Monthly Archives: December 2009

Why I blog

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I’ve flogged this deceased equine before, but no foray into social media– be it blogging or anything else– should be without strategy. That emerged as a major theme from last Friday’s Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley #4, which featured a panel discussion on blogging.

The panelists discussed how companies should decide what they hope to get out of a blog before they start one. That’s solid advice for companies, but it also spurred a discussion about personal blogs: Not every mommy blogger needs or wants to grow up to be Dooce. Not every technology blogger needs or wants to grow up to be Engadget.

It got me thinking about a very simple question: Why do I blog? What am I hoping to get out of this?

I started blogging nearly a year ago practically by accident. My first post explains how I had been becoming more active on Twitter and finding I had more to say than 140 characters allowed. I had been a long time reader of PR blogs but never felt as though I had anything to contribute. The last year has been quite a journey for me and after reflecting for a bit on “what does this all mean?” (blogging, not life), here’s what I came up with:

I don’t necessarily have a “strategy” for this blog. I don’t blog for page views or ad revenue. It’s one piece of a diverse online presence for me where I share conversations (both personal and professional) with colleagues, clients and friends. For me, it’s a success.

Why do YOU blog?

Making demand out of nothing at all

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Aaaaand, we’re back. Between a trip to Florida, visiting my family for Thanksgiving, and a nasty cold I’ve been fighting for about a week, my Musings have been limited. So while I passed on opportunities to blog about Who/What I’m Thankful For, Black Friday, World AIDS Day, and Tiger Woods, I’m jumping back into the icy blogging waters with a post on a very important topic.

Robotic Hamsters.

Like Furbies and Tickle Me Elmos of years past, robotic hamsters from Zhu Zhu Pets are, apparently, the hot holiday toy this season.The only conclusion I can draw from this is that nothing short of absolute marketing brilliance is behind Zhu Zhu Pets. ROBOTIC HAMSTERS, people! (It gets better. The name of the most popular model? Mr. Squiggles. You can’t make this stuff up).

I’ve written about fads before, and how a meteoric rise to popularity is usually followed by spectacular flame-out. But fads can tell us something about demand creation. Obviously (hopefully?) children weren’t wandering around saying, “You know what I really wish I had? What would make my life complete? A robotic hamster.” I doubt any focus groups would have revealed a latent need for Mr. Squiggles. So how did Zhu Zhu Pets do it?

For one, they started with exclusivity. Back in May, the company launched the toys only in the Phoenix market. They gave away free robotic hamsters at an Arizona Diamondbacks game. They selected local moms to host hamster-themed parties with games, activities, and opportunities for kids to built hamster habitats and play with the toys. They sent the toys to day care centers and hospitals in the Phoenix area. Phoenix-based mommy bloggers wrote about the toys and posted videos to YouTube. Somewhere in there the company changed the name from Go Go Pets to Zhu Zhu Pets. The word-of-mouth avalanche soon followed, laying the foundation for a national launch.zhu zhu pets robotic hamsters

And here we are, six months later, with a national hamster shortage on our hands.

Zhu Zhu Pets will likely not, if history is any indication, be able to sustain the holiday hype into long-term sales and growth (I would expect that the robotic hamster market is finite). But no doubt the company will make a good buck this year, so good on them.

I can only imagine what untapped demand will surface in 2010. Robotic field mice?

Update: A California-based consumer group is now claiming these furry automatons have unsafe levels of the chemical antimony (not to be confused with antipathy). Zhu Zhu Pets is denying the toys are unsafe. More from CNN.