Someone has noticed what we’re doing

If we can toot our own horn, Ewan at SMS Text News gave Nokia kudos for our blogger outreach work. He’s written an article about how different device manufacturers deal with bloggers. And it ain’t pretty.

Ewan says:

Nokia is the run-away leader in mobile blog relations. They’ve two main setups that I’m aware of. There’s a Nokia USA blogger program and a WOMWorld offering. As far as I’m aware anyone, whether you’re writing about mobile or otherwise, can talk to the leaders of these two operations and, provided you meet certain criteria, get admitted and in the door, to receive test devices and so on.

With the recent formation of our Social Media team, it’s sure to get better.

I also left a comment there as a thanks and an elaboration of what we’re doing:

Ewan,

Thanks for the kudos. I (with boss, Christian Lindholm) was the first in the company to start reaching out to bloggers, back in February 04, with Lifeblog. If you knew of Lifeblog in 04-05, it was because of me and and the bloggers that helped me.

WOM World and the US loaner program was set up, I think, in 06, and was Nokia trying the waters in social media relations (I was not involved, ironically). As you comment, the focus was not well balanced.

This year I was called back to join the newly formed Social Media team. My first task was to get a basic (modest) blog up and running for the communications team (a few more weeks if all goes well). Of course, we do have a few blogs existing (the S60 and Betalabs blogs are the most prominent) and we have a ton of employees who have identified themselves as employees publicly on their personal sites (like me) and occasionally participate in the conversations about Nokia. But my site will cover stories (not specs and tech) that are about the people and companies who use, are affected by, or are related to the products and services from Nokia.

While I might be setting up a Nokia-wide blog, that’s not going to be the only place my team will be (I’m not trying to control the conversation, just add to it). We’ve set up channels in Flickr, Share on Ovi, YouTube, del.icio.us, and may set up more, so that we not only participate where people are, but provide media that folks can play with, forward, comment on, and basically follow.

Yeah, Social Media finally is official at Nokia and we have a ton of people who actually know it. This time around, we are trying to set up a coherent, consistent, and for the long-run strategy to participate in the conversations happening around the Nokia neighborhood.

What do you think?

Ping me in a few weeks to see where I’m at. If we’re not public with the (damned) blog by then, I might be able to give you a peek.

Cheers and keep up the good work!

Tchau,

Charlie

PS The site is called Nokia Conversations. Watch my blog for any further comments on it <http://molecularist.com/lifeblog>

Ta!

image from caseywest