Tag: podcasters

Discuter avec le chef du service clientèle d'Orange Suisse [fr]

[en] Orange Blogger Relations, phase 3: meet and chat with the VP of Customer Care on september 27th! (In French...)

Après avoir invité des blogueurs au Caprices Festival et à OrangeCinema, Orange Suisse propose aux blogueurs et podcasteurs de venir rencontrer et discuter avec le vice-président responsable du service clientèle.

Cette rencontre a un petit goût de “portes ouvertes”. Cela se passera dans les bureaux d’Orange à Renens, et on prévoit une bonne heure de discussion ouverte (avec “refreshments”) sur tout ce qui touche au service clientèle.

Les blogueurs et podcasteurs conviés à cette discussion seront bien entendu libre d’en rendre compte comme bon leur semble: photos, vidéo, tweets, articles, facebook, enregistrements… pendant et après.

J’aime beaucoup mettre sur pied ce genre “d’accès privilégié” pour blogueurs. En 2008, lors de la conférence Web 2.0 Expo à Berlin, on avait mis sur pied une table ronde entre Tim O’Reilly et une trentaine de blogueurs. Depuis cette année-là également, chaque conférence LeWeb à Paris démarre par une visite “derrière la scène” avec Loïc et Géraldine Le Meur, les organisateurs. Avec Solar Impulse, on a organisé des petits-déjeûners blogueurs avec André Borschberg et Bertrand Piccard.

Ces initiatives sont toujours fort appréciées tant par les blogueurs que par les “invités de marque” 🙂

Chez Orange, on a donc décidé de démarrer ces Orange Expert Interviews. On projette d’organiser chaque mois une rencontre entre des blogueurs intéressés et un expert internet à Orange. On commence avec le service clientèle, et restez à l’écoute pour la suite!

Si vous désirez faire partie des blogueurs invités pour cette première discussion, portez-vous candidat en remplissant le formulaire ci-dessous. On se voit le 27 septembre?

Swiss Bloggers: Want To Go To OrangeCinema (ZH, BE, BS)? [en]

[fr] OrangeCinema! C'est dans les villes de Zurich, Berne, et Bâle -- et dans le cadre de mon mandat "blogueurs" avec Orange, on a monté une opération sympa pour blogueurs cinéphiles. Si vous connaissez des blogueurs dans ces villes qui pourraient être tentés par devenir "blogueur officiel" durant OrangeCinema ("all-access pass", billets gratuits, et plein d'autres trucs sympas) faites-leur passer ce billet!

As you may know, I’m currently working with Orange to assist and advise them in the field of blogger relations. This means that we work on cool offers/programmes for bloggers.

Our first pilot was around Caprices Festival — a music festival in Crans: we offered a press pass and other perks to a couple of bloggers so they could attend the whole festival for free. We’re really happy with the way it turned out, and we’re now focusing on OrangeCinema, which takes place over the summer in the Swiss German cities of Zürich, Bern, and Basel.

OrangeCinema

Clearly I should be writing this post in German, as this is an offer mainly for Swiss-German bloggers, but my German sucks terribly and I wouldn’t want to inflict it on my dear readers.

If you’re an established film-loving blogger or podcaster, and you’d jump at the chance to receive an all-access pass to OrangeCinema and blog about it like crazy, check out the form below and apply to be an Official OrangeCinema Blogger.

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Recommend Bloggers (and Podcasters!) for LeWeb'11 Accreditation [en]

This year again, I’ll be overseeing blogger accreditations for LeWeb — but I won’t be alone. Frédéric de Villamil and Arne Hulstein have agreed to jump on board and help me with the selection process. A big thanks to both of them, we are now a team!

By the way, did you know that LeWeb is now a 3-day conference? It will take place on December 7-8-9th 2011 in Paris, and the theme this year is SOLOMO, Social-Local-Mobile. If you’re not eligible for a blogger accreditation and thinking of attending, get your ticket before September 30th to take advantage of the summer offer and get over 800€ off the full ticket price! (There are also special prices for students, freelance developers, and startups — check the bottom of the registration page.)

The process is pretty much the same as last year:

  • first, we’re asking for recommendations (particularly of bloggers or podcasters we might not know about, and from language groups we’re less familiar with)
  • second, in September, we’ll allow any blogger or podcaster to apply for accreditation through a separate form.

As much as possible, we’ll be dealing with submissions as they come in — but do give us some time to process them. Each blogger or podcaster we select based on your recommendation will be contacted directly (we’re aware they might not have heard of LeWeb or know that they were recommended!)

A reminder of what is expected of official bloggers, and the kind of profile we’re looking for. They should:

  • have a passion for content and reporting
  • commit to attending and covering the conference (it’s in English!)
  • have significant reach and influence inside their community.

Of course, they also need to have a proper, publicly accessible, established blog or podcast (that is theirs or at the very least, that they contribute to regularly). Having a huge number of followers on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ is great, but doesn’t make you a blogger. Just like having a huge rolodex doesn’t make you a journalist. (Check out Live-Blogging vs. Live-Tweeting at Conferences.)

Although the accreditation allows to attend the conference for free, we cannot cover expenses.

A note about the recommendation form: this is not a popularity contest. Please do not ask your friends to nominate you (some of you did so, last year). We don’t care how many times a name is mentioned. It just gives us more (annoying) work to have to go through 20 submissions of the same name. You’ll be able to apply for an accreditation directly in September. Our objective here is to:

  • discover important bloggers/podcasters we might not know of
  • make sure we do not miss anybody we absolutely should be inviting.

There, now that all this is said, here we go!

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Blogger Relations: What is it About? [en]

[fr] Les relations blogueurs: qu'est-ce que c'est, et en quoi est-ce différent des relations presse/publiques? (Je pense qu'il va falloir faire un article là-dessus en français à l'occasion.)

I thought I’d write a post to quickly explain what I view as a particular field in social media: blogger relations. I prefer to view blogger relations as a speciality of community management rather than a speciality in PR, because it has much more to do with human relationships and communities (sometimes very small) than with managing a public image.

Blogger relations is what I call the work I’ve been doing for Web 2.0 Expo Europe, Le Web in Paris, and now Solar Impulse.

Companies and organizations are starting (well, they have been “starting” for the last five years, so some of you might get the feeling this start is dragging along) to realize that there is a population out there in social media that produces content, is very connected, and sometimes pretty influential. I single out bloggers and podcasters because despite all the excitement around Twitter and Facebook, publications in those mediums are too transient. Three weeks later, the tweets and status updates are long gone (Storify might yet change that, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on that service).

Though some online publications are very close in organisation and tone to traditional media, most bloggers and podcasters out there are better not treated as “press”. And they have value to bring that justifies treating them slightly differently from the general public.

Bloggers and podcasters are similar to press in the sense that they produce content. But they are also similar to the general public in the sense that they show interest for something by passion and often in their free time, and not based on the agenda of their employer.

As I see it, blogger relations imply a more “balanced” and “open” relationship between the parties, where it’s possible to lay things clearly on the table. Offer and demand are in my opinion more present in defining the power balance than when dealing with the press. Are bloggers desperate to attend your event or follow your project? You can be selective, and put conditions. Are bloggers and podcasters not yet aware of what you’re doing? You might want to bring slightly more to the table to make it worth the investment for them.

All this, of course, requires one to know what is and is not acceptable in the blogger world. Ask for a blog post, or to display a badge on one’s blog? Should be pretty much OK. Try to exercise editorial control? Not so good.

Maybe some of the above is valid with the press, too. But again, I’d like to stress a big difference between bloggers/podcasters and press: in general, the blogger or podcaster will be coming to you on his free time and of his own accord, whether the journalist will often be sent by his employer or client, on his work time. This changes things.

I like to define two types of situations in blogger relations: floodgates and outreach. The strategy for both of these is quite different: in one case you need to filter through a large number of incoming requests. In the other, you need to reach out to those you want to interest.

I’m planning to blog more on this topic (I’ve wanted to for a long time), but for now I just wanted to lay down some general thoughts.

LeWeb'10: Tell Us Which Bloggers or Podcasters to Invite [en]

Pay attention: this stage is not about pitching yourself, it will come later (September) — this is the time to tell us who else we should not miss.

As you probably know, I’m managing blogger accreditations for LeWeb in Paris for the third time. We’ve decided to change the system slightly this year to ensure a more balanced representation of countries and linguistic groups. We’ve also decided to do away with the big deadline to request an accreditation, and will be evaluating applications on a case-by-case basis.

Basically, here’s what we’re going to do:

First, reach out to motivated and influential bloggers and podcasters in all countries and linguistic communities. We need your help for that — to identify them, and maybe also to contact them. This is what this post is about.

Second, in September, we will allow individual bloggers/podcasters to apply for an accreditation.

We have thought quite a bit about what we expect from official bloggers, as a conference, and what kind of population we want to reach and invite. Our criteria this year will be stricter. To make it clear: if you work for an industry agency or big company, your company should be paying for your ticket — unless you are primarily known as a high-profile blogger, independently of your work. But more on that in good time (September).

So, back to our plan for July: the problem with the system that we used over the last two years is that it was perfectly possible for us to end up with no blogger from country XYZ covering the conference — or no coverage in certain languages. We want to make sure that LeWeb’10 echoes beyond political and linguistic barriers.

We have a pretty good idea who the main players are in anglophone and francophone circles. However, you probably know your country or linguistic group’s bloggers or podcasters better than we do.

Here’s who we’re looking for. Official bloggers and podcasters should:

  • have a passion for content and reporting
  • commit to attending and covering the conference (it’s in English!)
  • have significant reach and influence inside their community.

Although the accreditation allows to attend the conference for free, we cannot cover expenses.

Got a few people in mind? Great! Please use this form to recommend three bloggers/podcasters from your linguistic group or country.

Thanks a lot for your help! Please tell your friends speaking other languages or from other countries to send in their recommendations too.