New Feature: Pre-Approval

We have launched a new feature for advertisers called pre-approval.

Why pre-approval and what is it?

One goal Snapbomb has is to ensure high quality.  Advertisers should get high quality posts and bloggers should get paid more because their posts are high quality. 

The challenge is to define what high quality is - an impossible task as a matter of fact. That is because everyone's perception of quality is different. 

The way to solve this dilemma is to give advertisers "a feel" of what the blogger's style is. Pre-approval adds a step in the Snapbomb process:

1. Bloggers now request to write
   
2. The advertiser gets notified and can review the blog (look at writing style, content, etc.)
3. The advertiser approves or rejects the request

..the rest works exactly as before. 

The feature is available in the advertiser campaign dashboard (check box, when creating a campaign). Blogs that apply to post are listed in the campaign dashboard and can be approved/rejected right there. 

What will be the effect of this feature? Hopefully it will lead to more satisfied advertisers (because they can control the quality of their campaigns) which will lead to more campaigns which will make the bloggers happy! 

Happy blogging!

Blogging for Profit

If you haven't seen Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 report yet you should certainly take a look - it is packed with interesting data.

One important point that captured my interest was that "there is a general sense that blogs are being taken more seriously as information sources." Readers are finding blogs that they believe are not only trustworthy but that also satisfy their content needs. That used to be a domain reserved for mainstream media only. In the past, if I wanted to learn about technology trends, I would buy a magazine. Now, I check my favorite blogs.

So are blogs the new magazines? Content-wise there are definite similarities - magazines went down the path of extreme specialization to capture niche markets; blogs are doing the same - the web is ideally suited to serve any type of niche.

But what about the business model? Magazines live primarily off advertising which pays for magazine production and journalists' salaries. In the blogosphere I am seeing that the biggest blogs tend to be part of blog networks. Blog networks work in a similar way to magazines: managing the advertising centrally for many domains and using the income to hire bloggers or journalists to create content.

What surprised me in the Technorati report was that nearly half the blogger population don't actually use advertising. Of those that do, the primary type is search ads or banner ads with only 6% earning money with paid postings.

There is a clear parallel between how interstitial advertising appears in magazines and how it will take the same form in blogs. I believe that interstitial advertising in blogs (a.k.a "paid postings" or "advertorial") are still in their infancy. Two important criteria need to be met to make this form of blog advertising successful: 1) the blogger needs to have 100% control of the editorial content and 2) the topic and the blog have to be a good match. As one blogger correctly put it in the report: “I could only endorse something I was really passionate about that might benefit one of my causes.” I would argue that if the blogger is passionate about the topic, the post will be valuable to the readers.

I predict a couple of trends: The percentage of bloggers that embrace advertising will continuously grow, especially due to technology that a) makes advertising simple to adopt and b) ensures that the content of the ad fits well with the blog topic. Also, as the technology that enables paid postings evolves, more and more advertisers will add this new advertising channel to their standard portfolio.

I can't wait to see next year's report where we will see huge growth of bloggers that adopt paid postings!

Bloggers Wanted!

Snapbomb has been growing extremely fast and we now have a ton of great writing opportunities for bloggers.

The process is simple - just log in to Snapbomb.com, add your blogs, then click on the Find an Opportunity link. Select an opportunity that matches your area of expertise and start blogging!

Here are some examples of what you can write about:

• Are you computer savvy and know the value of a good backup system? Sign up for the RAID backup campaign.


• Do you like skiing? Check out this campaign about skiing in Whistler, Canada.
  


• Are you an entertainment fanatic? Write about celebrity weddings or the Cannes Film Festival.
  

These are just a few examples of many. What are you waiting for? Start writing now and get rewarded for your hard work!

Are Blogs the New Media?

The growth of blogs over the past several years has been nothing short of phenomenal and there are no signs that it's slowing down. An estimated 50% of the US population reads blogs at least once per month and that number is growing. Are blogs the new media? We sure think so and here's why:

"The number of people creating blogs in the US will reach over 35 million by 2012—roughly 16% of the Internet population."

"More importantly, by 2012, more than 145 million people—67% of the US Internet population—will be reading blogs at least once a month. That is up from a readership of 94 million in 2007, or 50% of Internet users."

"A big factor driving the increases is the niche orientation of the blogosphere," says Mr. Verna, eMarketer senior analyst. There really is a blog for every interest which makes the reach of the blogosphere MUCH bigger than any mainstream media. For instance, how often do you see articles about insects in your daily newspaper?

"Furthermore," adds Mr. Verna, "the rates at which blog readers notice and click on ads suggest that they are a well-primed audience."

Snapbomb customers have seen great click through rates (we have seen it in our own marketing efforts too) and not only are the click through rates high, but after a visitor clicks to the site, the conversion rates are also very high.

Source: eMarketer

Elements of a Good Blog Post

A good quality post is important to ensure that bloggers get a good feedback rating. But what exactly is a good post?

Here are some basic pointers to a good post:

1. Read the campaign description well, do your own research and write your own words - don't copy and paste! I always suggest to write around 200 words or more.
   
   
2. Use correct language. Some advertisers have disputed posts because of incorrect use of language - you should be fluent in the language you post in
   
   
3. Go easy on the links. Putting lots of links into a short blog post looks like spam. Make sure you have a reasonable amount of links - either follow the campaign description guidelines or if the amount of links is not mentioned got with the motto: less is more! One link is the minimum, more than 5 is probably too much.
   
   
4. Use pictures - images make a blog post look professional.
   

If you have any other comments on what ensures a good quality post, please add them here!

Expand the Reach of Your Press Releases

Press Releases are a great way to share information with customers, prospective customers and shareholders about new things going on at your company. Press Releases are generally distributed to news media and other publications so that these news services and publications can then publish the press release to their readers/viewers. The problem today is that more and more people are using blogs to get their news, not the newspaper or from TV.

Newspaper readership has been declining significantly in recent years with an expected 50 million daily readers this year, the lowest it's been in 60 years. While blog readership has grown by leaps and bounds with an estimated 57 million people reading blogs as of 2006, overtaking newspaper readership. This trend is expected to continue.


So how can you reach these people that get their news online through blogs? One way to do this is via Snapbomb Blog Marketing. You can get your Press Release distributed on thousands of blogs very easily. It only takes a few minutes to setup a press campaign and you'll start seeing results immediately.

It's Pay Day!

Today is another pay day for our Snapbomb bloggers and it's by far our biggest to date. We will be paying our wonderful bloggers thousands of dollars today. A big thanks goes out to our Advertisers and our Bloggers for making the past two and a half months since we launched such an overwhelming success.