FEATURES
Bloggers Application
The bloggers application process is simple. You rezz a Blogotex Access Point in your store. Blogger clicks it and fills web-based application form. All filled applications are gathered in a list that you can review later.
The basic application form requires bloggers to enter up to 3 URL addresses (Flickr, Blog, Facebook, etc) so you can review their work. It also asks them to select what type of products they are willing to blog (in case you have multiple categories defined). And finally, agree with your blogging rules.
However, in most cases, this basic information is far from enough to evaluate whether a blogger is a true match for your brand or not. Therefore you can add your own custom questions so bloggers could provide much more specific information about themselves.
Answering each question can be mandatory or optional. The answer itself could be either free text or predefined answers with single or multiple choices.
Flexible Posting Deadlines
To stay in your team – your active bloggers will have to deliver their blog posts on time. You can set your brand to operate in one of the following general deadline modes:
AUTO DEADLINE – requires a blogger to submit a new post in 15, 20, 30, 45, or 60 (configurable) days as soon as the previously submitted post has been accepted.
MONTHLY SCHEDULE – define one or multiple non-overlapping time intervals within a scope of a month. Blogger will have to submit X posts per every defined interval every month. For example, you can require blogger to submit from 1st-15th and from 16th-30th each month. Those would be 2 intervals per month. Also, you can specify how many posts are required per each interval.
NO DEADLINE – Bloggers will not have any deadlines. However, you still can set up product-related deadlines for particular products of your choice. If a blogger takes one of those products, a product-related deadline will start ticking.
Whatever mode you choose to set for your brand’s general deadline – you can set PRODUCT RELATED DEADLINE additionally as well. Product-related deadlines are being set and work per product. There are two ways it can be set. Post with this particular product included should be delivered either in:
1. X days after the blogger takes the product or;
2. X days after this moment (the time when product related deadline has been set).
For example, your brand has 3 products – A, B, and C. It runs in “no deadline” mode while your product-related deadline for products A is set to 15 days after the blogger takes the product. What that means is that your bloggers won’t have any deadlines at all until they take your product A. From that moment they will have 15 days to deliver a post with product A in it. However products B and C – they can take freely, no deadlines will be issued since those products are without any product related deadlines.
Applications and Posts Review
All incoming blogger applications land into the “new applications” list. All incoming blog posts – into the “new posts” list. Lists can be browsed and sorted through a web interface. Nothing gets lost or forgotten.
The review process for both is pretty similar. You go through each blogger’s application. Check the information blogger provided in her application form. Depending on your decision you can accept a blogger immediately, put her in a separate waiting list or reject her application by providing an optional comment.
Same way for blog posts. You review each post and either accept or reject it. You can also leave feedback. Is it a simple “thank you” or list of things to be improved for you to accept the post – it helps your bloggers grow and shape their delivered content to your liking.
All accepted and rejected entries remain in the system, so at any time you can do a search and find what you need.
Progress and Activity Tracking
Blogotex keeps track of all activities within your bloggers team and provides you with easy access to the following stats:
BLOGGER RELATED STATS:
- Blogger’s closest deadline;
- Number of a blogger’s submitted posts this month;
- Number of a blogger’s submitted posts last month;
- Blogger’s posts (accepted, rejected, pending review);
- List of products blogger has taken from your brand and the number of times each product has been blogged.
- Blogger’s overall % of taken vs blogged products;
- Blogger’s age within your brand.
PRODUCT RELATED STATS are per product and include a number of bloggers and list of their names who:
- have taken a particular product but haven’t blogged yet;
- have successfully submitted a post with this product;
- have just taken the product’s demo but not an actual product.
Product Requests / Deliveries
More products you give to your bloggers – the more reasons they’ll have to blog your brand. Blogging the latest release is a popular thing, however – how many of your first-time customers know what item came before what? And does it really matter for them? If they like a product – they’ll buy it. And same with your bloggers – not always your latest release is the one that will fit their outfit. Quite the opposite, it might be “that” one item they remember you released three months ago that they see fitting perfectly in their current post.
There is no manual labor required from your side to fulfill all your bloggers requests when each of them asks for a different product. You simply add up to 100 items in your product server and upload nice product photos. What happens next is that now your bloggers team have a whole repository of wonderful creations they can use in their posts! In other words – you just gave them at least 100 reasons to talk about your brand! Your name along with a good product shot will appear online regularly. That’s how you earn recognizability and new customers over time.
To avoid situations where a newly added blogger can just rush in and take every single product without a blink of an eye leaving you without any posts – you can set how many items a blogger is allowed to take before submitting a post which you accept. It can be anything from 1 – 5. So let’s say if you set it to be 1, then if blogger takes 1 product – she will not be able to take another unless she blogs it first and you accept her post.
For every product, you can add a demo option as well. That way blogger can check whether the item suites her post first and only then commit to blogging it.
Co-Creators and Managers
Due to Second Life® perms system, only you can place your created products in your Blogotex server. If your friend also creates for your brand – she won’t be able to place her created products in your server unless she provides you with a full perm. Then you set the correct perms again and place her products in your server. To avoid such an inconvenient scenario – you can add her as your co-creator. She will receive her own Blogotex dropbox. Everything she’ll put inside it – will appear in Blogotex seamlessly along with your own created products. Co-creator will gain the same access to your brand’s Blogotex features as you do.
When your schedule becomes really busy or you simply don’t feel you want to deal with bloggers – you can delegate your Blogotex tasks to your manager. She will review incoming applications and posts. You’ll only have to add new products. If one manager is not enough – you can add up to five.
Automated Notifications and Reminders
Blogotex comes fully equipped with a powerful notification system. You won’t have to chase each blogger just to tell that her deadline will soon come to an end and she should deliver a post. The same way you won’t have to write any extra notecards when you release a new product and want your team to blog it. And so on… All these things Blogotex will do for you by sending appropriate notecard stored in your product server.
You can freely edit the contents of each system notecard to your liking and modify their names by including your brand name. That way your team will easily understand from whom is it coming from.
Inside your Blogotex settings panel, you’ll see a full list of all possible notecard names and system events that trigger sending. You have full control over what is going to be sent and what is not by simply disabling particular notification.
Deadline Cancellation and Vacation Requests
If for some reason your blogger cannot deliver her post on time, she can submit a deadline cancellation request. Explain why this situation has happened and submit it for you to review. You can either agree or disagree with her. Put your own answer and accept or reject the request.
The same way if your blogger wants to take her time off of blogging – she can request a vacation. By specifying start and end dates as well as free text comment. If you approve of her vacation – she won’t be able to access the brand’s Blogotex unless she cancels her vacation mode and returns back sooner.
New Bloggers Recruitment
With Blogotex you do not have to worry about how to put your fresh bloggers team together or how to add more talents to your existing team. Blogotex is used by thousands of Second Life® bloggers every day and you have an opportunity to reach them all by creating an in-system Ad that will be displayed in every blogger’s dashboard. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re a well-established brand or just starting designer – if bloggers will love your products, they’ll definitely notice you.
The ad consists of a title, description, and main photo. It’s highly suggested that you have at least four products in your Blogotex already with great photos and they’re included in your ad as well. Running an ad is fully transparent – you can see all the stats live: number of exposure, clicks, and submitted applications.
If five years ago it might be enough to have 20 – 25 decent bloggers, then today – you cannot go wrong with 100+