Thoughts to think about for commercial bloggers in MY..

Reposted from: http://soloverly.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-so-loverly-is-leaving-nuffnang-how.htm

October 25, 2010

Why So Loverly is leaving Nuffnang & How clients and agencies should treat bloggers

It seemed like such a good idea. A local advertising service catering to the blogging community, bringing unity and credibility to the medium. Unfortunately, Nuffnang has proven to be manipulative, disrespectful to the community and frankly rather clueless of the value and power of the blogging medium.

As such So Loverly has removed all Nuffnang ads and will be forfeiting the money we have made on it in protest against such treatment.

This really isn't about the amounts of money we've made. It's entirely possible that if So Loverly had stooped to slightly less ethical blogging practices we could have made considerably more. Here are our reasons, based on my personal experience as a professional journalist, backed by my co-bloggers:

1. Nuffnang inherently disrespects the blogging community. By attempting to run competitions instead of campaigns - pitting one blogger against another and by attempting to ban bloggers from dealing with other social media advertisers, Nuffnang is ignoring the media's inherent value. The truth is Nuffnang would not exist without bloggers whereas we'd happily go on blogging without them.. They need to learn their place.

2. Nuffnang attempts to monopolise bloggers. Recently, Nuffnang created their "Glitterati Plus" group. To belong to it bloggers must, among other things, attend about 50% of all Nuffnang events and attend and post exclusively on Nuffnang events and advertisers. This is ridiculously deluded. The onus is on Nuffnang to create events and campaigns so compelling that bloggers WANT to be at their events. This is how the media is supposed to work. Please don't let them continue with this delusion.

3. Nuffnang dangles events as prizes and payment. Media events are money-making for the organisers and provide the sponsor with publicity. Dangling it as a prize or payment is like awarding work for work. How ridiculous is that? If I win the event as a prize I should not have to blog about it. Instead they are making money both ways. They run competitions and get paid, award an event they are presumably PAID to organise as a prize, and then reap the benefits of bloggers blogging about the event. Also, competitions pay them better than campaigns as not all participants are compensated.

4. Nuffnang assumes all Malaysian bloggers are ignorant and teenagers. Not only by the practices listed above but the promotional ideas they forward. For example, the Vaseline "Are You Moist Enough?" blogger competition which had bloggers writing "the best post" answering if they were "moist enough". Who thought this up? A bunch of horny teenagers? Not to mention the ridiculous prize - the Vaseline Are You Moist Enough Party (after which, Nuffnang tweeted that "all ther staffs are moist" [sic]). Frankly, it's the job of professional media to attend these things and we're paid to do so - it certainly isn't doled out as a "prize".

5. Nuffnang treats foreign bloggers with more respect. If you read online, they treat Australian bloggers with considerably more respect than local ones which, when you consider that Nuffnang is Malaysian, is a crying shame.

6. Nuffnang is advertorial heavy. Advertorials are really not what blogs are about. Being paid to say something is good undermines the value of blogs as word-of-mouth opinion. If So Loverly ever accepted money to say a product was good, when we didn't think so, would you ever trust us again? So Loverly has never accepted money, products or services to voice an opinion we didn't believe. Giving us a free product or service to try merely gives us the chance to try something we might not have otherwise and will usually guarantee an HONEST review. (Edited from "Nuffnang wants us to lie to you" as I felt that was more sensationalist than fair. I don't think advertorials are ethically wrong if disclosed. I do feel they are a strategic mistake however).

These statements are opinion and perhaps not fact. But I have tried to be fair and balanced in my evaluation of this social media advertising service. Do read it through and make your own decision.

So how should companies and agencies deal with bloggers? Here are 10 pieces of advice on handling Bloggers for brands, PR and media agencies:

1. Treat us with the same respect you treat professional / mainstream media.

2. If you want us to write about an event, make the event worth writing about. Believe me, we enjoy what we do or we wouldn't be doing it so when something great happens, we're bursting to share. Make something great happen.

3. Freebies and review products are not the same thing. A free gift is a GIFT and I am entitled to do whatever I wish with it. A product for review however, if accepted, promises a review after a full and fair evaluation of the product. (edit: That means giving us enough time to test the product)

4. If you want a review written in any particular fashion disclose it first before sending the product for the blogger to accept or reject.

5. Why are bad reviews good for you? Because not only is it valuable market data, it prevents girls who the product would not work for from trying it and thus damaging your brand image with them. The girls on So Loverly, and many beauty bloggers disclose our skintypes for a reason. And if a product fails to work for us we try to discern why and recommend it for other skintypes. Your brand value will actually strengthen with honest and fair reviews.

6. Be honest and don't attempt to use us.

7. Choose your blogs wisely. I am the last to say that all blogs are created equal. Each one is unique and appeals to different demographics. Read a few posts to learn if this is the blog for you.

8. Don't expect miracles. Getting your product or service reviewed by us is like having someone tell a thousand friends about a personal experience. Whether they trust us or not entirely depends on the individual. We're not a silver bullet.

9. Please don't treat us like we're idiots or children. All the bloggers on So Loverly are highly educated professionals. Same goes for the circle of beauty bloggers we hang out with. Dangling a goody bag as a prize for a review, asking us to stick products down our cleavage, or assuming we don't know basic chemistry or dermatology is insulting.

10. Be human. Social media is about people. Bloggers are people, our readers are people and this is your chance as a brand to also be a person. Don't waste this chance by attempting to be a faceless product. Talk to us and then listen.

I will be happy to talk to anyone about the opinions voiced here. Do leave a comment or send us an email!

Love,

Kahani

Featuring: Mob's Crib

Hey peeps, i jus wanna share some cool & sometimes twistedly inspired artwork from Mob's Crib. He does visually inspiring & sometimes humourous posters of current affairs in Malaysia (political satire).

Mob yr posters of late... "NICE". My FAVE at the moment must be the RPK face mask one. Very functional.. :) The "no oral sex one"... hehehhe.. no comments..

Go here for more from Mob's Crib.

MALAYSIA INI MACAM TAK BOLEH!!!!

Was considering create a post or not today as i was surfing through MalaysiaKini.

I watched at their YouTube the latest vid on "Perak Crisis: What will happen in the next 48hrs?". Also went to Lim Kit Siang's English blog & viewed the video which was the confrontation between UMNO youth ppl & Karpal outside the Parliament. This sparked me off looking for the videos of Parliament sitting(believe they call it the HANSARD te actual physical archives) on YouTube.

Clicked the search box and keyed in "malaysia parliament" clicked "search"... Lo & behold what you see in the pic was the search results. Check it out yrself here.

As a Malaysian i "segan" seeing the 1st search result "Malaysia Parliament asking Chinese Get Out from Malaysia -

this is the rasist parliament in Malaysia(UMNO) ...", as being Chinese by ethnicity makes me "meluat" seeing all these antics.

To be fair i did a search of the below "singapore parliament", "indonesia parliament", "thailand parliament" & "phillipines parliament". However, i don't see these kinda of antics in out neighbours search results.

Seems like Malaysia is the most sensational & 3rd world if i were to jus based my personal opinion from these results.

Its a sad state of affairs we're in... Our only reprieve is watching the reality TV series titled "Politics in Malaysia"

IN support of Eli our lovely Selangor state EXCO & ADUN!!!

Courtesy of Mob's Crib

ELI MY HEART GOES OUT TO YOU!!!!

On the Perak FROG crisis!!!

ScreenCap of the game

I'm a Generation X'er tried & true... Those of you , you know who u are. U had the pleasure of having played with PC's that run on tape drive & TV, booting up in MS-DOS, 286-386 machines with 5.25" floppys & 4GB HDD's, What Windows???, moonbugs, xenon, leisure suite larry, police quest, kings quest, decathlon, karateka, bushido, etc, etc...

Anyways before i veer further off topic, i would jus like for us to remember an old game called FROGGER!!! Reflect on this game and maybe it will put some perspective on the frog situation in the Silver state... LOL..

For those who dunno about the gameplay, its a frog trying to cross the street & river while avoiding moving traffic & obstacles... if the frog gets hit or lands on the wrong place u die lo!!!

Kuala Lumpur vs Bangkok , A Malaysian Illusion

Long Live H.R.H. King Bhumibol!!!
- Photo from The Jazzy King by Bangkok Post.

Just something that I realized today, was that over the past several months I've have had this conversation several times with different friends, family & acquaintances, of many who are Malaysians of different ages as well as a Thai friend or two.

Many of us(Malaysians) have been brought up with the illusion that we have and are always next to Singapore. I don't mean in a physical sense but more from an economic, social & infrastructure developement point of view.

Well I'm no economist or sociologist, so i won't be able to give you facts and figures to justify what I have to say. I speak only from my observations as a layman who grew up as a PJ boy(PJ is a suburb 15min from KL) and a visitor who has been to Thailand several times in the past few years. I also speak based on experiences related to me by friends and acquaintances.

Malaysians(here i generalise, just my personal opinion) has always had a notion that Thailand/Bangkok was always abit more 3rd world than Malaysia/KL. This could be due to the mainstream medias & governments' constant salvo of how great/developed/advanced our country was in the region. How we were no. 2 only to Singapore. etc, etc..

However, after visiting the country I beg to differ from this viewpoint and change my personal stand on this.

I have several very simple reasons to justify my viewpoint, as below:

1. I've you've flown to BKK(my 1st was via Airasia), once you depart the Suvarnabumi airport you will hit BKK's multi-storey highways into the city. I thought, "Wow!! this is such an architectural feat(also a practical one)". I can't understand why can the Thai's build such straight & organized roads and Malaysia can only build curvy & pothole filled roads. First topics that come to mind for KL'ites when it comes to roads will always be MRRII incidents, potholes & tolls.
2. This brings me to my 2nd subject tolls, I have done road trips around the Northern & Central regions in Thailand and never seen a tolled road. How does the Thai government do this??? KL have many tolls(with never ending payment to toll concessions, it seems) yet we still have incidents like MRRII.
3. Well since we are on the subject of transportation, yes both BKK & KL have a traffic problem, but I dare say that BKK has a better public transport infrastructure as opposed to KL. They have the Skytrain(our equivalent of the LRT), easy availability of taxis which run on meters unlike KL's infamous taxi touts as well as tuk-tuk's & motor-taxis. Not to mention their taxis are mostly Toyota Vios or Altis compared to our 15 year old Proton Iswara's & Saga's.
4. Yes their cars are cheaper but they pay world prices for petrol. However, we are easily looking at a RM20,000 difference in car prices for our CKD cars in Malaysia. A Vios in Malaysia would cost around RM70,000 but in Thailand it would cost RM50,000(500,000B).
5. Having said that the Thai's pay world prices for petrol, however they already have 2 alternative fuels compared to Malaysia's 1. The Thai's have NGV and Gasohol. Yes Malaysia has NGV too, but the availability of NGV at petrol stations are a far cry from Thailand's.
6. Well enough, of the costs comparisons above. I think Malaysia Tourism always used to say we are warm & frienly lot, yes we are, but depends on who la...(u know what I mean). Few years back if you meet a cop on the road to ask for help it seems like u asking him a big favour, see a Thai cop & ask him for help and see. I think the naming of Thailand as Land of Smiles is spot on. This may probably be due to the Thai's Buddhist upbringing of being polite.
7. Freedom of speech/expression, look at the protests in Thailand. We only see the sacry part on TV, but if you are in BKK, u realize that it doesn't really affect yr daily going about town, just don't go to the affected area. Malaysia means, FRU & ISA.
   
8. Ok la... this post is getting abit long. I'll end it with some food for thought la. GO check out the public toilets in both our countries. Check out the toilets in LCCT and Suvarnabumi and see for yrself la... Cleanliness is Next to Godliness.. I shy, shy wei!!!

Good on the Thai ppl, Malaysian's if we wanna stick to the claim we need to buck up..