Sun's Tim Bray on the Three Components of a Successful Blog

Just finished participating in Bulldog Reporter's Webinar: Corporate Blogging Update for PR. Fellow panelists were John Earnhardt of Cisco and Tim Bray of Sun Microsystems. Our able moderator Jon Greer kept things moving right along. Fun.

Tim has been "online" since, er, at least 1983. That's 25 years. Here's a Usenet posting dated Aug. 31, 1983 from his blog archive: Doesn't Anyone Out There Read Anymore?

Wow. And I thought I was cool. I've been "online" since about 1992. Put up my first Web site in 1995. Here's a peek at my site in 1996, according to the Way Back Machine. Note: I was primarily a journalist back then, before B-school and marketing.

So it was interesting to see Tim's slides and hear his riff on corporate and employee blogging. Spot on.

According to Tim, the three most important components of a successful blog are: 1. Good writing 2. Interesting person 3. Valuable material.

Best to have all three, he said. Sometimes you can get away with two out of three. Less than that, it won't work.

His slide, below, looked exactly like this. Unadorned. The best PowerPoint style IMHO, if you absolutely have to use it.

Why I'm Changing to Initial-Caps Titles for Blog Entries

I hope the Blogging Grammar & Style Police are not out sniffing around today. They might quibble over this change. After using a lowercase style for my blog titles for the past three and a half years (with an initial cap on the first word), I've decided to switch to what looks to be the more standard initial-caps style for every word.

I'm doing this primarily because I think it looks better - and more authoritative - in RSS readers. Below is a snapshot of some of the feeds I look at in Google Reader on a regular basis. They're all using initial caps, including CopyBlogger which is ranked #31 in Technorati's Top 100.

Except for Seth Godin. But then he's Seth and still uses the TypePad address for his blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/. As his blog is currently ranked #18 on Technorati (out of 112 million blogs) I think he can pretty much march to his own beat.

Whew... got that news off my chest.

Meeting blog designer Sarah Lewis for the first time

I've been working with Sarah Lewis of Blogging Expertise for about two years. She did the custom design for this blog and also designed my main site at debbieweil.com. But until today, when I bumped into Sarah in the hall at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, we'd never met face-to-face. Only in Vegas, as they say...

Listen below as I ask Sarah what's new in blog design.

This blog is 802 pages long

A propos of nothing... when is the last time you downloaded or "saved" the content of your blog to your hard drive? It's probably a good idea if you're using a hosted service like TypePad.

I think I last did it in October 2005, while I was writing The Corporate Blogging Book.

The Word doc I created two years ago was 404 pages. Today, the export to a text file (which I turned into a Word doc) is 802 pages or 241,131 words. That includes all the Comments and Trackbacks.

That's a lot of bloviating...

Is it OK to ask readers to leave a Comment on your blog?

I think so. As long as you don't ask too often. Here's why: many folks are shy about leaving a Comment, particularly if they're not familiar with blogging etiquette. If they see other Comments, it can make it easier to jump in.

So here's my request: head on over to GlaxoSmithKline's official corporate blog for alli, the first FDA approved, OTC (over the counter) weight loss product. Take a peek and, if you're inspired, leave a Comment.

Doesn't matter whether you're overweight or not, or whether you're considering taking alli yourself. You may have seen the TV ads. GSK has launched a massive educational marketing campaign to support the product launch.

Traffic to the blog is steadily growing but readers seem a bit skittish about leaving Comments. Maybe you can help jumpstart the two-way conversation.

Full disclosure: I'm working with GSK on the blog. And this was my idea to ask for Comments.

See my follow-up to this post

Corporate blogging lessons from Google's blogging gaffe

Google's blogging gaffe happened over a week ago and there's still a flap about it in the blogosphere and in MSM (mainstream media).

A quick recap, Google employee Lauren Turner, a sales rep for Google ads, gave Michael Moore's new film, Sicko, a thumbs down in a sort-of-review on Google's new Health Advertising blog.

She then invited "health insurers, health providers, and pharmaceutical companies" (her words) - the targets of Moore's criticism of limited access to costly healthcare - to get their own version of the story across by placing ads on Google.

Oops, she crossed a line there.

Partisan politics are dicey on a corporate blog

It's not so much that this Google blogger said something politically incorrect: "Do No Evil" Google coming out against Michael Moore's film?? (That drove the blogosphere wild.) Nor that she blatantly promotes Google's advertising services. But that she crossed the line into partisan politics.

Think about it. Supposing she had come out with the opposing view, saying this was the greatest movie ever made, and suggesting that readers take out ads in praise of the film. Wouldn't that have the same feeling of "crossing a line" into a partisan statement, one that urges political action?

No one would deny that America's healthcare system is hugely flawed. Access to healthcare is one of the most highly charged issues in this country. But wading into a divisive and combustible issue on a corporate blog - and expressing a political point of view about it - strikes me as dicey.

Google's official corporate blog issued a retraction of sorts. I.e., it focuses on clarifying Google's political position on healthcare (Google "does share many of the concerns that Mr. Moore expresses about the cost and availability of health care in America"). It would have made more sense, IMHO, to parse exactly why Lauren Turner's original blog post was inappropriate.

3 (obvious) corporate blogging lessons

Here are three pointers for corporate blogging. They're not new, nor are they original. But they bear re-stating, in view of Google's blogging gaffe:

1. Be authentic

That means use an "authentic voice" and say what you're really thinking. Lauren Turner's Sicko post had the ring of a salesperson's spin. It sounded like she was using her "opinion" about Sicko as a way to promote Google's AdSense program. (Read Mike O'Sullivan's comment.)

2. Be transparent

If you're one of numerous authors on a corporate blog, be absolutely clear when you're expressing your own opinion vs. your company's.

3. Apologize if you make a mistake

Google got this one right. And even went further. As a Google spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle:

"We try to ensure that what is in them (Google's over 50 blogs) represents the company, but we also try to make them interesting and not too traditional and corporate," he said. "We hope to get even better at it over time, but we'll probably also make more mistakes."
- San Francisco Chronicle (July 5, 2007)

BONUS TIP: Steer clear of politics and religion unless there's a compelling strategic reason. For example, your company has decided to adopt a green (environmentally friendly) strategy on everything you do.

Useful Links

Google Faux Pas Retracted (TechCrunch, July 1, 2007)

Crossing the Corporate Line (San Francisco Chronicle, July 5, 2007)

Company Blogging 101 by Google spam engineer Matt Cutts

Google's Authentic Voice Problem (O'Reilly Radar)

Google official blog's M.O. (Three-year anniversary of Google's original corporate blog, June 15, 2007)

Freakonomics blog ponders the question of who comments on blogs: great reading

Stephen Dubner (co-author with Steven Levitt of Freakonomics) ponders the question of who Comments on blog posts and why. Most readers don't leave comments. In fact, "the ratio of readers to commenters is gigantic," he notes. Then he riffs about this statistical conundrum:

"I realize there is a selection problem here: anyone who responds to my question about why commenters comment is, alas, a commenter. Which means that regular commenters will be overrepresented in the comments — unless, of course, a whole bunch of you who never comment decide to go ahead and log in and, in the comments section, tell us why you never comment. Or why other people do." - Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics

And of course there's the follow-up post that summarizes the 113 comments he got: Why you comment on blogs.

I love this point that Dubner makes:

"Some of you said that you tend to comment on blogs where the blogger writes back in the comments section — which we typically don’t. This is simply a function of time; I love blogging but I do not want it take over my life. I do read all the comments, and sometimes respond privately. Very often, I believe the comments on this blog are better than the blog postings themselves. This makes sense: there are only two of us, and a lot of you. If you believe even a tiny bit in the wisdom of crowds, you have to love this dynamic." - SD

Great reading (Part 1 and Part 2). Also check out the Freakonomics Study Guide for students and instructors. Apparently the book is assigned reading in a variety of college courses. I loved it!

[via Judy Gombita]

Take Melcrum's Social Media Survey

My friends over at Melcrum Publishing are running a Social Media Usage survey. Click here to take it (it's quick).

You get a nifty free download at the end: Melcrum's Quick Start Guide to Social Media for Internal Communicators (a 23-page PDF).

The survey is aimed at large corporations and asks about your use (or intended use) of blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking tools, RSS, Second Life, online video, etc.

Social Media for Internal Communicators in London - March 22, 2007

I'm speaking at Melcrum's social media conference in London in a couple of weeks. Topic: What's Your Story? Getting the Tone and Content of Blogs Right. Attendees will get a copy of my Content Strategy Workbook -- one of the things that will be included in... (drum roll)... The Corporate Blogging Toolkit.

I'm developing it now. It's an extension of The Corporate Blogging Book, designed to be a practical blueprint and manual to launch a corporate or CEO blog.

Consider this a below-the-radar announcement. More TK.

Best answer to "How has your blog changed your life?"

Rebecca Blood is one of the original A-list bloggers from the ancient past of the blogosphere (1999). I love how she writes and should check in with her blog more often. She posted an interview she did a while back with David Weinberger, another long-time blogger and one of the co-authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto. Rebecca asks Dave:

Q: How has your weblog changed your life?

A: Blogging has made me fat. I used to exercise in the morning. Now I blog. It's connected me to people I care about. I'm over-stimulated intellectually. There's too much to read, think about, and write about.

-- David Weinberger

Could anyone say it better?? I love Dave's answer. But really Dave you should still get out for a walk or something. Looking forward to the publication of your new book, Everything Is Miscellaneous, in May 2007.

Flogging, Wal-Marting and Edelman's non-response

Update: Richard Edelman responds here (90 96 comments) and then here. Steve Rubel here (over 50 comments).

I'm a huge fan of the folks at Edelman, particularly Steve Rubel and Phil Gomes and Guillaume du Gardier in Paris. So I have no idea what's up with Edelman's non-response to the outing of the Wal-Marting Across America blog as a paid-for publicity stunt.

Definition of flogging

Flogging refers to a new blog-ism: fake blogging - as coined used by MediaPost reporter Tom Siebert in his article: Pro-Wal-Mart Travel Blog Screeches to a Halt. Full disclosure: Tom interviewed me and quotes me in the article. He also quoted me in his follow-up article (see below).

[Correction: flog was coined by Matthew Oliphant.] 

I'm inclined to think that a lot of wires got crossed on this one.

About ten months ago Wal-Mart retained Edelman to work on blogger relations with them to counter the stream of negative press the company is getting. One of the things Edelman did was suggest that Wal-Mart create Working Families for Wal-Mart (WFFWM). Hard to believe that the Edelman team would then give Wal-Mart such bad advice, as in:

Here's how to behave in the corporate blogosphere: fake it

I.e. get WFFWM to pay a photographer (Jim) and a freelance writer (Laura) to pretend they just happen to be driving across America in an RV. Oh and they just happen to park each night in the RV-friendly Wal-Mart parking lots. Oh and they just happen to photograph and interview lots of happy Wal-Mart employees. Oh and then they post this happy chronicle to the Wal-Marting Across America blog.

(All the entries have now been removed except the final semi-explanatory one by Laura.)

Oops - that didn't work

Turns out "Jim" is Washington Post photographer James Thresher (who's now in deep sushi with Wash Post executive editor Len Downie). His girlfriend "Laura" is Laura St. Claire (whose brother happens to be an Edelman employee).

Steve Rubel, are you listening?

So far there's no comment on this corporate blogging snafu (don't know if I'd go so far as to call it a fiasco) on Richard Edelman's CEO blog, nor on Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion.

Another way Edelman could have handled this

As I told the MediaPost's Tom Siebert:

"What would they lose to have said, 'we're sending two people around the country to talk to people at Wal-Mart,'" says corporate blogging consultant Debbie Weil, author of "The Corporate Blogging Book." "It could have even been funny--they could have made it self-deprecating, really loosened up and it would have been so much more effective as a PR strategy. Instead, they went with that whole Madison Avenue lie that everything is perfect, which people can't stand."

- MediaPost (Oct. 13, 2006)

Useful Links

Wal-Mart's Jim and Laura: The Real Story (Business Week - Oct. 8, 2006)

WashPost Photog's Wal-Mart Trip Violates Paper's Policy (Editor & Publisher - Oct. 11, 2006)

WaPo Photog To Repay Wal-Mart Group for Blog Expenses (MediaPost - Oct. 13, 2006)

Blogs, splogs & flogs: edelman and the wal-mart fiasco (bizhack - Oct. 12, 2006)

PR bloggers respond to Wal-Mart / Edelman controversy (from Wal-Mart Watch)

Defending and Defining the Blog Culture (Toby Bloomberg - Oct. 13, 2006)

Wal-Mart: On the Importance of Being Ernest (Kami Huyse - Oct. 13, 2006)