AxiCom was challenged by Blurb to make social media deliver real results, drive brand awareness and increase customers. AxiCom took a fresh approach, directly engaging with online communities by hosting live events.

The Challenge

For Blurb, blogger relations and the subsequent word-of-mouth viralocity of the blogosphere, creates more evangelists than mainstream media.

Blurb wanted to find a way to ensure it became an integral part of its ongoing PR communications, delivering more than just online coverage, but truly engaging with online communities.

The Strategy

To build a community for Blurb, it was essential to really get under the skin of a blogger to create that sense of community.

Blurb already had in place a very strong ‘blogger promotions’ programme, where bloggers were offered Blurb vouchers as

giveaways for their followers. But with social media continually evolving, AxiCom saw a huge opportunity to take Blurb’s social media engagement, and its desire to build communities of evangelists, to the next level.

AxiCom has worked with a range of online communities moving off-line and staging real, live events. We set about finding communities who would engage with the Blurb story to create evangelists and build the Blurb community from grass roots.

AxiCom contacted the Girl Geek and Silicon Stilettos network to discuss hosting an event, using Aruna Khanzada, a member of BlurbNation*, to givea talkabout how she has used the Internet to change her career and build her business.

Within 24 hours of the networks posting news of the event to their members, the tickets had sold out and the reserve list was filling up fast.

*BlurbNation is Blurb’s own community of editors, writers, designers, artists and photographers

The Result

Aruna gave her talk to a full-house in the funky Soho Hotel, and faced 40 minutes of questions from an entranced audience.

Presented with vouchers to make books, each attendee had their own idea – the Girl Geeks plan to make one for charity, a woman who is starting her own fitness company is making an Olympics book. Numerous blog books, route to work books, tech tips books are all being written.

The event drove service reviews and created real brand evangelists.

“The response to this event was phenomenal; all the attendees really got what Blurb offers and embraced it, and now hundreds more people are actually making books and evangelising about Blurb. We’ve found that staging events and engaging with communities like this adds so much value. It’s got to a point where mainstream media coverage is now becoming a result of the community activity we’re doing. The communities we’ve built, like BlurbNation*, are now proof points for the success of Blurb as a business.”

Mike Barash, Marketing Communications, Blurb Inc.

Meanwhile, the network organizers were thoroughly impressed with the evening:

“AxiCom is well ahead of any other PR company – they really understand what we do. We get sent so many press releases from PR agencies who clearly don’t get it.”

Nicole Mathison, Organiser Girl Geeks