Nokia's Blog for Bloggers - Advertising's Future

Sometimes you get tired of reading about everything that companies get wrong - so it's great when you come across a company that tries to get it right.  Shel Holtz over at A Shel of My Former Self writes that big companies (i.e. the Walmart/Edelman controversy) do have the right to engage in blogosphere conversations by presenting their viewpoint to sympathetic bloggers.  I agree with him, but what caught my eye in his post was his mention of the Nokia Nseries N90 Blogger Relations Blog Site which Holtz says...

...establishes complete transparency because it’s a publicly accessible blog that lists all the material available to those bloggers who agreed to participate in the product launch’s blogger relations effort. 

Nokia's effort here for this video phone is remarkable - an example of a company 's well thought-out approach to bloggers.  Paul Gillin's blog - Social Media and the Open Enterprise (1/2/06) said:   

Nokia took an innovative approach toward engaging bloggers in this program. Some 50 influential bloggers were selected to get N90 phones and review packages and 22 have posted reviews so far, which is a remarkable percentage only five weeks into the program.

Guy Howard at Hill&Knowlton's Netcoms recognized how Nokia went beyond just including bloggers in their marketing efforts:

The key innovation was giving them a blogging space packed with member-only resources which would help to amplify the reach of their blogs and facilitate the development of comment and citation networks both between them and with the wider blogging community. As well as getting access to new gear, the bloggers are clearly benefiting from the information and interaction fostered by the blogger relations blog. (Not to mention the increased traffic.)

And Oliver Starr, at The Mobile Technology Weblog spoke up for the belief in product that Nokia shows with their outreach:

First of all, when sending something like these phones to hard core geeks, you'd better be awfully confident that your product is exceptional... not a one of us would sully our reputation by giving an undeserved glowing review; if there are things about these devices that we don't dig, you can count on reading about it....

Andy Abramson, the blogger and Marketing/PR guy who runs this program for Nokia, told Gillin that he's learned some lessons from this campaign:

1. Choose bloggers carefully - Nokia had hundreds of bloggers to choose from but narrowed the field down to 50 by researching those who were the most prolific writers and who had the largest number of links from the community. Calling this "more art than science," Abramson said the key is finding people who are passionate, prolific and popular with their peers.
2. Don't insult their intelligence - Bloggers know their stuff, so treating them like newbies will blow up in your face. In fact, bloggers generally understand technology better than their counterparts at trade publications, so don't insult them by talking down to them or following up frequently with empty questions. Give them the equipment and the fact sheets and let them go to work.
3. Be transparent - Nokia committed early on to publishing a summary of and a link every blog entry about the N90, whether it was good or bad. The company stuck to its promise. The blogger section of its site indexes every blogger entry, regardless of tone.
4. Be responsive - This is a near-real-time medium and bloggers expect to get quick answers to their questions. Your staff needs to be available nearly 24X7 to handle inquiries. You can't put people off for a day or two. They won't tolerate it.

This is the future for advertising and marketing and public relations.  These fields are merging.   The product is reviewed by influencers in small communities, the company gets points for not hiding anything negative, and the consumer feels that these peer reviews are more trustworthy than any one-way marketing effort.  As Oliver Starr wrote, Nokia deserves "...endless praise (not only for having the wisdom to choose a phone phanatic like me) but for creating a promotional modality that is certain to do far more for the Nokia brand and the recognition and sale of these extraordinary phones than sending thousands of them to the popular press."