FOOA and BlogAds

Henry Copeland (Blogads) ‘Cracking the blogosphere – the secret to successful blog advertising’

Been around since 2002. In 2002, Hiawatha Bray stated that blogging was an ephemeral fad that would burn out in a year or two. Looking at the 04 presidential campaign, blogs hit the MSM.

Political blog readers – 70% are ‘roper influentials’. they are fanatic; they read blogs btw 8-11 hours a week (at work ;-) )

Today, you have multiple touchpoints, media monopolies are not there, you have media swarms, Info travels in nanoseconds. Chris Locke says that advertising is now a cocktail party – you can’t broadcast, you have to join the conversation.

Smart ads – multiple links, cool image, faux video, hand-made feel, puzzle invites click. Bad ads – no links, dull text heavy image, tell rather than show, feels designed, full story negates click, We’ve run both.

the blog revolution is first person, real time, handcrafted, passionate, cohesive and iterative…and the advertising needs to be the same

Audience Q&A

Q: comparison with Federated Media?
A: different verticals, we’re not venture funded.

Q: Opinion on authenticity of payperpost
A: authentically inauthentic. I’m a little sad, that we mix in undisclosed advertising. i always thought that bloggers would support journalism…information and I don;t like the paid approach.

Q: do you do creative/campaign?
A: we’ll talk to everyone. there are certain agencies that get this stuff, we are a DIY model so you can do the small stuff and the agency stuff.

Q: You can’t control blog content….is this a high risk strategy for blogging
A: Feedburner provides control; we tell brands that this is where people are. It is an influential chunk of people that are alienated by advertising and you can ignore or join in. Understand your market. We have plenty of people who are comfortable with it and celebrate it

Q: does advertising affect the readership and the quality of blog?
A: we let users pick the ads..and they can also (and do) comment on the ads.

Q: how do you charge?
A: we do time based sponsorship, for a period of time.