Here's yet another reason to get into the corporate blogging game in 2008...
According to a survey by communications firm Brodeur (announced at the CES in Las Vegas last month), journalists are heavy users of the blogosphere for research and quick reporting. [Download PDF of the survey.]
" ...New media (social media and blogs) is
having an impact on
many different aspects of reporting, particularly the speed
and
availability of news," according to the Brodeur press release.
Journalists are using blogs to get tone, nuance and story angles. No, they don't believe everything they read in blogs but social media is a great source of additional information when a reporter is on deadline.
So get yourself into the blogosphere if you're not there yet. And be sure to put your company or contact phone number in a visible spot on your blog. Reporters on deadline tend to pick up the phone and call, rather than email. And if your company blog is revealing and useful, you may find yourself quoted in the Wall Street Journal.
Big Blogs Meet Big Media: Wall Street Journal quotes Google corporate blog
The WSJ quoted Google's corporate blog in a story earlier this week (sorry, can't find the article) about Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo. The Google blog entry was written by David Drummond, a Google senior VP and Chief Legal Officer, and - of course - put the Google spin on the story: the acquisition could stifle competition and innovation.
This is exactly what I talk about in The Corporate Blogging Book (I even used Google as an example): why put out a press release when you can say something more directly (and often, more credibly) in your company blog?
Just got off a pre-recorded interview with Pete Blackshaw for my new Internet radio show on VoiceAmerica (TM) Business: The Corporate Blogging Show. This edition airs next Tuesday (Dec. 5, 2006) at 12 noon Pacific in the regular timeslot.
Pete is CMO of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, a former brand manager for Procter & Gamble, and a genius when it comes to parsing the woolly world of consumer generated media (a phrase he coined).
"Blogs are proof positive that there really is a digital trail to word-of-mouth marketing." - Pete Blackshaw
I want to share a few highlights of our conversation before I, er, forget them. Pete is the fastest talking and probably the most articulate guest I've had so far. (What does this guy eat for breakfast? He is pumped!) I scribbled notes but still didn't get it all.
A year from now we may not be using the term blogging (I agree). It may just be part of customer service, something we expect from a company.
Marketers have a responsibility to self-regulate
We, as marketers (i.e. professionals who do this for a living), need to take the lead in self-regulating how we handle transparency and credibility in the social media space. If it's advertising, it needs to be clear. If it's not, then say so (just as a print advertorial does).
What's advertising and what's not?
Pete gave as an example a video he saw recently on YouTube that was posted by the folks behind the movie "For Your Consideration." (I saw it over Thanksgiving weekend. It was great.)
Was it really a "most popular" video? (He noticed it at the top of YouTube's home page.) Or was it a paid-for placement? He also noticed a movie banner above the video. Watch the video and read Pete's blog entry.
Consumers *hate* to be tricked.
Connecting the dots between a brand and the blogosphere
Pete has been fascinated by one of the videos created for Dove's Real Beauty campaign. It shows a woman getting a high-voltage beauty makeover, set against a great sound track. She is totally transformed, unrecognizable at the end. The kicker: "No wonder our perception of beauty is so distorted."
The video was created by Unilever's ad agency; then uploaded to YouTube where it has gotten nearly a million views. It has also been posted to an astonishing number of women's blogs. (Yes it really makes a point most women can relate to.) The value to the Dove brand: incalculable.
Read Pete's ClickZ case study. He calls this passalong phenomenon "consumer-fortified" media. I.e. it's not consumer-generated per se (an agency created it). But bloggers spreading the video around have embedded it in a permanent digital trail that benefits the brand.
(Note: Unilever is a client of Nielsen BuzzMetrics.)
Using his personal blog to make the point about why blogging matters
He finished our one-hour show by telling me how he uses his personal blog, Dos Bebes (about his now 15-month-old twins) to illustrate what makes the blogosphere tick: "the emotional gratification to be heard and to connect." It works for individuals; it works for companies who want consumers to pay attention to their brand.
Hey, cool to be blogtipped today by Easton Ellsworth on Business Blog Wire. I say "we" because the new design of BlogWriteForCEOs is the handiwork of my talented designer Sarah Lewis, with a lot of input from yours truly (her picky client). Thanks Sarah! Thanks Easton! Here's what he wrote:
Blogtipping Victim/Beneficiary #3: BlogWrite for CEOs by Debbie Weil
Compliment 1: Beautiful layout. Smart design, complimentary colors, sticky-note-looking indented quotes, etc. I love it!
Compliment 2: Your
mug shot and "about"/subscribe info are up top. Very important! And I
love the calls to action - "Receive posts via email!", "Grab Your
Feeds", "Buy the Book," etc.
Compliment 3: You
plug your book and your speaking/consulting services in non-annoying
ways. In other words, you talk about corporate blogging and share a
relevant paragraph from your book, or a professional experience you've
had. Makes me more interested in those things, without you needing to
yell them at me. Nicely done!
Blogtip: I can't figure out how you pronounce your last name. Maybe you could explain that near the top of your "About" page.
Well, and what's "PGP Key" supposed to mean? Maybe that's just some
code detritus? There's a wealth of info on that page, and I just think
it might need to be re-organized or condensed so as not to overwhelm or
confuse.
Forrester analyst Charlene Li writes today that "it's not about the math" and says she wishes she hadn't tossed out $1 million in new business as a quantifiable metric for the effectiveness of her blog. For the record, I am the guilty party who picked up on her $1M ROI comment at the New Communications Forum in March '06.
I consider Charlene a friend as well as business colleague and I certainly didn't mean to make things difficult for her. Now that I think about it, I can imagine her fellow analysts giving her a hard time about her ROI calculation. ("Hey Charlene, you sure it was only $1M?!)
Nonetheless I'm intrigued by her blog post today. She seems to be saying three things:
1. Her blog has incalculable value.
She writes:
"I also consider my blog integral to all of my activities as an analyst.
I discuss blog posts frequently with clients and the press and use it
to solicit feedback and conduct research."
2. But ROB (Return on Blog, as I call it in The Corporate Blogging Book) is generally not a quantifiable metric.
She writes:
"Companies could spend endless cycles debating and calculating the
correct way to calculate the value of a blog and end up losing sight of
the core value of creating a dialog with their customers."
3. And yet... couching that value in economic terms (which I take to mean not hard dollars, per se, but business value in a broader sense) is important.
She concludes:
Quantifying that benefit doesn’t need to be a long, drawn out exercise
but I do believe that clearly stating the goals of the blog in economic
terms is a good starting point for a corporate blogging strategy. Use
those goals then as the simple metrics to determine the success of your
company’s blogging activities.
Hmmm... but exactly how do you do that? Does this put us back to square one on the ROI of blogging? What do you think?? Leave your comment below. Or click on over to Charlene's post and leave a comment there. I'd love to hear some chatter on this topic. I don't think it's going to go away.
It's, er, over 5,000 percent. That's based on her calculation that her $14.95 / month account with TypePad triggered $1 million in new business for Forrester last year. Charlene, who's a principal analyst for Forrester based in San Francisco, blogs here. She gave an excellent speech last week at the NewComm Forum in Palo Alto. (Here she is answering audience questions on Friday March 3, 2006.)
I'm always studying other speakers to see what presentation techniques they use. Charlene's speaking style is notable for her warmth and authenticity - along with lots of Forrester stats to chew on. She mentioned her kids several times and also asked the audience for input.
When giving examples of corporate blogs she went deeper than showing a screenshot. For example, she included the text of a back and forth exchange between two commenters on GM's FastLane blog. Very effective.
P.S. Hope I got the ROI math correct. Figure $14.95 X 12 = $180. Meaning a return on investment of $1 million less $180. Could someone check this, please! Leave a note in the comments below.
Elizabeth is a marvelous thinker and writer (and consultant) on the topic of social media tools & technologies and what they mean for organizational communications. And it was a thrill to meet and chat with her in person.
In fact, I recorded my first official podcast with her. It will be #1 in a series of companion podcasts to The Corporate Blogging Book. Stay tuned!
Onalytica's report explains that the results are based not on "popularity" (often measured by number of visitors to a site) but on a measure of indirect influence/authority/relevance - akin to the rating system used in academia.
Read the Q. & A. with Seth in E-consultancy.com's December 2005 briefing. As always, he boils it down. Real simple. Incisive. (Scroll to the bottom of the interview for a good explanation of Squidoo, Seth's new venture.) I like this sound bite:
Q. (Chris Lake) Should every business use the internet to communicate? What are the basics of an internet communications strategy?
A. (Seth Godin) You should only use the internet if you want your communications to
be FAST and you want to reach LARGE NUMBERS with no intermediaries. If
you can't handle that, though, you shouldn't try.
And this one (valid question, BTW, as Seth made his name as the king of permission marketing):
Q. You've written about permission marketing extensively, yet intrusion
is still a big part of the average internet session. Does this
frustrate you?
A. (Seth) Not any more. Like everyone else, I ignore it.
What a waste.
And this, perhaps the most profound thing Seth said. Think about it. If you send out an e-newsletter or publish a blog or offer a downloadable white paper, it's because you're expecting a response. Not a sale right away. But a tiny step, a forward movement, a conversation starter, the beginnings of a relationship with that prospect. Or to get more tactical, if you're putting an AdSense ad in front of someone it's cuz you want them to click on it. Right?
Q. Does online advertising have to be purely about response? What about the brand benefits?
A. (Seth) There's zero evidence that you can build a brand with interruptions online that don't lead to action. Zero.
Speaking of Squidoo, Seth's new venture... It's out of beta. Go build a lens (start here) and fool around with it. Here are two of my lenses so far. They need lots more stuff in them: Debbie Weil and Yoga Vacations. I'm still figuring it out.
Saw this term on Business Blog Summit. It's the perfect way to explain why blogs are so powerful as a means of communicating ideas. And why a blog can establish an intelligent writer as a "thought leader." (Also, why blogs are much more powerful than discussion boards or regular old Web sites. A blog, by definition, is a form of viral marketing.) Byron, writing for Biz Blog Summit, puts it this way: "think of blogs as 'topics, ideas, conversations, that grow like snowballs with each link.'"
To illustrate the snowball, here's the reference back to Doc Searls' (highly cogent, as always) definition of snowblogging.
Here's what IABC chairman Warren Bickford says about our event in his new blog. He mentions it in the same breath as the announcement that Mark Hurd, HP's new CEO, will be the plenary speaker. Hey, business blogging is going big time! More TK...
Here's yet another reason to get into the corporate blogging game in 2008...
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