May 27, 2005
Paul Chaney, at Radiant Marketing Group, lists 10 benefits of business/marketing blogging. They include:
1. Search Engine Marketing
2. Direct Communication
3. Brand Building
4. Competitive Differentiation
5. Relational Marketing
6. Exploit the Niches
7. Media & Public Relations
8. Reputation Management
9. Position You as Expert
10. Intranet & Project Management
These are good talking points when trying to explain to clients why they should consider blogs as a marketing tool.
I first came across the list at Diva Marketing.
Posted by kpoor at 02:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 26, 2005
Tips On Productive Blogging
For those wondering how they might find the time to blog or how they could better manage a current blog, D. Keith Robinson has a great post listing 13 tips on more productive blogging. I particularly like the "keep an idea list with backpack" tip as it turned me on to a great organziational tool.
Posted by kpoor at 04:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 25, 2005
Panera Not Behind Fake Panera Blog
It has come to my attention that Panera was not behind the blog that was temporarily online today. It was actually an advertising firm that was trying to win some business from Panera.
Here's how the events unfolded:
1) A co-worker of mine forwarded the Adrants
post to a colleague of his is St. Louis that works with Panera
2) The colleague quickly found the source of the blog to be an ad firm that had been trying to win some business with Panera
3) Panera ordered that the site be taken down immediately.
Besides the agency's blatant misunderstanding of how to use blogs as a marketing tool, they managed to provide a potential client with some negative exposure on some very popular and respected blogs:
Posted by kpoor at 04:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Fake Panera Blog Gone
It appears the ability of bloggers to spot a fake has caused the Panera blog issue (see previous post) to play itself out rather quickly. The blog is gone.
Posted by kpoor at 01:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Fake Blog?
There is a bit of buzz in the blogosphere about a fake Panera blog. I first saw this on Adrants. While the blog claims to be written by a fan of the Panera chain, the writing and initial comments seem very forced. It feels as if this is a blog being sponsored by Panera. If so, they should just add blogging to the coporate Web site and be open about it. This is an example of blog marketing that might completely backfire because the company broke two of the cardinal rules of blogging - speak with a true voice and be honest.
Some of the later comments to the initial post show that bloggers are not buying the authenticity of this blog. I look forward to seeing how this one plays out.
Posted by kpoor at 07:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 24, 2005
Why Should Your Company Support RSS?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the primary reason companies need to be supporting RSS is because it is the way customers want to receive information.
Matt McAlister wrote an interesting post that discusses the future of Websites in an RSS world. I particularly enjoyed the coorelation between the rise of RSS and the early days of the Web using InfoWorld as an example.
Matt also shares some of the views from the recent Syndicate conference in New York last week:
Adoption
RSS adoption has hit critical mass. I don't know what the metric was when that happened, but it's done. If you don't support RSS usage, you're not in the game...Can you imagine operating a company today that had no Web site? Will the same thing happen with RSS?
Standards
We've all joined onto a platform, a common standard for pushing/pulling/sharing individual items. Those items might be news headlines, transaction data, persistent search queries, links to downloads, etc. And because we have a standard, we can universally identify what those things are and how to treat them...just like what HTTP and HTML once did for the World Wide Web.
Integration
RSS is basically invisible to the originator and consumer of a feed. The blog tools all publish RSS automatically, and most CMS's have been configured to publish RSS feeds. It's much like when we began publishing HTML templates over databases instead of building volumes of individual HTML pages. The technology is becoming invisibile behind the utility of it.
Proliferation
If you don't interact the way your customers want you to, they simply stop communicating with you. There is so much information to choose from out there that you have to produce quality stuff, or at least stuff that is unique. Google was born from the need to find web pages that mattered. Who is going to help us identify the media companies that communicate well in this new world?
I originally found this link at Micropersuasion.
Posted by kpoor at 02:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2005
Interesting research from Germany
A recent study out of Germany shows some interesting opinions on Web logs among internet users:
1. 91% of the blog readers expect a fast and appropriate reaction to questions and comments in enterprise blogs.
2. 90% think it's important to make a clear difference between commercial and non-commercial content.
3. Of the blog readers, 54% form their opinions about products/companies on the basis of blogs.
4. 51% of the blog readers visit product and/or corporate sites as a results of reading blogs.
5. 58% of the blog readers, read them to find news and information they can't find otherwise.
6. 57% of them are interested in the personal opinions of the authors, but only 43% are interested in the discussions.
These numbers build a compelling case for corporate blogging - #3 and #4 alone should make companies think about incorporating blogs into their communications mix.
Thanks to Diva Marketing, which is where I discovered this information.
Posted by kpoor at 04:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 19, 2005
Corporate Weblog Manifesto
Robert Scoble wrote this corporate weblog manifesto back in early 2003 and it still represents a great starting point to understand the basics of what makes a good corporate blog.
Posted by kpoor at 03:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Great Interactive Marketing Campaign
3M UK launched a huge digital campaign with online advertising, email marketing and online PR. A website dedicated to the campaign features a great advergame which educates players on all the places 3M is part of daily life. The use of film and interactivity makes this game truly unique. Thanks to Adverblog for leading me to this site. The creative behind this campaign comes from AKQA.
Posted by kpoor at 09:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 18, 2005
The RSS Experience
Yesterday my wife, Lillian, provided a perfect case study on why companies need to understand how to use RSS. I recently introduced her to bloglines as she was reading numerous blogs but was navigating to them individually through bookmarks. Bloglines, plus a quick demo on how any RSS enabled site can quickly be added to the aggregator, and it was game on. In two days she is hooked on RSS.
After using and customizing bloglines for one day, she asked me why so many sites are not RSS enabled. She was really quite frustrated by it and even voiced some anger at sites and organizations that were not allowing her to get information the way she wanted. And there in lies the reason companies need to get on board with RSS – it is the way customers want to receive information.
Neville Hobson, author of NevOn, refers to an interesting interview with Feedburner CEO Dick Costolo recently posted on Clickz. Costolo discusses this fundamental change in the way people are using the Web. RSS aggregators are essentially becoming Web browsers and as more information is available through RSS feeds, the less apt a person may be to leave his or her aggregator. All pointing to the idea that companies need to make sure their content is RSS enabled if they want to stay relevant to their customers.
Posted by kpoor at 08:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 17, 2005
Brand Evangelist Blog Effort
Piaggio USA has partnered with Cooperkatz's blog marketing practice, Micro Persuasion, to launch a unique marketing campaign around its Vespa brand of products. While the campaign has not yet launched, it provides an interesting approach to blog marketing - using brand ambassadors to write about products.
I like that on the Vespa Blogs page they are straight forward about the program, how they will choose the bloggers and what the bloggers will receive. This shows that Piaggio USA and Cooperkatz really understand what makes the blogosphere work - transparency.
I first came across this story here.
Posted by kpoor at 03:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 16, 2005
Corporate Blogging Guidelines - IBM
The SiliconValleyWatcher reports that IBM is encouraging any of its 320,000 + employees worldwide to become company evangelists by writing blogs. With so many potential bloggers, IBM has created some guidelines. A summary of these guidelines provides a great reference for companies trying to decide what a corporate blog policy should look like.
IBM's Blogging Guidelines:
1. Know and follow IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines.
2. Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts. Be mindful that what you write will be public for a long time -- protect your privacy.
3. Identify yourself -- name and, when relevant, role at IBM -- when you blog about IBM or IBM-related matters. And write in the first person. You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM.
4. If you publish a blog or post to a blog and it has something to do with work you do or subjects associated with IBM, use a disclaimer such as this: "The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions."
5. Respect copyright, fair use and financial disclosure laws.
6. Don't provide IBM's or another's confidential or other proprietary information.
7. Don't cite or reference clients, partners or suppliers without their approval.
8. Respect your audience. Don't use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc., and show proper consideration for others' privacy and for topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory -- such as politics and religion.
9. Find out who else is blogging on the topic, and cite them.
10. Don't pick fights, be the first to correct your own mistakes, and don't alter previous posts without indicating that you have done so.
11. Try to add value. Provide worthwhile information and perspective.
A detailed discussion on these guidelines can be found on IBM employee James Snell's blog.
Posted by kpoor at 07:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Snapshot of Growth and Activity
Bob Wyman, CTO of PubSub, posted some information from the company's links count page that provides a great snapshot of a day in the blogosphere. The numbers below are for May 15th:
* 308,583 sites created 818,711 new blog entries
* 1,317,811 outlinks were created to 160,444 other sites
* 103,264 sites (33% of those with new entries) created outlinks.
* 5,905 sites (2% of those with new entries) had both inlinks and outlinks.
* 318,221 syndication feeds had new entries.
* 6% of the 5,442,608 recently active feeds monitored by PubSub had new entries.
* 3% of the 10,084,314 feeds monitored by PubSub had new entries.
The weekend also saw Technorati join BlogPulse and PubSub with 10,000,000 feeds monitored club. From a PR standpoint, these numbers show just how important it is for companies to be at least listening to the growing conversation taking place online.
There is a good chance that at least one if not many of the 818,711 new entries on May 15th mentioned your company.
Posted by kpoor at 07:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 13, 2005
$695 For A Study on Business Blogging?
eMarketer just came out with a study on business blogging that can be yours for $695. I would recommend that individuals or organizations that want to learn more on the subject of business blogging simply use the vast number or resources that are available for no more than the cost of your time. A great starting point is The New PR/Wiki, which I mentioned in an earlier post.
As I enter this post I see that Shel Holtz is also a bit amazed at the cost of this study considering the amount of information that is available at our fingertips.
Posted by kpoor at 10:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Real Simple RSS Explanation
For those who continually hear the term RSS but are not exactly sure what it means or how it works, Lee Odden has a straight forward, non-technical description on his online marketing blog.
Posted by kpoor at 07:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 12, 2005
The New PR/Wiki
The NewPR/Wiki site has become one of my favorite online destinations. If you are wanting to learn more about corporate blogging this site is a must visit. It includes:
- Case studies
- Resources on business blogging and rss
- Lists of corporate and CEO blogs
- Blogging policies
And much, much more.
Posted by kpoor at 09:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What Good Marketers Know
Seth Godin has a great post on his blog about what every good marketer knows. One specific point that rings home:
Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
Steve Rubel notes that this is his favorite line from The Cluetrain Manifesto - a book that anyone in the communications business should read.
Posted by kpoor at 08:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 11, 2005
Why Corporate Blogging Works
Through a PubSub query on corporate blogging, I came across this entry on Hugh Macleod's blog Gapingvoid. This simple description of why corporate blogs work is right on point. Consistency of messaging, both internally and externally, is one of the key factors in Dix & Eaton's Communciation ECOsystem, which is our approach to corporate communications.
The explanation provided on Gapingvoid shows how corporate blogs can be a powerful tool in keeping internal and external conversations aligned, which helps drive the attitudes and behaviors of key audiences.
Posted by kpoor at 08:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2005
Goodblog Summary
Via Micro Persuasion, I found an excellent summary on last weeks BDI conference on corporate blogging. It can be found at Goodblog and was written by John Greenberg of Goodmind.
Posted by kpoor at 09:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 09, 2005
Improved Employee Communications with Internal Blogs
I've felt for a while that one of the most effective ways companies can use blogs is for internal knowledge sharing and employee communications. I also think that for clients that are relatively unfamiliar with blogs, and are not quite ready to incorporate them into their marketing mix, that internal blogs represent a way for them to start using the medium and satisfy a pressing need.
I recently came across an older post on Neville Hobson's blog, NevOn, discussing Intel's COO, Paul Otellini, starting an internal weblog. I found this particularly interesting given the fact that Intel has yet to adopt the practice of executive blogs for the public. The article, originally in The San Jose Mercury News, contained excerpts from Otellini's first entry:
Why am I doing this? Well, it seemed like a good idea to be able to create an ongoing vehicle to share my thoughts and observations on Intel and our industry with our employees, and to allow you an opportunity to have a platform for your thoughts or responses. While this is intended as an internal blog, I recognize that it will become public-welcome to the Internet! As a result, please recognize that I may be a bit limited in my comments and responses to protect Intel, and that we may exercise some editorial privilege on your comments for the same reason. I want to be clear on this up front. This is the price of entry to this blog.
His first post does a great job of highlighting one of the main benefits of internal blogs - they provide an open dialogue that helps break down communication barriers between executives and employees.
One of the most common issues that our employee communications professionals at Dix & Eaton face is how to help executives better convey their messages to their employees. Blogs represent a powerful new tool to help accomplish this goal.
Posted by kpoor at 03:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Great Blog Resource
For anyone wanting to quickly get up to speed on the world of corporate blogging, Debbie Weil recently included a link on BlogWrite for CEOs to Robert's Echo Blog, which provides blog statistics, definitions, a link to a Forrester Research executive summary, lists of internal and external corporate blogs, recommended PR blogs and more. An excellent starting point and resource for anyone looking to learn more about the growing influence of blogs.
Posted by kpoor at 08:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 08, 2005
Future of Newscasts?
A recent article in the Washigton Post discusses how video blogs, such as Rocketboom created by Amanda Congdon, could become the future of newscasts. Will we as PR professionals soon be pitching Amanda and other vloggers? One thing is for sure, vlogs are gaining momentum. Steve Rubel shows that Rocketboom is getting a bunch of attention. It has also caught the attention of long time corporate communicaitons professional Shel Holtz and Microsoft technical evangelist Robert Scoble.
Posted by kpoor at 09:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 06, 2005
Evolution of the Web
While attending the Business Development Institute's "Blogging Goes Mainstream" (click for Webcast) conference this past Tuesday, I was struck by a point made by Salim Ismail, the co-founder of PubSub Concepts, Inc. He mentioned that he thought the internet is evolving from a request and response model to a publish and subscribe model - where users are actually watching the Web more then they are searching it.
As an avid user of bloglines - my information retrieval on the Web now revolves mostly around RSS feeds and blogs. Having recently started using PubSub to keep track of client mentions, I could not have agreed more with this assesment of where the Web is moving.
Posted by kpoor at 02:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
