Summing up after the event, founder and organiser of the Tallinn blogfests, Robin Gurney meditates on the changing role of the fest and what the future may hold. Robin can be contacted via www.altex.ee
Ott Pärna, CEO Arengufond (Estonian Development Fund)
The Estonian Development Fund (Arengufond in Estonian) is a public sector venture capital fund and strategic foresight unit, set up by the Estonian government and managed by a team headed by economist Ott Pärna. In 2018, Estonia will be marking the centenary of its declaration of independence – its birth as a sovereign country.* In the same year, it will also assume the rotating Chair of the European Commission. To mark both events, Ott Pärna has convened a group of 150 experts and advisors to develop an ‘Estonian Growth Vision’ for 2018. The first task for the team has been to investigate channels of communication, including social media and more traditional local town hall meetings, in order to engage the population at large and put in place the structures and processes required to harvest opinions and ideas that could be incorporated into the Growth Vision project. Ott is keen for this ‘vision’ to be generated collectively, from the ground up, rather than imposed from above. He says he is looking primarily for new ways of achieving social engagement, rather than trying to improve the old ways. He refers to the 2008 ‘Teeme Ära!’ (‘Let’s do it!’) campaign, described at the conference by Anneli Ohvril, as a good example of the process he wants to apply, on a larger scale, to generate the ‘Estonian Growth Vision 2018’. Finally, he speculates that, as the newly-enlarged European Union seeks to re-invent itself in a world context and re-focus its policies of inclusion, one of Estonia’s contributions to the European Community, during its 2018 Chairing of the EC, could be a method of engaging Europeans on a large scale to collaborate in the setting of new goals and agendas for its people.
* Having been, for the best part of 500 years, part of the Swedish and then the Russian empires, in 1918 the Estonian Declaration of Independence was issued, followed by a two-year war of independence, ending with the Tartu Peace Treaty, which recognised a separate Estonian nation in perpetuity. During World War II, Estonia was occupied and annexed first by the Soviet Union and subsequently by the Third Reich, only to be re-occupied by the Soviet Union in 1944. Estonia regained its independence in 1991 and joined the European Union in 2004. A full account of Estonia’s history, ancient and modern, can be found on Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia
Ott Pärna can be contacted via www.arengufond.ee
Kaidi Kerdt, Sommelier and Communications Manager, Veinisõber OÜ
If you didn’t know, a sommelier is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional. Veinisõber is a small Estonian company (just 4 employees) selling fine wines to connoisseurs and trying, almost single-handedly, to educate a new generation of Estonians in the pleasures of plonk, there being little in the way of a wine-drinking tradition, so far North of the grape producing regions of Europe. Kaidi Kerdt established the company’s Facebook site in September 2009 and claims that, in less than a year, her customer base has expanded by 5,000 – a major development for such a small company. She also says most of her Facebook clients are women. Kaidi believes her success is because of the quality and quantity of free advice and information she gives – around the clock! You can contact Kaidi via www.veinisober.ee
Arno Pae, Head of Strategy, OMD Estonia
OMD Estonia is a division of OMD Worldwide, specialists in media marketing, which has more than 140 office in 80 countries. Arno says he advises his clients that there is an important role for social media in the mix of communication channels he offers, but that they are not equivalent to regular traditional advertising and marketing. For a start, there is a strong requirement for the seller to engage with the buyer before, during and after a sale. The payoff for this effort is frank (and free) feedback which could allow the seller to improve the product or service they are marketing, and thereby steal an advantage over their competitors. They can also gain valuable insights into who their customers are and what motivates them in purchasing one product over another, similar one. This is the kind of information which usually costs a company significant expenditure on market research. Arno can be contacted via www.omd.ee
Anneli Ohvril, Communication Manager, Teeme Ära!
‘Teeme Ära!’ roughly translates as ‘Let’s do it!’ in English. It is a highly successful Estonian community-based project which in 2008 managed to mobilise 50,000 Estonians to give up some spare time on a single day to help clean up their forests. An estimated 10,000 tonnes of garbage was collected. Anneli uses Facebook in particular as her social channel of choice, but cautions that, in her experience, it’s over-rated as a communications medium. She confesses that, after three years in the job as communications manager, she’s getting tired of being asked about Facebook as if it were some kind of magic ingredient in her communications strategy. She points out that a large percentage of the 50,000 volunteers that made ‘Teeme Ära!’ So successful were not on Facebook – most didn’t even have email. She says the kinds of people who would pull their boots on and head for the forest with bin bags for a cleanup are unlikely to be the same as those who spend their time sitting in front of a computer. On the other hand, she admits that it was her Facebook page, and a YouTube video of the 2008 project, which triggered interest from abroad, resulting in similar campaigns in countries as far away as India and Brazil. Finally, Anneli has some advice about how to create a friendly and welcoming environment in Facebook, in order to stimulate useful discussion. She suggests the best analogy is to imagine you are inviting guests into your home. You first show your home, then provide comfort and food, and most of all you ask questions and draw your guests out, rather than bombard them with messages. Anneli can be contacted via www.minueesti.ee. The YouTube video that she refers to can be found at:
Maria Belovas, New Media Specialist, Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Maria told the conference she has been working with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to determine to what extent social media can be used as a communication tool for crisis management. She said the first rule for effective involvement online is to watch, listen and develop real skills in the media before contributing. She commented on the difficulties of judging the impact of a communications strategy aimed at social media, especially as the target audience for a government ministry of foreign affairs is naturally global, multicultural and multi-lingual. Maria’s advice to conference delegates thinking of developing a presence in social media is to start with a strategy that clearly defines the target audience, that tailors the message to that audience and which includes a mechanism for responding to feedback promptly, analysing its content and acting accordingly. She says the key skill in this workflow is learning how to listen. In her second clip, Maria shares the results of her department’s analysis of who is using the social media platforms, and how to tailor the government’s message to a particular audience profile. She warns that simply putting press releases written for professional journalists on Facebook is not likely to yield results. Maria can be contacted via www.vm.ee
Triin Tammert, Project Manager, Estonian Air (Eesti keeles)
Triin works for Estonia’s national airline, Estonian Air. She helps the company keep in touch with its customers via Facebook and other social media. They recently had to deal with the crisis triggered when ash from an Icelandic volcano stopped all flights to and from Estonian airports. (Estonian language) Triin can be contacted via www.estonian-air.com
Robin Gurney, Altex Marketing OÜ, talks about marketing via social media
Robin Gurney is the brains behind the Tallinn Blogfest. His company, Altex Marketing, lays claim to being the first internet marketing agency established in Estonia. Speaking to conference delegates, Robin pointed out that social media are not very effective at direct selling – that clients expecting to ship more widgets as a result of, say, twittering their latest discounts and deals are likely to be disappointed. His argument is that social media can help sales, but mostly indirectly. They do it by adding value for the customer when buying their widgets from you, compared with your competition. Sellers do this by accepting feedback in a public forum, entering into a dialogue which empowers the customer while providing valuable data that allows the business to improve the product or service. Robin also says businesses can use social media for things like recruiting staff and finding suppliers. He gives an example of this. Robin can be contacted via www.altex.ee
Toomas Toots, CEO Freqmedia Estonia
Toomas Toots is the CEO of Freqmedia, an Estonian media analysis company. Describing comments he made to the conference, he says the Estonian blogosphere has shrunk by 25% in volume in the last 12 months, from its peak in 2009, however, he says this may not be a bad thing as many ‘me too’ bloggers have fallen by the wayside, leaving a hard core of those with something interesting to say – that the signal to noise ratio has improved. His company has also published for the first time a profile of the average or typical Estonian blogger – she’s in her early twenties and is called Triin. Whereas Estonian men blog during the day, Triin blogs at night. Toomas was just revealing this when a power cut plunged us into darkness, forcing a dramatic end to the interview. Spooky! Toomas can be contacted via www.freqmedia.com
Helge V. Keitel, Manager of International Operations, KK-Net, Finland
Helge V. Keitel, Manager of International Operations at KK-Net, Finland, outlines what he told delegates at the blogfest, including a novel plan for tourists to contribute their home videos and snaps to a pool of media, including commercially-sponsored elements, that would provide an ever-changing and expanding ‘cloud’ of information for fellow travellers. Helge can be contacted via www.kknet.fi
Tallinn Blogfest 2010
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