The school year might be over for most, but Blog Marketing 101 was in session for me today and my professor was none other than Nick Denton of Gawker Media.
Nick recently invited me to breakfast, so this morning we met and engaged in a wide ranging discussion about our respective companies and whether custom-published blogs are advertising, PR or a new animal altogether.
I have been extremely impressed by the tremendous quality and continuous buzz surrounding Gawker Media's blogs, which include Defamer, Gizmodo, Wonkette and Gawker. So during the brief hour I spent with Nick today I tried to quiz him extensively so that I could learn as much as possible about how to market and promote a weblog.
Here are three key lessons I learned from Nick today. Hopefully you will find them just as valuable as I did:
1) It's All in the Name
Clever names are what gives each of Gawker's blogs their brand essence. Nick told me that he and his team of writers and designers spend an extraordinary amount of time coming up with blog names. Once they come up with one, Nick and his team then create content and design for the site that will build the brand personality. In my opinion, very few blogs do this as well as Gawker does.
2) Blog PR = Blog Traffic
You might think that every time Gawker launches a blog they would issue a big hoo-ha press release on PR Newswire. Nope. All Denton does to get the buzz rolling is send an email heads up to a few select blogs that he feels are in line with the site's audience demo. Once his blogs develop a following, the buzz cascades (thanks to good snarky writing) into traditional media coverage. He really spends zero time on proactively courting the press.
3) Men Matter
Finally, Denton says he intentionally focuses on launching blogs that will attract the coveted 18-34 year-old male demo. He believes (as do I) that men of this age stopped watching television long ago and they now pretty much live online. Denton tries to target this demo with every launch. What gets him excited is launching blogs and watching them grow into household brands surpass a million page views per month. His next projects will focus on video games and travel.
Thanks, Nick, for your time today. I certainly learned a lot and will be reading all your feeds closely.
