At Edelman, we receive a lot of pitches from bloggers looking to connect with the brands we represent. With some bloggers now making six figures from their blogs, this isn’t going to stop anytime soon, and it’s no surprise that there are now multiple conferences focused on the business of turning blogs profitable.

An article by Jennifer Mendelsohn in tomorrow’s New York Times Style Section (posted online today) profiles Bloggy Boot Camp, a professional blogging seminar targeted to women. Sadly, the article is accompanied by the demeaning headline, “Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand.” Let’s face it: clever articles are accompanied by inappropriate, sensationalist headlines. This is par for the course in the age of Twitter. Unfortunately, both the headline and the tone of the entire piece are somewhat frustrating to me as a woman, an executive and a long time blogger.

I invite you to read the full piece and form your own opinions, but sentences like “bringing together participants for some real-time girly bonding” might very well stop you in your tracks. As I write this, my husband (and fellow Edelman executive Michael Wiley) is at SXSW. Would Mendelsohn classify that experience as macho bonding? Or would she write that he is attending a conference for the purposes of education and networking? Why do people, including Ms. Mendlesohn, continue to refer to networking among women as girly bonding? I seriously doubt the participants at Bloggy Boot Camp were wearing jammies and braiding each other’s hair. However, from the tenor of the piece, it was pretty easy to jump to that conclusion. Tiffany Romero, a co-founder of the conference is described as steering the proceedings “with the good-natured sass of a sorority social chairwoman,” and Mendelsohn notes that Romero went barefoot most of the day. Relevant? I don’t get how.

Moving beyond the sorority party comparisons to the meat of the article, Bloggy Boot Camps are one-day sessions created to educate bloggers on the ins and outs of blogging professionally. I have never attended one of these particular conferences, but I have to wonder what really goes down at one. I think it is terrific that women want to get together to share tips on making their blogs more lucrative and well-read, but I question some of what I am reading here. Were attendees really drinking mimosas out of SIPPY cups? And while I am sure there was time spent covering the basics of how to better utilize Google-friendly keywords, were the attendees doing so only to “get 28,549 views of [their] tutu-making tutorial?” Is that what the “mommy bloggers” are covering these days? I must be really out of the loop.

There are some interesting points made in this article that are buried in all the fluff, and I am going to make the assumption that this one-day seminar was actually quite a bit more useful and rewarding than comes across here. Mendelsohn points out that “bloggers and corporations are still forging the proper boundaries of their relationship, groping through uncharted territory.” This is absolutely true, and the complex nuances of this situation deserve more column space.

As I mentioned, my team gets contacted by a lot of bloggers who want to be sponsored. The ones who resonate are the ones who have a story to tell in a unique way that will make our brands a little more human. Does increased Google traffic help? Sure thing. But content is king. Bloggers should focus on providing interesting and well-written content first, and traffic-making schemes second. I am unclear on whether this was covered at Bloggy Boot Camp.

I am in agreement with Mendolsohn’s point that “mothers often prefer the warts-and-all experiences of other moms online — and the ability to discuss them interactively — to the dry, inflexible pronouncements spouted by experts in books and parenting magazines.” Where I struggle is in how these relationships are frequently described by the press. Is it possible for moms to form bonds online without the accompanying “girly” descriptors? Can we continue to support each other both online and off without the sorority house comparisons? This article tells me we aren’t quite there yet, but one can hope…

Danielle Wiley
Edelman Digital, Chicago
Follow on Twitter @foodmomiac

Earlier today a group of Foursquare employees gathered outside the Austin Convention Center to start an impromptu game of real foursquare. I tried my best to become "king", but I quickly realized I'm not as talented as I was in fourth grade. I was able to talk to Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley while he was on a break from playing. Watch the video where we discuss the 1 year Foursquare birthday celebration, his badge/check-in status, and his favorite social media tools.

Suzanne Marlatt
Edelman Digital, Chicago
Follow on Twitter @applegirl

As SXSW begins, the ‘big news’ in social media will feature the latest and greatest developments for location based tools like Foursquare, Gowalla and Plancast. Twitter ‘exploded’ at SXSW a few years ago and Foursquare began to bubble in 2009. We calmly await to see who the next “darling” will be this year! Translation: checking our Twitter streams like mad to see what SXSW people are talking about.

Facebook Gets into the Location Game

Joining their geo counterparts at Fourquare and Gowalla, Facebook plans on adding location based features to its current API.

Eventbrite and Facebook Join Forces

This partnership is a ‘no brainer’. Facebook users will now be able to purchase tickets to Eventbrite gatherings via their Facebook page. Yet another service incorporating into Facebook – keeping users in their personal Facebook perusing, versus clicking away and visiting another site. These types of partnerships will also increase Facebook’s average time spent metrics month over month.

French Connection Celebrates the Randomness of Global Chat

Chatroulette’s voyeuristic reputation is celebrated in French Connection’s new campaign – aiming to seek the best pick-up attempts.

Starbucks Announces Foursquare Partnership

Though not firmly defined, Starbucks (client) will begin rewarding loyalty points for its frequent customer base. Easy wins here: Starbucks card and weekly coffee freebies.

Open Your Front Door With – Your iPhone?

News of this hit as Apple’s patent application surrounding this technology was released. Imagine walking up to your front door and scanning your iPhone into a designated reader, accessed via pin code. Enter, the iKey.

Chevy Uses Augmented Reality to ‘Geek Out’ at SXSW

Augmented reality isn’t new, but enabling the experience to happen on consumer phones versus their computers moves the dial. Chevy (client) is also teaming up with Foursquare competitor, Gowalla, to assist SXSW attendees with their airport transportation needs.

Blagica Bottigliero
Edelman Digital, Chicago
Follow on Twitter @blagica

Evidently, what happens in Austin, doesn't always stay there. Thanks to applications such as Foursquare which notifies you about local trending locations, a small mob of SXSW attendees descended upon the Driskill Hotel. Once we were there we noticed a small crowd around some impromptu square dancers. The scene at SXSW is what you would expect—brainfood by day and numerous tweet-ups and parties by night.

David Armano
Edelman Digital, Chicago
Follow on Twitter @armano

It's only day one of SXSW interactive in Austin, Texas and things are already heating up...literally. At 5:00 today the fire alarms in the Austin Convention Center went off and everyone was evacuated. Fire alarms aside the networking still continued. We spoke with Jesse Engle, Co-Founder and CEO of CoTweet (a twitter management system) about their recent acquisition.

David Armano
Edelman Digital, Chicago
Follow on Twitter @armano

This week’s installment is a list of Edelman “tour guides” whose tweets will deliver the latest news from Austin. Check back here for the latest in long form (i.e.: 140 characters or more). You can also keep track of the conference conversation by watching the #SXSW hashtag.

Rick Murray

Rick is the global leader for Edelman Digital and has the perspective to match. You can read his POV on attending the conference here. He's a natural connector that will give you the play by play of panels and let you know the upcoming trends in different social arenas.

David Armano

David and his hat have become synonymous with SXSW. His Twitter stream can be counted on to relay the ins, outs and behind-the-scenes happenings for the next few days of tech a la Texas.

Michael Krempasky

Michael is the EVP of Edelman’s Digital practice in Washington DC. He’s already on the ground in Austin observing the tone of the conference and the interest points of attendees.

Suzanne Marlatt

Suzanne is Edelman’s Community Manager and an Austin regular. This is her first time attending SXSW and will be checking in regularly.

Lizz Kannenberg

Lizz is the member of this list who’s actually attending the arts and music counterpart to this weekend’s interactive conference. Starting Wednesday of next week, Lizz will be keeping tabs on trends in entertainment and the creatives our teams can look out for as the next set of pop culture influencers.

Jessi Langsen
Edelman Digital, Chicago
Follow on Twitter @tokissthecook

Another month, another visit to Silicon Valley - my home away from home - and, with it, another visit to the Googleplex in search of insights. This time I chatted with Karen Wickre, who oversees Google's growing armada of blogs and Twitter embassies.

Google, perhaps more than any other company, has a culture of openness. Often a company's culture shapes its communications strategy. And that's certainly the case with Google. So social media comes naturally.

Karen first launched Google's corporate blog back in 2004. Today the company has digital embassies for virtually every product. This armada spans dozens of blogs, Twitter profiles, YouTube and more recently Facebook.

Back when the Official Google Blog launched, posts were conservative. Wickre, a former tech journalist, told me over breakfast that early items were almost whimsical, focusing on the food at Google (which I can assure you, rocks).

While the blog still features some trivial fare, no one could call it - or any of Google's other digital assets – a light weight. In fact, the opposite is true. Google uses its armada to take on hard issues like China, public policy and privacy. And it largely eschews press releases, unless they are financial or material to shareholders.

While Wickre doesn't oversee all these embassies, she serves as a beacon for the teams that manage them - subject matter experts like product managers, engineers and marketers. Like a good coach, she provides templates and best practices and answers questions as they come up. Wickre, in the meantime, is turning her attention to how the company can strategically use its own Buzz product.

Wickre is one of an emerging breed of professionals that companies hire to manage/lead companies down the social media path. Not nearly enough credit goes to people like her. These individuals are often the ones who have to effect change - with the help of partners like us.

Google, perhaps more than any other company, is a model of social media success. One reason is that they tap into the three key trends that I wrote about earlier. They are real-time, visible and data driven. However, what they do best is embrace using multiple messages, formats and stories.

I subscribe to a fire hose feed for all the Google blogs as well as their Twitter and Facebook embassies. On any given day you will find a wealth of news, tips and stories that are tailored to specific interests. Only care about Gmail? There's an embassy for that. How about policy? That too.

However, Google’s social media success goes beyond just having lots of teams engaged. Each venue slants the content to the reader/viewer's needs and utilizes different formats - short form, long form, video, images and more. The end result is that Google creates massive surface area that make them hard to miss in an age where information choices are ubiquitous.

The takeaway here for companies is that, when possible, they should consider creating several blogs and - more likely – digital embassies inside existing communities. One Twitter presence might not be enough. The same goes with Facebook. (Note that this is just one approach and not the only one. Some advocate centralizing content into a single place. There are pros/cons to each.)

Businesses today need to consider having multiple streams that are mapped to high priority interests. This creates surface area and lots of entry points for stakeholders to get engaged. What's more, the content should be "hand crafted"- eg tailored to each community. And these spaces should be managed by identifiable employees who are subject matter experts.

This is how I am tailoring my own content. I use Twitter for sharing/conversing around links and news. My new Facebook community is for discussions and sharing insights and observations. While my Posterous blog site is for essays, videos and the occasional digital doodles.

Now scaling might intimidate some. According to a recent Smartbrief survey, time is the chief obstacle to engaging in social communities. However, if a business makes social media a team sport, as Google does, anyone can succeed.

Steve Rubel
Edelman Digital, New York
Follow on Twitter @steverubel

Yesterday, David Armano asked us all why we make the annual pilgrimage to Austin for #SXSW.

No doubt, he’ll get a wide range of responses from “the parties,” to “networking,” to “get me the hell out of winter.”

This is only my second South by, but I can’t see missing another one anytime soon. And here’s why:

- The vibe is amazing. Austin sets the tone. Yes, it’s weird, and that’s a GREAT thing.

- Geeks rule. The buzz is invigorating and unavoidable. It’s impossible not to be engaged… and inspired.

- Let’s face it. Our years are filled with daily doses of “I need it now.” It’s hard to stay on top of your game when continued success demands that you’re essentially “on” 24 / 7 / 365. SXSW is my chance to check out, and plug in. I’ll hit a few panels, spend a lot of time in the hallways, eat some amazing food, catch up with a lot of old friends and hopefully, meet a handful of new ones.

- I go to soak it all in -- the youth, the smarts, the energy and most of all, the passion. It’s an incredibly rejuvenating experience.

I can’t tell you what I’ll do, who I’ll meet or what I’ll learn but I can guarantee this: come Monday morning (yes, I’m leaving early), I’ll be ready for the next 361.

Keep Austin Weird.

Image credit: Brian Solis

Rick Murray
Edelman Digital, Chicago
Follow on Twitter @rickmurray

There have been many different subtopics of online health communication discussed in the last few Health Digital Check-Ups. It’s somewhat daunting to digest it all, so before going even farther down the road with more about the specifics, we thought it may be a great time to refresh and just lay out the entire landscape.

Instead of walking through alone, though, we are going to enlist some help from one of the most iconic bands of American pop culture: Journey. Because everyone loves Journey, right?

So here’s a quick view of where we stand with the musical inspiration of Steve Perry. Let us know if we missed something.

Separate Ways

While it isn’t necessarily a catch-all for everyone who communicates about health, it’s sometimes easy to think about the space as holding three separate groups, and each has a very separate way of interacting on the online channel. The health space often feels limited to patients interacting with other patients about conditions or health status, healthcare professionals talking with their peers about news, and health companies dipping their toes in but reluctant to fully engage with the public.

I’ll Be Alright Without You

There are some pretty strong data points, most notably in Pew’s 2009 study on patients and health information, that consumers are often quenching their thirst for health knowledge at many places beyond a doctor’s office. Much of this is happening online: 60 percent of people who report looking online for health information (roughly 2/3 of American Internet users fall into this category) say that what they found on their own affected their decision about how to treat an illness or condition. It is not a complete transition, though: physicians still rank as most credible source, and as the Health Engagement Barometer showed, 88 percent of people validate the information they find online with their doctor.

Wheel in the Sky

In this metaphor, “the wheel in the sky that keeps turnin’” is the ever growing innovation of online technology. There are new communication platforms constantly appearing in the digital world, and with each new channel, it is our challenge not only to figure out how people may use them to communicate about health, but also the marketing regulations that are still yet to truly be defined. Google’s SideWiki made us rethink the idea of “ownership” of a Web site, and it had a unique impact on sites for pharmaceutical products. We don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow, but you can bet it’s going to keep health communicators on their toes.

Open Arms

If recent years of the e-patient movement are any indication, the growth of communities specifically focused on a condition or disease states is likely to continue. That means that understanding how to work with patients – and not try to talk at them – will be the key to success. We shouldn’t have anything to hide, and we need to believe what they say. After all, for these groups, it is their health; as communicators, we need to respect that.

Don’t Stop Believing

There are a few more things that need to be worked out in the realm of online health communication. There still is that divide between the different groups, making transparent engagement across parties a little bit of a challenge. However, it is absolutely plausible that this will not be this way forever. We will find a way to connect patients and the people who can help them the most with their health. Until then, just don’t stop believing.

Dave Levy
Edelman Digital, Washington D.C.
Follow on Twitter @levydr

After a recent conversation with Adweek’s Brian Morrissey—it hit me that this is likely the year where we will see more senior people from the marketing & business community descend upon SXSW for a number of different reasons. In the past, SXSW has largely been populated by the hard core tech folks and digerati. This year, it will be more common to see people from all backgrounds and companies ranging from Humana (client) to Hilton to, you name it.

So the question is—if you are either going or sending someone, what’s the primary reason? Share your thoughts here on our anonymous poll. We’d love to know why you are going and what you hope to get out of it.

We'll be at SXSW in full force and hope to see you there.

David Armano
Edelman Digital, Chicago
Follow on Twitter @armano