By Chris Lee

Twitter users in the last few weeks may well have noticed the hashtag #bemyguest. The BeMyGuest initiative aims to provide a way for bloggers to make connections and develop relationships, draw traffic and increase engagement.

The two communications consultants behind this initiative are Emily Cagle and Adam Vincenzini. NMK’s Chris Lee spoke to Cagle at length about the inspiration for the project, its results, and where she anticipates BeMyGuest goes from here.

Guest room

According to Cagle, the idea for BeMyGuest began when she and Vincenzini were discussing the social side of blogging.

“Adam had gained a lot of success from his #140 by #140 campaign, which asked 140 communications professionals for their definitions of social media, while I had gained a lot of traffic by hosting numerous guest blogs from industry experts,” Cagle told NMK. “Both of us had driven interest in these initiatives using Twitter ‘hashtags’ to signpost the tweets to relevant industries and areas of interest.”

Cagle argued that sharing a blogging platform with others doesn’t just stimulate traffic, it increases engagement.

“By sharing content with others, and inviting them to write content for us, we bloggers are building a community. Rather than simply reaching more eyes and ears, guest blogging allows us to make connections and develop relationships in a business and creative context. The BeMyGuest concept was thought up simply as a way to make the process of swapping guest blogs easier.”

Guest work

Taking part is easy, Cagle explained. Users simply use Twitter to tweet out their blog details and the hashtag #BeMyGuest to let people know they’d like to take part.

A tweet might look like this: “I write a blog about #media called The M3dia Blog <link> and I’d like to take part in #BeMyGuest http://bit.ly/bemyguest”.

Aside from the Twitter hashtag, Cagle and Vincenzini used a Posterous blog, a Twitter feed, a Facebook fan page and Flickr page to seed BeMyGuest across social networks.

Twitter was chosen as the driving force behind the campaign because the hashtag function affords such a simple way for all involved to track the conversation, Cagle said.

“The hashtag helps users to identify groups of people, show their common interest and make it known that they want to take part in the mutual blogging or just simply engage more,” Cagle added. “And, of course, Twitter is a 24-hour medium, meaning anyone, from anywhere in the world, can take part.

Cagle said that a key message she and Vincenzini wanted to convey from the outset of the campaign was that the hashtag belonged to the bloggers themselves.

“Anyone can use it, so while Adam and I drove the publicity and functionality of the concept, its evolution was chiefly driven by the community it was created to serve. For example, the Brisbane Times used the concept to get their own in-house bloggers to swap roles. Sports journalists blogged about relationships, and vice versa,” she said.

Guestimating results

The response to the initiative was overwhelmingly positive, Cagle said.

“We would have been happy if the campaign managed to create just one positive engagement, but in the 31 days of March, the campaign created 1,500 tweets, engaged 300+ bloggers and created over 200 blog posts,” she said. “On the final day, at 2pm, we invited all involved to re-share their thoughts, feelings and posts from the month, and that generated around 100 tweets every 15 minutes for an hour.”

Cagle and Vincenzini announced that they plan to keep BeMyGuest going.