blogonawire

I’ve introduced many of you to Nienie through presentations about Social Media and Blogging. Nienie’s blog is a prime example of niche targeting. Nienie is one of the top Mommy Bloggers in the country (featured in the Arizona Republic, Cookie mag etc.) and she is arguably the top religious, crafter, stay at home, vegetarian, mommy blogger in the world and that is her niche. Although Nienie’s thousands of readers around the world do not all align with her religious, crafter,… niche, they all identify or aspire to identify with her aesthetic and values. I’ve met dozens, and seen emails from hundreds, of people that claim to know her and yet I’d wager that 99% of them have never met her. I’ve known Nienie for years (she married my college roommate and I am the godfather of her 4 children) and despite what most people might believe, Nienie is not an extrovert. The reason people claim to know her is because if you’ve read her blog then you know her almost as well as I do. She is a master at capturing her life through pictures and words. Corporate bloggers could learn a lesson from her about letting your personality show in your posts. So why I am telling you about Nienie? On August 16th Nienie, her husband and their flight instructor were in a plane crash. The plane landed in a wood pile and caught fire resulting in devastating burns covering much of their bodies. The next day the pilot died from burn related injuries. Nienie and her husband are currently in induced comas while doctors work to save their lives and repair their bodies.
This event has been tragic and I want to thank all those at Sitewire that have reached out to support Nienie and her family. Luckily for Nienie, “Mommy Bloggers” know how to spread the word and the blog buzz resulting from this event has been nothing short of phenomenal.  I asked our Social Media Expert Katie Vandomelen to use our Social Sentiment reporting tools to help me track the trends and sources of buzz so that I could use that information to create more buzz. I wanted to share a few of our findings.
August 17th Nienie’s sister posts the tragic news on Nienie’s blog and gets 219 comments
August 22nd a tribute video was posted on Youtube (over 3,000 views) and DesignMom (Very famous Mommy Blogger) asks crafters to unite resulting in 88 comments and over 300 donation auctions.
August 25th www.nierecovery.com launches to help organize all of the fundraising efforts and wishes for Nienie tied to balloons launch around the world.
I found it fascinating to watch over the course of the week as posts about prayers inspired people to take action (fundraising)

Here’s a tag cloud created from people blogging about Nienie

In the last week there have been over 300 posts and close to a 2000 blog responses reminding me that “social” communities can be as meaningful and real as your familial community and that blogging can turn a stay at home mom into celebrity w/ more influence than most consumer brands.  Hopefully this post and the corresponding links will inspire you to pray, donate or spread the message, so that months from now when Nienie awakes from her coma she will discover an immense virtual support group to help her on her road to recovery.  www.nierecovery.com