Biggest & Best Irish Bloggers & Twitterers?

Zascar

Guys does anyone know if there are lists on the most active/followed Irish Bloggers and who have the most followers on twitter etc?

BrianD

Problem is that the larger bloggers eventually tip over into full scale "web sites".

Does blogging really exist anymore? It was very popular a few years back and only the most determined people can keep continuously at it. Full time bloggers aren't really doing a blog anymore - they are in effect running a full time web presence.

Plenty of Irish people on Twitter but the people with the largest followings tend to be in main stream media in the first place - Tubridy, Hook, Cooper etc.

Nerin

there is a site that has a list and stats but can't remember. google found me this www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/irish-influencers-follow-twitter/

boards very own @DarraghDoyle and blacknight's @mneylon have a huge following and are both very nice and helpful

Zascar

Thanks that's exactly what I'm looking for. Any others like this would be most welcome!

mneylon

Nerin wrote: »

there is a site that has a list and stats but can't remember. google found me this www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/irish-influencers-follow-twitter/

boards very own @DarraghDoyle and blacknight's @mneylon have a huge following and are both very nice and helpful

Thanks

I don't think I have that big of a following compared to a lot of the others

Mulley and a few others would be a lot more popular

touts

Not exactly what you asked for but Damien Mully has a list for the "Irish Blog Awards" at www.awards.ie. The finalists probably significantly overlap with what you are looking for.

Darragh

Zascar wrote: »

Guys does anyone know if there are lists on the most active/followed Irish Bloggers and who have the most followers on twitter etc?

Why do you want it, can I ask?

Zascar

Hi Darragh,

Well I’m just about to launch a new website – it’s pretty new, fun and interesting, and has mass appeal to so almost anyone would at least be interested in hearing about the idea - hopefully many would also get involved. I think it’s something that given the right opportunity could spread pretty well through twitter, facebook and the blogosphere – but I’m just not sure how to approach it. I really do not want to spam in any way but I’m looking for ways in which I can make contact with people who might be well connected in these fields and let them know. Hopefully a few of them might give me a Tweet or post of some sort. I’ve had a fantastic response to it so far from the limited group I have launched it to – really positive from everyone and a number of people have already written articles about the site on their blogs etc – so I want to see if I can grow this.

Can anyone give me some advice as to how to best to try to get the word out there?
Thanks

hoorsmelt

An Cruiskeen Lawnmower is pretty good, even if it's from a mostly Nordie perspective. Another good one is the group blog of the website Politicalworld.org.

Darragh

Zascar wrote: »

Hi Darragh,

Well I’m just about to launch a new website – it’s pretty new, fun and interesting, and has mass appeal to so almost anyone would at least be interested in hearing about the idea - hopefully many would also get involved. I think it’s something that given the right opportunity could spread pretty well through twitter, facebook and the blogosphere – but I’m just not sure how to approach it. I really do not want to spam in any way but I’m looking for ways in which I can make contact with people who might be well connected in these fields and let them know. Hopefully a few of them might give me a Tweet or post of some sort. I’ve had a fantastic response to it so far from the limited group I have launched it to – really positive from everyone and a number of people have already written articles about the site on their blogs etc – so I want to see if I can grow this.

Can anyone give me some advice as to how to best to try to get the word out there?
Thanks

Cheers for the reply.

I actually think there's something fundamentally broken in the thinking about websites, online services and the like in this country. The amount of money, time and effort I see wasted on courting journalists, bloggers, twitterers and the like is just obscene.

While there is a genuine value in getting your brand/service/product/website mentioned in the mainstream media, asking someone to blog about it, Facebook it or tweet about it - and even worse paying a PR company to do this for you - is actually, to my mind and opionion, useless, and pays into the people making most money out of the gold rush being those who sold the picks and shovels.

My advice for you is two-fold.

Write down who your audience is and who you want to buy or experience your product/service/wesbite, find out where they are online - is it Boards.ie? Is it Facebook? and do some clever advertising, competitions or discount with them.

BUY the advertising - you completely get what you pay for and the creativity you put into it. Target your audience cleverly and the rest should happen.

Secondly, avoid wasting time courting reviews from bloggers, twitterers or "key influencers" and get CUSTOMERS and people who will ACTUALLY use it to review it for you. Ask them to talk about it. Get honest feedback, get actual experience and ask them to recommend it.

I can say this with considerable confidence being one of those blogger/twitter types myself. It's not a viable option for you and it's an "industry" or a "tick the box" marketing exercise that I hope will die out quite soon. It adds to the noise - is a bit of fluff - but ultimately is money, time and effort wasted.

How many times in your life have you actually bought, paid for or used a website that was recommended to you by a blogger or twitterer who wasn't paid or asked as a favour to promote something?

Seriously, the amount of PR I read on certain blogs is astounding, particularly when it's posted as "personal experience/content" though really something gotten from the same press release I got. This is something too that will be found out and once that trust is gone, it's gone.

That's why I, for one, do my utmost to be transparent about and attribute where something comes from. It's also why I'll only run competitions - that's actually a good way of getting people to your site. Will it get them back though?

There's considerable bull**** from snakeoil salespeople about the value of getting bloggers or twitterers to talk about you. Personally I've never seen verifiable absolute stats that show where this has worked for anyone. What you want when I visit your site is for me to have a good time, recommend it to friends and come back. Reading a blog post or a tweet from someone that you've ASKED to do it is not how I'd approach it. I'd prefer to read it from someone who actually likes it.

Feel free to post the link below and I'll have a look at it for you. If there are people who actually blog about this stuff or twitterers who would like it, I'll recommend them.

Never ever pay for this stuff. Bloggers (for the most part) do it for free.

There's a lot of bull**** out there. Customer experiences and recommendations though are gold. That's what you should aim for.

Cheers

Darragh

Jenn.ie

Strong words..

The approach I take to my blog (Digital Marketing & SEO topics) is to write about things that interest me and hopefully my audience. I use examples of businesses to illustrate points that I'm making. I may have a dual pupose in using one business rather than a different one, (ie. I'm doing some work for one, I think it's cool, or I like them in some way and want to give them a mention) but I keep it in the context of the post or topic I'm writing about and it's adding value for my audience.

So, I agree with you Daragh, if you're trying to build trust and authority, people have finely-tuned bulls with asterisks detectors.

Although marketing classes do have quite a focus on the 'key influencers' to get messages out there - it's a fine line.

But if anyone does want to court me with obscene amounts of money...well it makes me think of Oscar Wilde and something about 'haggling over the price'!

mneylon

I can see where Darragh is coming from completely.

Apart from anything else a lot of people's attempts to "court" bloggers etc., is done really badly and either backfires completely or comes across as being "bought"

For example, if you "tweet me" a link to something without any context and I have no idea who you are I'm probably just going to mark you as a spammer.

If you actually "engage" with me then I probably won't, but unless you actually understand what kind of things I'm personally interested in I'm not going to bother retweeting it and I definitely won't blog about it.

And there's the problem - engaging personally with each and every blogger / Twitter user etc., that *might* be influential is probably a full-time job

You might be better off as Darragh says paying for some advertising, doing some traditional PR and doing two things with that:
1 - You get paying customers
2 - the customers can act as your advocates

Of course if your product or service isn't that wonderful then the potential advocates could easily become your biggest critics, but that's a risk you're going to run regardless

HTH

Michele

Priori

Very interesting reading. If, after the foregoing, you still feel it worthwhile targeting those coveted 'tweepz', tweepz.com is actually a decent resource for unearthing some surprises (it's pretty limited though for anything other than identifying twitter users on the basis of numbers).

But IMO prominent bloggers/twitterers are only useful as customers (with a particularly long reach).

Keano!

my blog (see my sig)

seanob43

I run a blog myself and find writing about my subject very interesting as do most people.It does't get very many hits or anything but I'm happy as long as I have at least one person reading it.

GizmoWow.com

and don't worry it's not just another blog about ordinary gadgets.I promise:D

Get Cracking

Im not very computor orientated,
so from what I understand from readig ,a blog is when one writes about a subject that they specalize in,other people interested read it,but cannot reply ,
Is this a correct understanding ?or am i mixed up?:)

sNarah

It's basically a website that is not static, i.e. the content changes regularly. You can blog about any subject, most people blog about either what they're interested in from a personal level or about topics relating to their career/company/industry.

Some (most) blogs allow comments, as it allows for discussion and interaction.

For the OP - I remember a list of must influential Irish bloggers somewhere but can't seem to recall where. To join in with the others here, contacting any of them looking for endorsement comes across as very "spammy".

Best way is to get start blogging, engage with industry peers through Twitter, Linkedin, commenting on other blogs etc , and you'll soon be part of that community as a respected member, meaning sitelinks follow automatically. As with anything else, a soft, mannered approach is always the best approach.

(will have another looksie for that list!)

bdo

Zascar wrote: »

Guys does anyone know if there are lists on the most active/followed Irish Bloggers and who have the most followers on twitter etc?

3 things you want:
http://awards.ie/blogawards/ ... lists all the big bloggers

http://twitaholic.com/top100/followers/bylocation/Ireland/ ... list of Irish Twitterers

... and top Facebook fans ireland here:
http://ie.yoursocialmonitor.com/social-media-monitor-facebook-pages-fanpages/index.php