HP: Buying positive blogging coverage
By Yasmin Ahmed

Tech giant Hewlett Packard (HP) has done very well in recent years.  Under the able leadership of its Chairman and CEO, Mark Hurd, Hewlett Packard has gone from strength to strength.  In November, 2009, it posted revenues of $31 Billion. An HP associate in Pakistan is now offering laptops for the best blog coverage

Hewlett Packard (HP), like other tech giants, has embraced new media to have ‘conversations’ with their staff and customers.  And by all accounts, HP is doing a great job.

Why do tech companies connect with bloggers?  For a number of reasons.  Firstly, many tech bloggers are expert techies and can give valuable feedback of their tech goods and services.  Secondly, many of these techie bloggers are early adopters and will inspire others to try out a new product. Last but not the least, the more a company ‘engages’ with the customers the more a chance of a sale and resolution of service disputes.

On the flip side, bloggers want to tell their readers about new products and services. A few like the social status of being the first to get the latest phone or software. Many bloggers have stepped into the role of journalists and aim to reporting the facts freely and fearlessly.

It is a symbiotic relationship where some things are left unsaid.  In an ideal world, bloggers like honest mainstream media journalists, write posts based on facts and not gifts and inducements. 

Hewlett Packard has just had its first round of Blogger Meetups between Dec 10 – 13 in Pakistan.  Organized in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, officially the ‘first outreach in Pakistan was to discuss blogging, social media and other technologies effect on usage and marketing to the next generation of technology consumers. The event would discuss how technologies can be more interactive to build their brands in developing countries’.

In reality, it was an attempt to get bloggers to write about their new product. And prizes for providing best blog coverage? According to the organizers, 3 HP Mini netbooks would be given to 3 bloggers that provided the best overall coverage of the product and event. Coverage will include the quality of the coverage, review of event & product and number of platforms (blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) used’

A blogger who writes under the pseudonym ‘Hidden Eyes’ wrote in respected Pakistan tech blog Propakistani.pk about how the blog meet started off with HP introducing its new netbook HP Mini and saying it wanted ‘to engage the blogger community in the launch’. He then describes how one of the organizers openly asked what the blogging community can do for HP. (Techgoss had not edited his blog post so you can appreciate the wise earthiness of his report)

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Discussion was moving to-and-fro motion between social media and use of blogs. As soon as the tug of war ended, Khalid dropped another topping on the meal which was “How can bloggers help HP?”

Lustrous as it looks, everyone had one thing on mind as I got this feeling from the smirky looks and that thing was “Do Paid Reviews”. Jokes apart, guys and gals had their share of expression by telling the HP team that they should do similar kind of meet ups before future launches and relevant bloggers will write about the product and that’s how online Pakistanis will get to know more.

Discussion was worth listening as most of the bloggers had their own blogs and they were productive enough in spreading knowledge with their experience. Once the discussion got to the noble end, Khalid burped “Time for HP mini” : – )
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This brilliant report in the Pakistani blog shows how tech companies use blogs to spread their marketing message. Blogger ‘Hidden Eyes’ sees more than most.

It is a given that blogs and new media are slowly but surely replacing old media like newspapers.  Many people in the IT/BPO world actually get all their industry news from blogs.  Powerful American tech blogs like Techcrunch and Techflash beat mainstream media by breaking many stories.

So, why should any tech company offer laptops to bloggers for coverage when it would not to offer the same to mainstream journalists in Pakistan? American tech bloggers would never be offered such a deal. Indian mainstream journalists and bloggers do not have a get a similar deal to write about such HP products. The answer is because they can get away with paying for blog posts in some developing countries.