Companies versus Corporate blogging

Dimanche 12 mars 2006 7 12 /03 /2006 19:09

what should companies know/do before blogging

Ø      Article: Matthews Carole (July 2005), “The top ten things you should know before you blog”,www.inc.com
 
According to Carole Matthews, companies should be aware of the 10 following tips before they blog:
  • A blog involves a dialogue, not a one-way communication mean
  • Feeding a blog is a long time process
  • The environment of the company has to be favourable to blogging
  • Blogs have to be properly written: informal but coherent
  • Companies need practice before blogging
  • Polemical topics might be avoided
  • Keywords have to be integrated into a blog
  • It takes time to build awareness
  • Companies have to pay attention to confidential information
  • The blogging strategy has to be clearly defined
 
I agree on the points above except “polemical topics might be avoided” and “it takes time to build awareness”. According to me, a company has to be transparent; this means that it should defend its position on every topic in order to appear as clear as possible towards the customers, suppliers and shareholders. Then, it is generally true that awareness requires time but some recent examples witness that in corporate blogging everything can go very quickly.
 
 
Ø      Article: Yaw Scott (January 2006), “Corporate brand blog: liberator or oppressor?”, www.chiefmarketer.com
 
According to Scott Yaw, managing director of Deskey, companies which intend to use a blog as a corporate communication tool have to respect three fundamentals:
·        Clearly define the strategic role of the future corporate blog
·        Set up a strong internal and external marketing plan
·        Be able to track and measure Return On Investment (ROI)
 
This is additional to the comment I made of Gartner’s article. Nevertheless, I think that measuring ROI is a very hard task. For example, people can corporate blog instead of meeting customers or suppliers abroad: how could a company precisely measure how much money it saves in travelling? As a company gives feedbacks to the comments of the customers; could it estimate the impact of this relationship into the annual results?
 
 
 
Ø      Book: Nonnenmacher François (2006), “Blogueur d’entreprise”, Groupe Eyrolles, ISBN 2708133292, p.151-154
 
In his book, Nonnenmarcher (www.padawan.info/be) encourages companies to clearly define their corporate strategy before they implement their blog:
  • What to expect from it?
  • Which subjects will be developed?
  • Which kind of blog should be adopted?
  • Who will the readers be?
  • Which will be the publication rhythm?
  • Which intellectual property to apply?
 
Once again, this article is about being well prepared to corporate blog. I think that each company should find answers to all this questions; and this is valid for every communication channel. In addition to the questions above, I encourage companies to wonder in what a corporate blog is complementary to the others communication tools (this part will be treated in a few pages).
Par Cédric Firmin - Publié dans : Companies versus Corporate blogging
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Dimanche 12 mars 2006 7 12 /03 /2006 19:14

How to be successful?

Ø      Book: Wright Jeremy (2006), “Blog marketing: the revolutionary new way to increase sales, build your brand, and get exceptional results”, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0072262516, p.237-268
 
Jeremy Wright evokes the different axes that companies should focus on:
  • Always think about traffic (links with other blogs, search engines, marketing actions)
  • Build and maintain close relations with bloggers (take into consideration their comments/ use a human voice)
  • Try to establish a blog community (ideas and interest)
 
In my point of view, the two objectives are hardly achievable if a corporate blog does not benefit from a high traffic rate. If a corporate blog links to many blogs, it will probably be linked back and it will then benefit from a high visibility. Moreover, the logic of search engines such as Google is to put on the first page the blogs which are the most linked from other blogs or websites.  
 
 
 
Ø      Survey: Backbonemedia (2004), “Corporate blogging: is it worth the hype?”, p.65-66
 
Compiling the answers of the survey, the authors came to the following conclusions:
  • Trackbacks are very important. They inform a blogger that another blog makes a comment on one of its post. It is a very good mean to build up a community and to know which kind of blogs refers to its posts.
  • Tags help the readers to find the information they seek more easily
  • It is necessary to provide an email link or a contact page
 
I do agree on the two firsts points which are about the same that what is written in the previous article but I do not agree on the fact that it is necessary to provide an email link. I believe that a good corporate blog substitutes itself to emails as bloggers can directly post their thoughts and make them available to everyone. Moreover, people seem to be fed up with emails which have been overused and which do not allow an efficient collaborative work.
 
 
 
Ø      Book: Nonnenmacher François (2006), “Blogueur d’entreprise”, Groupe Eyrolles, ISBN 2708133292, p.159-162
 
 
This chapter provides basic advices: authenticity, spontaneousness, opening, transparency, reactivity, humility. Moreover, posts must be signed up by the authors and should only contain the truth. The company should also publish a “moderation charter”, so that commentators do not push the limits of what they can write. On the other hand, the company is highly encouraged not to remove a post without explanations.
 
As far as I am concerned, companies should embrace those basic advices for two main raisons: firstly, as they divert the blogs from their original use they have to respect the blogs’ essence. Secondly, companies will have to appear more human to customers if they want to build up strong relationships with them.
 
 
 
Ø      Article: Scoble Robert (February 2003), “The corporate weblog manifesto”, http://radio.weblogs.com
 
Robert Scoblle gives 20 points to consider before corporate blogging. Most of them are similar to what as been written before except:
  • Underpromise and over deliver: bloggers will then appreciate the positive gap between what was written and what happened.
  • If the writer is in a bad moon, he might not blog.
  • If you write about competitors, do it in a nice way
 
I strongly disapprove what is written above. The first point can be compared to Disneyland which tell their clients there is a 45 minutes queue whereas they perfectly know that customers will wait 30 minutes; if companies apply this method to corporate blogging they will for sure loose credit towards their customers. Moreover, a blog has to be fed regularly; if not, there is a risk to loose customers. Last but not least, companies should always tell the truth: if a competitor has a very bad product, she has to say it.
 
 
 
Ø      Survey: Edelman & Intelliseek (Fall 2005), “Taking from the inside out: the rise of employee bloggers”, p.14-19
 
Employees could divulgate private information or inappropriate contents. In order to avoid this kind of nuisances, companies should craft a corporate blog guideline. It should contain the following highlights:
  • The writer is responsible for her/his posts
  • She/he must know the risks of providing trade secrets, confidential information or proprietary information.
  • It is forbidden to write obscenities and defamation
  • She/he should blog during their free time except if it is part of her/his job responsibilities
 
This guideline is the same thing that what was named the “moderation charter” two articles above. I really encourage every company to write such a guideline: whereas people engage their own responsibility on their private blog, it is another story with a corporate blog. If one single person out of all the employees writes obscenities on a corporate blog, it is the whole company which will be judged.
 
 
 
Ø      Book: Wright Jeremy (2006), “Blog marketing: the revolutionary new way to increase sales, build your brand, and get exceptional results”, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0072262516, p.296
 
 
In his book, Jeremy Wright insists on the necessity to provide advises to the employees and to inform them on the boundaries not to cross. He illustrates it with a concrete example: Thomas Nelson blog terms and conditions. A board of employees is in charge of promoting blogging within the company and of maintaining the company’s interests. One of their tasks is to make sure that employees who create their own blog respect the company’s guideline. If they do not, the company will stop linking their blog to the company’s website.
 
This strategy is based on what we call a “blog aggregator site”; it allows the company to increase its visibility and to communicate differently to the public. Whereas the previous article only deals with a blog guideline, Jeremy Wright goes one step further by arguing that companies should also advise the employees. I think that those two points are complementary and highly optimize the quality of the employees’ blogs.
Par Cédric Firmin - Publié dans : Companies versus Corporate blogging
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Dimanche 12 mars 2006 7 12 /03 /2006 19:15

Choose the right kind of blog

Ø      Article: Wainewright Phil (August 2002), “Corporate weblogs”, www.looselycoupled.com
 
Phil Wainewright predicts that we will witness new types of corporate blogs in the months to come but today, he draws up this current state of play:
  • Internal weblogs to communicate and share team projects
  • External blogs to target specific groups of people
  • Few companies use RSS feeds efficiently to increase their corporate blog visibility.
  • Corporate blogs should not embrace a specific style of format. It depends on the company’s goals.
 
Corporate blogs have the particularity to be flexible. I advise to each company to adapt its format and content to its specific needs. However, we can draw up to main types of blogs as Phil Wainewright says: internal and external.
 
 
 
Ø      Book: Nonnenmacher François (2006), “Blogueur d’entreprise”, Groupe Eyrolles, ISBN 2708133292, p.167-200
 
 
According to François Nonnenmacher, there is a wide range of corporate blogs.
  • The companies which are quoted on the stock market will use them as financial communication channel because of three characteristics: immediate access, no intermediaries and universel
  • Executive blogs. Companies should integrate them into their official website to give them more value
  • Employee blogs: this might be the most powerful type of blog for companies
  • Expert blogs: it gives credit and credibility to the company
  • Community blogs: it can replace the “community home pages” of an intranet and disencumber the mail boxes
  • Shift blogs: a diary which could be very useful for people working in rotation (2x8 or 3x8)
  • Project blogs which can be part of a community / team blog
  • Event blogs: the chronological order of the posts and the interactivity are the two main advantages for this type of blog
 
This summary reinforces what is written in the previous comment; here, François Nonnemmarcher establishes a wide range of corporate blogs but we will see with the two following articles that its list is far from being exhaustive.
 
 
 
Ø      Book: Wright Jeremy (2006), “Blog marketing: the revolutionary new way to increase sales, build your brand, and get exceptional results”, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0072262516, p.93-122
 
In this chapter, the author compares blogs to several areas of a town; he settles upon an original segmentation:
  • The barber blog is open and authentic. It provides the company a better visibility, new ideas and a human perspective.
  • The blacksmith blog is based on a high degree of expertise and exchange of information. It is essential to help customers, to spread news and to establish strong relationships.
  • The bridge blog links its posts to other blogs and intends to create relationships. It can lead to new business opportunities and new customers.
  • The window blog allows internal employees to have a clear vision of what happens outside of the company and informs the public on the company’s life.
  • The signpost blog: not only it provides useful information to the readers but it also gives the direction of additional information.
  • The pub blog expresses its opinion and valorises the exchange of ideas. It can reinforce the sense of equality, community and fairness of a business.
  • The newspaper blog regularly gives news. The company controls the posts and avoids risks in the meanwhile.
 
In my point of view, those comparisons overwhelm two main ideas: as already mentioned in a precedent comment, the format of a corporate blog depends on the strategy of the company; then, the corporate blogs reflect the personality and the competencies of the writer. I would add that a company has to set up the right kind of corporate blog according to its needs but also to match it with the appropriate writer.  
 
 
 
Ø      Article: Dugan Kevin (November 2004), “Emerging corporate blogs model”, http://prblog.typepad.com
 
This article establishes three models of corporate blogs:
  • Intranet blogs: it minimizes the risks and represents a good way to practise and get used to the specificities of the blogs.
  • Event blogs: it gives a second life to an event which is over
  • Product blogs: it is a very good way to give a consumer insight
 
Event if those corporate blogs exist, I think this segmentation is not appropriate. If I were asked to establish the types of corporate blogs, I would merely split them into external blogs and internal blogs as Phil Wainewright wrote.
Par Cédric Firmin - Publié dans : Companies versus Corporate blogging
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