Completing my response to the report was an enjoyable and interesting experience, as we were asked to consider factors such as

• how much education plays a role in producing quality content
• what we look for in a writer
• what university education (or lack thereof) has done for our own business

You can get your own copy of the report completely free when you sign up to Angie’s newsletter, or if you would prefer to find out more about the sort of content Angie will be providing in her newsletter then read a little more about it here.

I got to know a little about Antoine, whilst in the process of blogger outreach on a client project. I was struck by his professionalism and dedication, not only because he is based outside of the UK, yet still manages to be bang on-time (and often first) with the latest LFC news; but also because despite having built an already successful blog (and seriously large audience), Antoine was always available – including when it became apparent that he was writing to me and tweeting from his hospital bed.

As social media professionals, we may often stress that to build a truly successful online community requires more than just information and authority; it requires absolute dedication and passion. Here was someone who epitomised this – I simply had to interview him…

Could you introduce yourself and give us an overview of your blog, and social communities?

My name is Antoine Zammit I own and operate what I call a social blog entitled “Empire of The Kop“. The blog has tremendous social media presence on Twitter (@empireofthekop) and on Facebook.

How long have you been a fan of LFC?

I have been a Liverpool supporter for over 30 years now, it all started when I was a kid growing up in Malta. In 1992 I moved to the US and brought my passion with me across the pond.

What made you decide to turn your passion for the club into a full time occupation?

Well actually it is not my full time job however I do spend as much time on it as a full time job . Living in the US is difficult for a football supporter; I don’t have any friends who live close by or any co-workers who follow the sport so I had to turn to the Internet. It started with Facebook, I used to post LFC news stories to discuss. Very soon other LFC fans from all over the world wanted to be my friends and before I knew it I had 5,000 Facebook friends which is the limit that Facebook allows. Due to this limitation I switched to Twitter and started tweeting, eventually I ended up launching the blog when Facebook censored a page I had posted and Empire of The Kop was born.

How many readers do you have and how big is your total audience (roughly) when considering your social profiles too?

EOTK (Empire of The Kop) gets over 250,000 visitors per month, there are over 36,000 Facebook fans on our page and over 100,000 followers on Twitter.

How did you build such an enormous and engaged community?

Mostly it has been passion, I try to be not let any piece of Liverpool FC news slip past. I also Tweet live game updates which have become very useful to fans who aren’t able to watch the game. I am usually faster than any of the other football sites and Tweeters.

Such volume and frequency of communications must require great attention to detail, and some pretty heavy-duty tools I imagine? What are your favourite twitter, or general posting tools to help you manage and monitor all the outgoing and incoming messages?

I use Tweetdeck on my computer and when I am on the go I do use the mobile Twitter application.

Would you describe what you do as a labour of love?

Yes of course

What sets EOTK apart from other LFC blogs and fan sites?

Mostly it is because the site is by Liverpool fans for Liverpool fans, there are no professional writers who write on the blog, they are fans from all over the world. Thanks to the blog I was able to give a voice to many fans who would otherwise be disenfranchised.

How do you source your information?

The internet of course; thanks to the tremendous network of followers I am able to get the stories submitted right as they happen and sometimes someone slips me some gossip too.

What are your three biggest tips for would-be bloggers on how to grow an audience?

Engage your audience, be generous (Re Tweet) and follow everyone who follows you so you can communicate via DM (Direct Messaging) as some don’t want to be public on certain things.

>Nichola: I came across a first-hand account of engaging and generous activity from Antoine (behind the wheel of EOTK) on Twitter. When I told a friend and contact of mine, Rhys Wynne (who is a lifelong LFC fan) that I was interviewing Antoine he said “I tweeted to him when I was in Slovenia to ask where I could watch the Merseyside derby in Ljubljana, he put me in touch with the local supporters club, who actually had an event at the pub 10 minutes walk from the hostel, it was great. The guy has an amazing community surrounding him.”

What’s been the biggest difficulty you have faced over the years in building EOTK?

Having to deliver bad news about the club is always the most difficult, I am a messenger and sometimes I do get shot.

Do you have any support, interaction and/or recognition from the club?

Yes, the club’s official Twitter have sung my praises a few times and even did a special shout out for me when I was hospitalised.

What’s your take on the clubs’ financial situation and the recent difficult times?

It was tough having to go through all the negative stories and trying to put a positive spin to them. The situation has improved with the new owners and if they do what they promised then happy days are ahead for Liverpool F.C.

There certainly have been some happy days lately, with a great result against Chelsea at the weekend. You’re away to Wigan on Wednesday. What’s your prediction?

Wigan away can be tough, unfortunately many of the players will not have enough time to rest. I do hate predictions but I am going with a narrow win 1-0/2-1 for Liverpool.

Finally – whilst I have a soft spot for Liverpool, as they are one of the best Northern teams; I’m actually a ‘Boro lass myself. After a difficult start to the season, we’re under new management (Tony Mowbray) and won convincingly on Saturday. Do you think Mowbray could bring ‘Boro back to the Premiership?

Things do look a little dire for Boro, I do believe that they will stay in the Championship next season however I can see them turning around and returning the Premiership after that. They deserve to be in the Premiership.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Thanks Antoine, you’ve been a great interviewee and a fantastic, real-life example of social media theory.

Following this evening’s iGB Affiiate Awards, the conference and exhibition proper starts on Friday. theMediaFlow will be in full attendence so if you see me, Stephen or Sarah; please say Hi!

Friday I’m attending and liveblogging the following sessions, so if you can’t make any of these sessions or can only come for one day; be sure to bookmark, subscribe etc. I’ll also be tweeting-up the place #LAC.

Friday.

11:30 AM Social Media 101

Andrew Girdwood of Bigmouthmedia takes us through some of the most crucial social media concerns for affiliates, such as; legal considerations, Google and Facebook view of affiiates in social media, the crackdown on lead-gen and more.

12:15 PM Demon SEO

(My two favourite words in one session. What’s not to love?)

SEO heavyweights Bob Rains, David Naylor, Ziv Descalu and Frank Watson, will be taking us through Advanced SEO techniques and telling us what really counts.

13:45 PM Hunting for that Golden Link

Up to date strategies from a supremo SEO panel. Marcus Tandler, Ralph Tegtmeier (Fantomaster), Christoph Cemper and Sebastian Wentzell.

15:15 PM KEYNOTE: Bing – The New Search Experience

An overview of the Bing experience, plus insights into online gaming search trends which should be invaluable. Speakers are Cedric Chambaz and Adam Goodman of Microsoft Advertising.

I’m liveblogging a selection of the conference sessions, and there are many more excellent panels and presentations in the Friday program. Here’s the full schedule.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the liveblogs and the Saturday schedule.

To illustrate; imagine I’m a small business in the 1960’s seeking to make the public aware of its existence. I’d have to think about physical, visible signage for my premises and advertise in the classifieds. All of that costs money and would involve hiring specialist professionals to create such signage and ad copy. Fast-forward to today, and a small business director has everything they need to make their business brand known; strong and discoverable, just a few keystrokes away.

Of course this works both ways! So, just as a brand owner has some great tools and resources to reach a wider audience more quickly, so does a brand consumer have numerous outlets to transmit their dissatisfaction or voice their opinion. And rightly so; as it’s a good thing this so-called democratisation of the web allows all of us consumers to voice our opinions in an open and public forum. It can be a headache for brands however, as this unregulated, unofficial content on the web vies for attention with your own material. Now; we’re not about to advocate attempting to bury all negative publicity, it is still publicity. What we are advocating is that you seek to ‘own’ your brand message at least on page 1 of the search engines.

Why Own Page 1 for Your Brand Results?

•    Consistency of message
•    Brand recognition and reinforcement
•    Increase traffic to your owned and operated websites
•    Look like a big deal

How to Own Page 1! (It’s easier than you think).

Get Your Domain Name: Make sure you own your brand domain name. www.whatever.com and the local TLD for each market in which you operate; that is if you don’t already! Your own company website is the easiest way to own your first result.
Join Professional Directories: Add yourself to professional and local directories for your sector, thus controlling profile information and having the knock-on benefit of association.
Write and Distribute Press Releases: Writing specific and tailored news about your company is a great way to inform often, and in an official way. Distributing this news as a press release to your online press and having this covered is absolutely invaluable. Trade press publishers naturally tend to rank well due to the authority of their content.
Create a Social Media Presence: Social media is a fantastic, wide-reaching and cost-effective way of essentially, advertising your brand. Facebook pages, Linkedin profiles and CrunchBase profiles are all good ways to extend your brand message. We looked at a couple of good practise tips to be aware of, when expanding your social media brand in a previous post.
Blog and Comment: Nobody knows your business like you do. So get out there and blog, guest blog, comment on related blogs. Establish your internet credentials by showing exactly how much you do know about integrated circuits, or bridal gown design or whatever it is that you do.

Although we can’t control (nor should we want to control) what is said about our brand, but we can control what we say about our brand; so there’s really no excuse not to.

I got to thinking that this could mean a lot of consumer brands and websites are adding content and functionality that is actually counter-productive to their brand, due to available resource and stage of development. It seems there is a lot of pressure and evangelical promotion of social communications that can lead a business to feel that they are not professional, ‘2.0’ or approachable if they’re not engaging in such activities. I decided therefore to examine the circumstances when it’s best not to blog.

1. If you do not have the time or the resource

A blog should allow a consumer brand to give a less formal perspective and an inside view on activities and happenings within that organisation. If your organisation does not have the time or available resource to commit to regular and open communication, then schedule blogging for a later date in your brand development. Nothing smacks more of insincerity than a half-arsed blog.

2. If you cannot/will not disclose

If for whatever business reason you are not able to share more than you do in a press release, then don’t blog it. A blog is not media communication tool (though media professionals can of course get a great level of organisational insight from company blogs) so do not feel tempted to re-hash or replicate your press releases in blog form. Your customers and fans will not be hugely interested in formal announcements or whoever has just won your accounting software contract.

3. If you can’t take the heat (i.e. accept feedback)

Okay, so a blog technically by definition; (and as an abbreviation of weblog) is essentially a record of activities, happenings, thoughts opinions and sometimes feelings. A blog is still a blog without the facility to allow user interaction in the form of comments and feedback, but really why bother unless your brand is ready to engage with readers? Again we come back to the point of what are you really offering that is distinct to your press releases? A blog really is a valuable platform to spark conversation, debate, allow insight and open up your business or brand to the people that actually buy it. Why the hell not allow the most important people connected to your organisation (your customers) have their say too? If you are blogging well and if you are sharing real insight and excitement then allowing comment and community input can be the most valuable (and free) insight you can get!

These are just some of the reasons and situations I could think of when blogging is not the best idea for a consumer brand. Don’t misunderstand me, I am usually a great advocate of blogging and all social media in general; however I thought it important to get the point across. Don’t succumb to the pressure and blog for blogs’ sake.

Please help me expand on the list above and add other reasons you can think of when a consumer brand would be best not to blog!

theMediaFlow blog is written by Nichola Stott. You can follow me on Twitter: www.nicholastott.com