Blogger engagement case studies

By tids

By Simon van Wyk

Following on from last week’s post about blogger engagement, here are summaries and/or links to some case studies of successful blogger engagement programs and campaigns. We’ll also post House Party’s case studies over the coming months.

HP: (Case study summarised from the book “Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications”) The computer behemoth enjoyed a 10% increase in PC sales in one month simply by leveraging the blogging community to promote its HDX Dragon computer system in 2008. HP sent a new computer system to 31 bloggers it had identified as influential to their business, offering to let them give the computers away in competitions among their readers.

    digital_strategies

    hp

The massive online conversations across the blogosphere that resulted from these competitions lifted the sales of the HDX Dragon (which had been released nine months’ previously and was languishing in sales) by 85% compared with previous average monthly sales, and traffic to hp.com also jumped 15 per cent in one month. Despite speculation that HP paid off the bloggers, the company has insisted that the only investment for the campaign was the cost of the 31 computer systems. As the case study points out, “These percentages… verify the influence bloggers have over target audiences; HP’s skill in identifying the one who would create the biggest ‘bang for their buck’ (or lack thereof) illustrates the value in digital media relations.”

NEAT Receipts: The makers of this handheld scanner for businesses realised that they had a hidden market in the home, and developed a strategy to crack the popular “mommy bloggers” market. Like HP, it’s another instance where a company decided to reach out to bloggers by giving them products to offer their readers as part of a competition. Read the full case study.

    neatreceipts

H&R Block: Prominent social media blogger Jason Falls tells about his encounter with the tax return franchise, via Twitter, email and YouTube. He writes: “H&R Block not only gets the outreach part of it, but has figured out a way to be 100-percent, totally marketing/advertising to people using social media tools and somehow pull it off.” Read the full case study.

hrblock

CBS Television: Another blogger outreach program aimed at mommy bloggers, this time about a time slot change for a television show, “The New Adventures of Old Christine”. Read the full case study.

cbs

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,