Wednesday, 30 June at 6.30pm

Where: Ivy Ballroom at 320-330 George Street

How: RSVP to MeetUp here / Follow on Twitter / Join Facebook

Posted by Renee Creer

Somewhere along the way I forgot this fact about Facebook but Paul Borrud, Facebook’s Australasia boss man, reminded me last week at a breakfast conference.  And it’s a lucrative business, one that will make Facebook $605 million this year according to a report by eMarketer, as described by Brian Solis.

During Paul’s one hour presentation he covered off some current user stats and reiterated their mission (…give people the power to share and make the world a more open and connected place) but it was more interesting to hear about the direction of interactive advertising on the platform.

Facebook has always advocated ads that blend into the overall content experience and are not disruptive. Aside from the basic template ’self service’ ads that you can create in a matter of minutes, Paul showed some very cool, interactive examples of how to connect with consumers in really targeted, relevant ways.

Through their work with brands, Facebook found that there was a ten fold increase in the success of an ad when it included interactive or viral extensions.  Also, when the names of friends appear in an ad, engagement with that ad increases almost 70 per cent.  So, do anything that’s more than just ‘a click’ and you’re guaranteed much greater success.

Paul also described ’sampling ads’, which I think are pretty exciting.  Example 1: you’re a young female and you’re engaged - let’s call you Hayley.  Hayley logs onto Facebook and sees an ad from wedding venue Doltone House in Pyrmont.  She notices that her friends, Melinda and Gabby, also ‘Like’ Doltone House so she clicks on the ad.  A larger pop up ad appears telling her that Doltone House can post a detailed brochure with venue and catering guides if she enters her address.  She does and the brochure arrives a week later.  Job done.

Example 2:  You run a local Tea House near a university.  You decide to use Facebook ads to target 18-24 year old female tea drinkers who are at univeristy because you know that tea and hitting the books go hand-in-hand.  You offer a two cup sampling pack to people who click on your ad and type in their address. This creates opportunities for both trial and long term relationship building.

In a perfect world all brands would do this because it’s efficient and clever, but I believe there is a heafty minimum spend for Facebook’s advanced interactive advertising which could price smaller players out of the game.

I’m on the look out for interactive ad examples; if you’ve seen any great ones let me know.

Posted by Renee Creer 

We’re almost half way through 2010 so we thought we’d pause and give you a quick update on some new client wins as we’ve recently welcomed a number of news brands into the fold, including:

• Valeant Pharmaceuticals and their brands Dr.LeWinn’s, Revitanail, Juice Beauty and Juice Organics
• IGA, the dynamic group of independently owned supermarkets
• SapientNitro, the global customer experience company and creators of the multi-award winning Best Job in the World campaign
• gizmo, the category leader in home computer help and a BRW Fast Starter 2009 company
• OfferMe, Australia’s first group buy website which harnesses the power of collective buying online
• The Australian Festival of Chamber Music’s Chefs in the North and Taste of Townsville events

Image by David Reece

For now, I’m writing this post from a brand perspective and first, let’s get straight that Brand/Business Pages are now called Official Pages.  Just to clarify:

• Official Pages are maintained by an ’authorised representative’ of a business, brand, celebrity, or organisation and shared content appears as news in individual News Feeds
• Community Pages (see further below) are new and don’t generate stories in individual News Feeds, and they are not maintained by a single author, they are maintained by Facebook in association with Wikipedia

Official Pages - say goodbye to ‘fans’ and hello to ’others / likers’
Official Pages will no longer amass fans, people will now just ‘like’ Pages. Facebook says this is a more lightweight way to connect on the platform (…and they are rolling out the ‘like’ concept across the broader internet).  Page wall options now show the brand name and ‘others’ instead of fans (I hate this).  You’ll notice also that Facebook is changing their language by focussing on ‘making connections’ across the platform. Connections are pitched as the main way you express youself on Facebook. Personally, I’ll be sticking to calling people fans because saying “You have 3000 likers this week Mr Client” sounds naff.

I see both positivies and negatives to this move.  Being a fan, I think, has more meaning than just liking something.  I personally prefer to identify as a fan - it implies a certain level of passion.  I’m a fan to only a few brands that I really love but I imagine I could like a bunch of brands with less committment or interest - I suppose that’s the point from Facebook’s perspective.  This said, I won’t be liking more Pages because I don’t want my News Feed overflowing with brand info. On the flip side it might reduce brand obsession with the number of fans they have and allow Page owners /admins to focus more on interactions rather than the race for a larger fan base.

Promotions on Official Pages - not any more
In November last year Facebook released their promotion guidelines for brands using the platform. Prior to the guidelines Facebook was a veritable ‘free for all’ in which brands could run giveaways, competitions, contest and promotions however they chose.  Competitions are a win-win on Facebook because punters get free stuff and brands get spikes in their fan base, as well as interaction.

I read the new guidelines very closely, many times over, and afterwards reflected on the fact that lawyers and tech nerds should not write documents for the greater public.  Over at Ogilvy’s blog Kristin Parrish provides a great interpretation of the guidelines but in short, you can’t run promotions on Facebook in any shape or form; you need a third party application to do it for you.  Alternatively, you can hold a competition outside of Facebook and talk about it on Facebook but you cant use the platform in any way to administer the competition.  The recommended app is great, but it means you need money and preparation time, you can’t just run a quick and dirty giveaway at the drop of a hat - if you want that, head to Twitter.

However, some brands (heaps actually) are still running competitions without the app that don’t adhere to the new guidelines. As I commented on Julian’s blog recently, I can’t figure out if this is ignorance or cunning because brands risk their Pages being disabled without warning.  It does happen and good luck trying to get the Page back - if you’ve ever tried to contact Facebook you’d understand why.

Community Pages - what are they?
The idea is that Community Pages are created around topics, causes or experiences (i.e. cooking or cycling). They are said to be the best collection of shared knowledge on a topic (note: I had to use TechCrunch’s examples because when I looked for Community Pages in Facebook I couldn’t find any as Facebook hasn’t updated its search functionality to show them).

Community Pages apparently allow you to learn more (without you having to leave the platform… clever) and hear what others are saying about a topic.  A key distinction is that the content comes from Wikipedia and people can’t edit or add their own content.  Facebook says that “we update the information and profile picture based on the article for that topic in Wikipedia.”

So you can’t actually do or say anything on Community Pages.  There is no wall but if you happen to mention ‘cooking’ in your chit-chat on the platform, Facebook picks that up and adds it to the Page via a ‘Related Global Post’ feed. This feature enables you to ”see what people are saying about the things that matter to you, and discover the friends and people who share these connections with you.”  Nice in theory but it doesn’t seem very community minded if you can’t interact.  I’m not sure I totally get it but I am sure this new addition is a ‘work in progress’ which will somehow be appealing to advertisers.

Overall, this move is designed to stem the flow of people setting up Official Pages around general topics which breaks Facebook’s Page Guidelines.  Check out Silk Charm’s recent post about Facebook shutting down these Pages.

That’s enough for now but I’ll highlight some of the other (maybe scary?) changes Facebook has just announced in a subsequent post.

Posted by Renee Creer

1. Spark

A mapping tool that uses GoogleMaps technology to create, define, and manage collections of geographically located data sets. Once a collection has been defined you can choose to share your map with others, either privately via a Spark login or more widely via a public web address.

2. Compfight

A search engine for visual inspiration and free stock photos for the advertising community including images of creative commons and public domain.

3. Pageflakes

A social personalised homepage where you can easily customise the internet and make it yours using ‘flakes’ – small, movable versions of all of your web favorites that you can arrange on your personal homepage.

4. Feedly

Bit like Pageflakes, this one organises your favourite sites into a fun, magazine-like start page.

5. How Sociable

Type in a brand name and see how visible it is on the internet then click through to the mentions / sites.

6. TubeMogul

Upload a video once and TubeMogul will deploy it to one or all of the top video and social networking sites, plus it will track real-time viewership, performance and engagement analytics with what they call ‘InPlay’.

7. Mention Map

A visulisation tool that maps mentions on Twitter via users and hashtags. Type your name in and see the connections unfold.

8. Visual Complexity

A resource space for anyone interested in the visualisation of complex networks - from the genealogy of rock to social, political, transport, food or terrist networks.  Useful tool for presentations.

9. Personas

A tool that shows how the internet sees you.  Type in your name and watch the magic (or the horror) unfold - it’s known for it’s inadvertent errors.  Interesting if you don’t have a generic name.

Posted by Renee Creer

Grill’d v Nandos

Burger chain Grill’d recently published a 2-for-1 burger offer in the Uni Times publication meant to be exclusively for Uni Times readers, however this was not in the T&Cs.  Electronic versions of the offer did the email rounds and Grill’d were inundated with people trying to redeem. Grill’d wouldn’t redeem electronic vouchers which upset many customers and lead them to clarify the situation on their blog. Seeing the opportunity, Nandos released a statement titled ‘we don’t care where your vouchers come from just come on in’ and capatalised on the situation by redeeming any Grill’ed vouchers - printed or otherwise. Read more about it in Mumbrella or on Nando’s blog.  Props to poor Grill’d who openly admitted the situation was a ‘complete debacle’ on their blog. On the up side there’s now of bunch of people who have a new awareness of the brand.

City of Pocket v City of Sydney

The owners of Pocket Bar on Burton Street in Sydney have seen an opportunity to ease the pain of getting fined. The Pocket Optimism Act works like this: when you recieve a parking fine, a toll notice or any other stupid fine take it to Pocket Bar within a week of getting it and they’ll give you 20 per cent off your total bill.  Pocket Bar says ‘with Pocket Optimism we are bringing the fun back into living; breathing life into little annoying things.’ Great idea, a nice kicker for customers and a great incentive to drop in.

So there’s an opportunity that came from competitors and one that came from customers above.  What are the dark clouds of your brand’s competitors or customers and how can you be the silver lining?

Posted by Renee Creer

Lucky for us, people (with a penchant for laborious tasks) like to rank bloggers on lists, which is great if you’d like a short cut to the cream of the crop. For example, Australia has some cracking bloggers who can be found here:

Top 100 Australian Blogs
Top 100 Australian Women Bloggers
Top 129 Marketing Blogs

Also see The Australian Index Blog Directory for bloggers listed in different categories.

For top blogs from all countries try the Ad Age Power 150 and Technorati’s Top 100. Or, if you’re looking for the best American bloggers (…I think they’re all team USA) by topic try Post Ranks’ Top Bloggers 2009 list. This is a great list to browse. There are three categories:

1/ Most Engagement… stuff that’s very very engagement
The blogger in each topic who received the overall highest engagement total over the course of the year (Congratulations Brian Solis - my personal PR hero - who topped the list for PR. He’s coming out in April for Connect Now).

2/ Most Influential
The blogger in each topic who received the highest average engagement with posts over the course of the year (Brian won again for PR. Yep, he’s pretty good).

3/ Biggest Mover & Shaker
The blogger in each topic whose engagement grew the most over the course of the year (Damn it Brian! At least leave something for the rest of us to fight over).

As the results show, if you’ve got anything to do with PR or you want to know anything about PR you need to know Brian’s blog. The man is a blogging machine. In the first 18 days of 2010 he bashed out 13 posts on a variety of topics, including a post written on New Year’s Day (…if I had of written a post on New Year’s Day it would have come out in hieroglyphics).

Finally, if you have burning questions about the Blogosphere check out Technorati’s annual State of the Blogosphere report. Or if you’re wondering how to keep up with all these busy bloggers, you need a Google Reader, which is simply explained In Plain English.

Posted by Renee Creer