I was wondering recently how we can reach out to those local blogs and get to know them, learn their challenges and see if they would have any interest in  using information our agency provides  to add content or value to their own website. Upon searching I found that there isn’t a great list of these local Puget Sound  area blogs,  so I put one together:

http://westseattleblog.com

http://seattle.metblogs.com/

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/

http://friendsofseattle.typepad.com/

http://www.citizenrain.com/

http://beaconhill.seattle.wa.us/

http://publicola.net/

http://seattlest.com/

http://orphanroad.com

http://seattletransitblog.com

http://hugeasscity.com/

http://lakecitylive.net/
http://www.thenewp2.com/

http://phinneyridge.org/

http://www.phinneywood.com/

http://seattlepostglobe.org/

http://www.belltownpeople.com/

http://www.eastlakeave.com/

http://www.thesouthlake.com/

http://www.columbiacityblog.com/

http://www.centraldistrictnews.com/

http://www.b-townblog.com/

http://www.magnoliavoice.com/

http://www.fremontuniverse.com/

http://www.queenanneview.com/

http://www.myballard.com/

 

Olympia area:
http://www.everydayolympia.com/

Olympia Power and Light

 

 

Thanks to http://twitter.com/king5seattle for their thorough local blog twitter list: http://twitter.com/KING5Seattle/blogs/members

 

Have others?  Let me know

I unsubscribed to cable several years ago and have recently been watching a bit of TV online through sites like Hulu and NBC.com.  This experience has shown me that there is an incredibly missed opportunity for advertisers. They have been trying to put the “tv commercial” experience on the internet to sponsor shows.

Unfortunately, by sponsoring a show, what they end up doing is showing the same commercial over and over (that was most likely prepared for TV and tossed on this other medium).

While watching the latest 30 Rock last night I saw the same commercial three times for one episode!   (I don’t even remember the commercial or the advertisers name because I was so annoyed by it.)  I don’t want to see the same commercial over and over, it pushes me to find the mute button as quickly as I can on my laptop keyboard.

Instead, why not offer something more engaging,  perhaps a story with three parts, comic strip style.   Keep me engaged with a story with some suspense, intrigue something that will keep my attention on your brand rather than just showing the same repetitious information.

Anyone see online ads they actually liked? Who will be the first to get this medium and use it to really engage an audience?

Come on advertisers it’s your move.

What is it missing you ask?  Local knowledge, and real time route mapping changes aka; the detour.

I work for the Washington State Department of Transportation and often we have to close roads for construction.   We put out the message of these closures through every avenue we can, however the one missing tool that we don’t have access to is the in car mapping or navigation systems.

Over the course of the last couple of years the agency has been working on constructing a new Hood Canal bridge.   During this construction, the bridge had a six week closure in June of 2009.  This closure was put into every media channel we had an outlet to.  Posted on Web sites, blogs, TV stations and we even publicly challenged Google, Mapquest and Bing to change their driving directions during the closure through Twitter (only Mapquest responded and made the change on their navigation and driving directions map, kudos to their team).

One of the audiences we found that was most difficult to reach during this closure were those who got into a rental car or RV with a gps navigation system and tried to get across the bridge.   This six week closure was not included in those navigation systems.  Because of the directions provided by the navigation systems we had to literally turn away hundreds of people and let them know they needed to take the nearly two hour long detour around the closure.

Can you imagine the look on their faces and the frustration they must have felt to be told they were given bad information?  More often than not our staff was on the receiving end of that frustration.

I will admit this is a considerable challenge for companies trying to map the world. However, we have the data these companies need, but many state and local transportation organizations don’t…yet.   Mapquest right now is the only company that has taken the the time to try to contact the state DOT’s and has offered a way for them to provide the local closure information so that their customers have the most accurate information when using their navigation and direction tools.

While Google is opening the doors to free directions and navigation, until they work with local agencies to enable real-time routing based on construction closures frustration will still abound.

Social Media is first the willingness to listen to your customers and have an honest conversation with them.  The ability to do this has been made much easier with Web sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flicker, Friendfeed and many more that have established themselves and have gained a large audience of people who check in with them and their “social network” with great frequency.

The biggest challenge you will face when embarking on a social media campaign is not the creative side of the campaign but the willingness to listen.  People will have something to say about your product and most often, they are right.  It is the willingness to listen and make changes based on that feedback that can prove to be invaluable in improving your product or services.

The first step is having the courage to ask the question “how are we doing”, if your willing to hear that answer, then social media is the right place for you to engage your audience.