HP Technology Bloggers Meet Ups

the emagine group planned and oversaw a series of blogger meet ups for technology bloggers to develop a new relationship with the new media community focused on the HP brand in Pakistan. Working in coordination with Xenith Events, the HP Technology Bloggers Meet Ups were arranged in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi to bring together technology bloggers to discuss the expansion of social medias like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other sharing technologies. The goal was to understand how to interact better with the blogger community as a corporation without looking like a sales event. Additionally, HP launched the HP MINI in the Pakistani technology market by directly introducing it to the leading technology opinion makers around the country.

At emagine, our belief is that the new media are more effective in marketing and driving a products and services to its larget customers than traditional advertising. While traditional advertising is better for mass introductions and announcements, it is unable to reach individual customers in their homes and offices. Online media are based on networks of friends, classmates, interests and hobbies, designed to group individuals together, making marketing more targeted and measurable.

By using a compliment of independent technologies like Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube, emagine built an electronic infrastructure to promote the event, oversee and distribute information outside of the corporate HP Pakistan website. Additionally, independent bloggers contacted emagine to get information to further promote the event from their blogs and social networks.

The HP Technology Bloggers Meet Up were held on the 10th, 11th and 13th of December in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi respectively. While the event was very successful in generating a new level of discussion about technology service provision and what today’s technology customer wants for their lifestyle, we also saw that the audience was very interested in the new HP MINI 110 based on its functionalities, size and price. Commercially, there was an increase in sales of the HP MINI immediately after the event.

Bloggers were also told that their blogs would be viewed and reviewed for their honest coverage of the blogger meet up. Since our overall objective was to develop this relationship, at emagine, we were interested in seeing if the bloggers would tell us what they thought. Many bloggers came away from the event understanding that HP Pakistan wanted to build a new relationship with the technology opinion makers of Pakistan that was more interactive and reciprocal.

While the event was commercially successful, the increase in brand value from the event is more significant. From the pre to post event coverage of the event, HP Pakistan was able to establish itself as the first technology brand in Pakistan to listen to their hardest critics, the technology opinion makers, and provide answers, understanding and a way forward for making technology products and service provision better in Pakistan.

Online Event Coverage

Special thanks to Sultan Dar for Lahore, Batool Habib for Karachi and Zunnurain Khan for Islamabad pictures.