Gun bloggers and social media at SHOT
From comments to that last post, comes SHOT welcoming gun bloggers and internet media types for the instant coverage. Then, someone from GunsAmerica chimes in and is not happy about it.
Update: I do think that there is some validity to his concerns. There are tons of gun blogs. So many I can’t keep up with them. How can a gun maker tell if someone with a badge that says ‘gunblogger’ actually has a substantial readership? And it’s not unheard of for people to start gun blogs for the free stuff.
Update 2: But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a dumb thing to say.
January 13th, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Engage Streisand Efffect!
And if you’re a nobody and want to hang out with other nobodies, we’re meeting at SHOT on Tuesday at 7 at the Grand Café Lux.
January 13th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
That wasn’t just a ‘representative’, that was Paul Helinski, founder of GunsAmerica, who spoke to all us ‘nobodies’ at the ’08 NRA Blogger Bash.
January 13th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Wait, free stuff?
I’m even worse at this than I thought.
January 13th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Oh hell … someone make the popcorn.
From his latest screed, “Even the print mags have been marginalized by the ‘bloggers’[.]”
Sorry pal – I can’t tell you the last time I bought a dead-tree gun rag. I get my information from the bloggers because I have met many of them and we are self-vetted. I trust someone like Jay or Tam a whole lot more than someone doing a review in an ad-supported magazine… because they don’t really have anything to lose.
On top of that, the bloggers he’s poo-pooing are largely self-supporting. I went the NRA show on a media pass, but my travel, hotel, etc – that was all on my own dime. Yes, I got some complimentary meals – but I wasn’t expecting them and went with cash in hand to buy my own dinners.
Magazines have a vested interest in keeping their advertisers happy. I don’t. I can write my own opinions of anything because of that – and I like it.
January 13th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
I do internet marketing for a living, so I get where he’s coming from.
But.
You don’t say this. Ever. Ever-ever-ever. It’s called, PR or The Long Tail. You don’t EVER say to ANY potential customer “We don’t want to talk to you, go away.”
January 13th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Its so nice when the low IQ types self identify so clearly.
January 13th, 2012 at 3:58 pm
how could they know who’s who? They could have people that read the blogs.
It’s not hard to figure out who you’d trust and who you’d let stay out in a cold northeaster blizzard to freeze. There’s even one or two that you’d be tempted to push into Narragansett Bay in the middle of a Nor’Easter.
Rather then be concerned with the traffic, maybe they should be concerned with who they wish to be associated with. OldNFO probably doesn’t get much traffic, but if he said, “Hey, this is a good rifle,” I’d pay attention. On the other hand, if someone who was drowning in Narragansett Bay in the aformentioned Nor’Easter, and just before he went under he screamed “Buy an XDm Compact” I think I would shift to Glock right away.
In the end, manufacturers just have to do their research to determine who to deal with. Bitching because there are no more gatekeepers after crushing the old media gatekeepers is kind of hypocritical if you ask me.
January 13th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Nobodies? You mean like GunsAmerica that I never heard about before today?
January 13th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
And Alan nails it in one.
January 13th, 2012 at 4:14 pm
I stole that from Breda. She’s much smarter than I am.
January 13th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
Here’s some Butter for the popcorn. The Z-Man’s correct. Hell, at the NRA Con, Breda kept nagging me to throw a Blog together and she’d get me Media Credentials. But I felt I needed some time on the pond, (as we used to say in the Navy), so I declined her generous offer. Besides, being a Life Member got me into the Con for Free, and I paid and/or tipped when it was time. And I got to meet and party with some really great people, and shake the hands of some of my “Gunnie” Heroes. So for me, it was an “Epic Win.”
Having said that, this sounds like someone is scared some Ad Revenue would go to some other sites rather than his.
In a Capitalistic Market Place, it’s called “Competition.” Sounds to me like some “Big Fish in a Small Pond” is afraid of his puddle drying up.
January 13th, 2012 at 4:22 pm
When I was but a wee lad of a jeans wearing grad student, I once walked up to a major equipment supplier at a convention and asked the counter minion if I could have a second with Mr. Big, the company founder, who was standing a few steps away speaking with other well-dressed executives.
The counter minion asked my business, and I told him I was delivering a message from my boss about an earlier order.
The minion said he could deliver the message, if I wrote in on a notepad. So I did. The message read, “You shipped us two of everything we ordered last week. We can either ship it back at your expense or you can pick it up at our lab while you’re in town with the trucks.” With my name and my boss’s name.
I handed the note to him, walked off looking at other displays, and was not surprised when he caught up to me about 59 seconds later, gasping for breath, to bring me back. After all, $500,000 mis-shipments don’t happen every day, and they really wanted the excess equipment back.
Moral of story: You never know who the customer is, treat them all well.
January 13th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Smart gun companies hire people with blog and social media experience, say a former gun blogger, who spends not inconsiderable amounts of time vetting new blogs, working to shore up relations with good blogs, and telling the freebie-only bloggers to sod off.
Not that I’d know anything about that.
January 13th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
I disagree that his point has some validity. I don’t believe it has any at all.
Granted, some of the value of product reviews is in getting the word out about new products or to get people to consider a product they may not have before. In that event, high traffic blogs are the best venue; but there’s also value in having reviews available even on blogs that don’t get high traffic.
I don’t like buying off the internet sight unseen, so one of the first things I do before buying is search for reviews. If I can’t find any…I don’t buy it. The more I find, the more comfortable I am with buying…even if some of the reviews are negative (you can’t please everyone and even the best QC sometimes fails). I’m not taking chances in companies that might be selling me crap and who’s customer service may leave something to be desired when I try to return the crap product for a refund.
It doesn’t matter a whit whether the blog the review is found on gets a million hits a day or a hundred, all I’m looking for is honest reviews of the product – there is a lot of value in that.
So…in summary…even if the blogger just started it to “get free stuff”, if they offer honest reviews of the free stuff they get, there is value in that.
As far as his complaint that the dead tree mags are suffering…good. I’ve always hated those ad-supported mags wherein every product they review is the best thing they’ve ever seen (because anything less might harm their ad revenue). Product reviews in mags like that are a waste of time.
BTW: I’m not saying this in self-interest…although I am one of those nobody bloggers that only get a couple hundred hit a day (on days that I actually put up a post), I’ve never asked for, nor received, any free stuff to review. The few product reviews I’ve done have been on products I purchased that I wanted to get the word out about.
If bloggers are good at that sort of thing and can use it to their advantage…good on them. Turning skills and effort into profit is what the free market is all about. If that’s somehow “taking advantage” then I take advantage of my employer every day (a sentiment with which they may very well agree…but I hope you get my drift).
January 13th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Clearly this is all about eliminating competition. These kinds of things always are.
January 13th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
I don’t understand what he’s trying to say. I regularly read blogs, and you guys post about things other than product reviews that I agree with. If I see a review I tend to take it seriously, I don’t think it’s a paid advertisement or something. Frankly, I’m just more likely to trust a ‘nobody’ because they have little to gain by lying to me.
January 13th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
Sean: How could they know who’s who?
Even easier than paying someone to do it arbitrarily by reading and deciding, they could do what the guy actually suggested, which is using Alexa (or equivalent) site metrics.
I’m with Uncle and, honestly, the GunsAmerica guy on this one; if you have limited time and effort to expend at SHOT or elsewhere, you want to expend it on media that actually gets read, not Anyone Whose Blog Once Had A Post About A Gun.
The idea that you get “Gun Blogger” on your badge only with enough traffic/influence doesn’t exactly sound pernicious.
(It was probably a mistake to say it so bluntly, as Kevin says, but I think he’s basically being sensible and right.
But then I don’t have a toe in the fight to get stepped on, so to speak.)
January 13th, 2012 at 4:58 pm
The Free Stuff Suction – isn’t that how TTAG works? Circle the wagons! GA was an auction site with a difficult interface and a level of fussiness seldom encountered.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
The only free thing I want is FREEdom to write what I want. And that wasn’t free. Many of us served so we could write what we like.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:09 pm
@Sigivald: Like I said, I trust OldNFO, who would likely have a low Alexa rating over anyone who might accidentally fall into Naragannset Bay during a Nor’Easter carrying an XD Compact even though he might have a very high Alexa rating.
I think you are correct that looking at Alexa ratings is important, but it’s like the difference between velocity and ballistic coefficient. Velocity is a depreciating asset, ballistic coefficient is forever.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
I dunno. Not sure I want to be popular among people too stupid not to install the Alexa toolbar.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Huh, I didn’t think GunsAmerica was anything more than a place to sell used guns.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:16 pm
What if you don’t give a fig about Alexa? Is it all a popularity game like Facebook?
January 13th, 2012 at 5:26 pm
Using Alexa as a tool for excellent writing is absurd. Using it to determine exposure is relevant. But as someone else said above, there are gun blogs featuring a lot of wisdom that don’t appear high on Alexa rankings.
If we use Alexa only, then we miss out on good writers. It’s like Britney Spears versus Jimi Hendrix. Britney is far more popular (and alive) but when someone says rock music I think of Hendrix long before I think of Spears.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:32 pm
Since I seem to be on a roll today, I thought I’d share my comment at the original SHOT post.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:33 pm
Hell, I don’t even know what Alexa IS. I do this because opinions are inexpensive and I have a LOT of them. I see little difference between starting a blog to get into SHOT and starting a crap magazine with no circulation to get into SHOT, other than initial investment. I use GunsAmerica once in a while to look at stuff I’m not buying, or to get a feel for used gun availability. I didn’t realize the guy was a big fish in media, cuz I’ve never found any. Also, I’m with wfgodbold, there’s supposed to be free stuff? Our subculture is growing, and SHOT is reflective of this… one guy’s unhappiness with the ‘nobodies’ just looks like a a complaint about how crowded it is, when he SHOULD be excited there are so many of us. After all, we’re all potential customers.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Using a metrics tool like Alexa or Quantcast as the only measuring stick is like trying to build a house using just a hammer.
Without going into details, some of the most influential gunbloggers (which is what companies actually care about) are not the largest. Traffic does have a lot to do with it, but just being big doesn’t make you a good resource. Unc here happens to be large and pretty influential.
That said, some of the most influential blogs I work with are middle of the pack trafficwise. Thus Alexa only gives half the story.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:36 pm
Alexa is a spam toolbar that people install by mistake, usually. And it tracks where you go.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
The “free stuff” thing is just a straw man. It’s all about limiting competition.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Yeah, you see that a lot in gun blogging stuff. “All these gun blogs suck but ours” type of stuff.
I’m more a share the traffic sort myself because there’s not any wealth to share, that’s for sure.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
That and Alexa and Blogger don’t play well together, who’da thunk?
January 13th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Paul’s just digging himself deeper and deeper in the comments.
He’s like an online Fudd “I have my $20,000 Italian shotgun, how dare you be allowed on the same range as me w/ your old $150 Remington. “
January 13th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
And I was worried about having a topic for the test run of The Squirrel Report tonight.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:56 pm
True story.
This happened today.
My hunting buddy doesn’t do blogs. Or online anything really.
But he lvoes my Remington 700 and has been dee rhunting a couple of years with a shotgun. He wants to step up to a real rifle. So I said I’d send him some links to decent priced weapons worth looking at further.
And I found some. On Guns America. Auction Arms. Gun Broker.
I was putting an email together for him with the links when I read this earlier. I just sent the email, but there isn’t a single link in it to Guns America.
January 13th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
I went use my folks comp one day, and they managed to have no less than 6 search toolbars installed. Crashed IE on a regular basis (even more than usual!). Now I find out they are super secret big brother TRACKING toolbars? Now I need to go unplug my onstar box and sit in a dark room until the black helicopters in my head go away…
January 13th, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Dear Gunsamerica,
You’ve made SayUncle. Congratulations. That crashing sound you hear is your hit count…
January 13th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Where has Guns America been for the past six years of the Gunblogger Rendezvous? I know the NSSF has been there…
January 13th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
And here I was wondering what we we talk about at the SHOTShow Blogger meetup.
January 13th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
You guys are gonna have a blast, I have to stay home… because it’s my Birthday!
January 13th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Those kinds of conversations are best had offline. It was dumb to make an issue of it publicly. But it is a serious concern. I think they should be welcoming to blogs with minor readership, however, it there should be more qualification necessary than being able to install wordpress and put up a post or two. You do need to have some standards.
January 13th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
He doesn’t know about the GunBlogger Rendezvous.
January 13th, 2012 at 7:02 pm
Well, I am nobody and no one should invite me to a SHOT show, but all of you got a crap load of people to read my tiny little post, so if I were this guy, I would pay attention to you bloggers!
January 13th, 2012 at 7:05 pm
I’ll have more to say about this later. This guy seems to have a massive jackassery thing going here, which his greater point is lost in. Alexia is a poor metric, really. Your main criteria really needs to be “is this guy actually blogging.” In other words, did they just set up a site and throw a few posts up to get in the door. Or did they have a blog they haven’t updated in years.
For the blog bash, we only really insisted that you blog about guns or second amendment topics, and even then only once in a while. Getting into audience size or quality isn’t really a worthwhile metric. There are better ways to filter out the unserious that doesn’t risk pissing everyone off.
January 13th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
It’s Friday the 13th, his bad luck day…
January 13th, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Sean’s comment about influence v. reach is the key. Robert Scoble may post only once every other blue moon, but when he does, people listen. And that’s only for unique visits to a site. Adam Baldwin doesn’t have website, but do people listen to him on Twitter? Oh heck yes.
NSSF was right to use Radius 6 for their study, rather than a spurious search results company because it reflects the WHOLE of teh interwebz, not one metric. Single data point metrics SUCK.
Disclaimer: I will say that Compete.com is pretty good, but given my druthers, I prefer Quantcast.
January 13th, 2012 at 7:38 pm
Kevin said,
“Disclaimer: I will say that Compete.com is pretty good, but given my druthers, I prefer Quantcast.”
Quantcast is much more accurate. Perhaps, that’s why Paul blocks the sharing of his Quantcast data.
January 13th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
You know what we need? New Media badges. Or maybe a bright yellow sash that says “Blogger!”.
Better yet, let’s have the government decide for the SHOT Show who has the right to free speech and write about guns and who doesn’t.
There, problem solved!
January 13th, 2012 at 8:45 pm
@Sebastian, I remember his talk at the Blog Bash. I remember several things, like he was late, he was disorganized, and didn’t seem to understand exactly what it was a blog was or what a blogger does.
January 13th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
That would be me.
On a different topic, and where his myopia shows, is that commentators are a vital part of blogging. There’s many who’s opinions I trust and value based on the years I’ve read their comments posted on various blogs. Some commentators have their own blogs. Some don’t. But many wield some level of influence within the community. Especially if in addition to simply blogs, they are also active in other social media arenas as well as on bulletin boards and gun forums (The High Road, Glock Talk, The Firing Line, 24 Hour Campfire, AR15.net etc)
And, I wasn’t joking about the Remington 700 story. If anyone knows someone who is looking to sell a decently priced Remington 700 in .270 or .30-06 let me know. He’s looking for a hunting rifle, not bench rest rifle.
January 13th, 2012 at 9:11 pm
Having done my time at trade show booths, you often can’t tell who’s “important” and who “isn’t”. And so you’re polite to everyone, qualify their interest, toss the media/pr types your very best talking points, and soak your feet at teh end of the day.
And I agree with the posters here that who say that you can’t rely on traffic as a measure of influence. Heck, Baldr Odinson doesn’t get much, but he seems to be all over the gun blogs lately.
January 13th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
GunsAmerica? Never HEARD of em.
January 13th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
Again, the only metric that matters is the knowledge that the community is growing. More people are becoming interested in firearms, more people are speaking up about it and that is positive because it matches the rise in sales. Frankly, if we have a million new blogs this year, so be it. More people exposed to things like the SHOT show will grow our community which is a positive thing.
People who scream about rights and then want to keep people out of the party are like people who write about rights and then mingle with the Brady folks. Don’t trust them. At all.
January 13th, 2012 at 11:51 pm
I think the capper would be a post by GunsAmerica about how great a blog TTAG is…
January 14th, 2012 at 12:29 am
I’m just a lurker who shows up at the back of the room.
I’ve watched Kevin shoot my 686 all six in one big fireball, talked to Gura and let him shoot my .308, watched Molly kick everyones ass on steel, own a buncha guns, shoot weekly, on the board of one club and a member of two others.
I read all of you bloggers every day plus other non gunnies.
I am always in the market. And a guy like that will never get my bucks or a tip from me.
Happy Birthday Girl with a Gun! Killer post.
January 14th, 2012 at 10:07 am
Makes sense to me. I can certainly see why they would go crazy stupid on anybody promoting efficient communication.
If politics go well, we might get rid of the FFL requirement and get person-to-person intra-state and inter-state sales of firearms back. If that happens, GunsAmerica will lose money, as people choose free platforms.
January 14th, 2012 at 11:44 am
I blog for me, not looking to go to any show. Others, I sense, do it for the perks, which is fine. I only get 70 to 120 hits a day. I don’t want or take ads, I don’t want free perks. My blog is about my thoughts and is done to only serve me.
January 14th, 2012 at 1:14 pm
Thanks Skip:)
January 14th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Paul really stuck his junk in the fan with that comment. I really wanted to leave a comment, but it kept devolving into a rant. He should take lessons from Breda on how to be gracious. I, for one am very grateful for her help in pointing out how to get into the NRA Con’s press room. Meeting some of the people that i’ve been reading all these years was the highlight of my visit.
As a ‘nobody’ whose hobby blog turned into a link dump, i’m not only offended by his remarks, but will be removing his link. Yeah, the link that my very small audience has used before …
Free stuff? The only thing i’ve ever got for free, was some unlimited ammo to shoot last memorial day. And at the end of the day, i returned all of the unused ammo. Once again, the highlight of that adventure was meeting all of the wonderful bloggers.
Paul can embrace ‘teh suck’ …
January 15th, 2012 at 10:58 am
And he just keeps digging.
http://www.shotshowblog.com/gun-bloggers-and-internet-media-instant-viral-coverage-of-the-shot-show/#comment-411467949
January 15th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Well,
I guess I’ll can cross “blogging” off of my bucket list. I doubt if I would ever have the metrics to be “credible”. Heck, I am struggling hard to even reach “troglodyte” (hmmmm….maybe I’ll be a “trogger” !).
But, after observing the meetings at the “church of the gun blog”, I do know how to better spend what little disposable income I have, and how to focus those expenditures on vendors who appreciate my contributions.
Kudos to the small guys who eventually garner attention and support. Well earned.
January 15th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
He is the commander of the Maginot Line and stands there assured of his position even as troops pour around behind him and make him look like an imbecile of a commander.
In short, he’s a boob.
January 16th, 2012 at 12:07 am
Free Stuff? I wonder if ILuvGunsAndFreeStuff.com is taken?