by Herman Manson (@marklives) An innovative sales network is emerging to ensure the sustainability of South Africa’s smaller independent publishers and bloggers. 8Bit, started by Tom Kennedy and Richard Hutch, combines the inventory of a number of popular blogs and indy websites in a bid to grab a bigger piece of the online advertising pie.
Opportunity to cross-promote
Their network also offers an opportunity for publishing partners to cross-promote content and so take individual site audience above 30 000 monthly uniques.
Kennedy is involved in running the youth culture blog Don’t Party. He’s pals with a bunch of other bloggers, and they all tapped his contact list to generate their own sales, so he was already, unofficially, running a network, he jokes. 8Bit just formalised the exercise.
Launched officially in August 2013, the network was recently accepted into the 88Mph Accelerator Program, an investment fund and accelerator programme sponsored by Google, Samsung and Microsoft, aimed at boosting tech start-ups in Africa.
Secondary sales rep
Kennedy says indy publishers and bloggers face various obstacles in effectively monetising their content. Part of the problem is that they are often not sales people, and they don’t generate enough revenue to appoint sales professionals. 8Bit doesn’t try to usurp direct relationships with clients. Instead, it serves as a secondary sales rep — one that offers a single touch point to multiple quality sites for media agencies and brand owners.
8Bit has also ensured standardise reporting across the sites it represents. It runs Effective Measure and Google Analytics, and ads are served using Google DFP.
Sites in the network include design portfolio site 10and5.com, lifestyle blog Bangers & Nash, youth site Mahala, tech favourites Bandwidth Blog and HumanIPO.
Campaigns already run
8Bit has already run campaigns for Pernod Ricard, Mercedes-Benz and Olmeca across the network — generating more than half a million rand in revenue. Kennedy expects this figure to up to R3-4 million a year quickly (revenue is split either 80/20 or 70/20 in favour of the publishers).
Interestingly, PR agencies seem to be holding budgets for a lot of online spend, says Kennedy, indicative of the evolving role of public relations in managing online reputations.
The network is also developing 8Bit Engage to cross-promote content from the various publishing partners (see image below). It will also allow for paid-for content (advertorial, really) to be displayed — creating an additional revenue stream for the network. The system already has franchises in Lagos and Nairobi.
Changing mindsets
According to Kennedy, 8Bit aims to change the mindset of media agencies and brands when it comes to reaching out to independent online publishers, and to offer tools to those publishers to make them competitive against larger networks.
Update: Bangers & Nash was misidentified as a foodie blog in an earlier version of this article. We apologise for the error.
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