Category Archives: corporate

Social Network Adoption Races Ahead

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Awareness, Inc., which has been in the social media software market for several years, has just come out with a new research report on enterprise adoption of Web 2.0. There are some interesting findings that I wanted to share with you. You can download the entire report after filling out a short registration form.

My basic take-away is that social media tools are ripping through the enterprise with amazing speed. Whether used internally, externally with open enrollment or externally with invitation-only enrollment, social networks are proliferating as business tools. Some highlights:

  • The number of organizations that allow employees to use social networks for business purposes has increased dramatically to 69% in 2008 from 37% last year;
  • More than six in 10 companies are using social media to build and promote their brands, improve communication and increase consumer engagement;
  • There has been a fivefold increase in the percentage of employees who use popular social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn for business purposes, from 15% in 2007 to 75% this year;
  • While only a tiny percentage of organizations are currently using internal communities, one in three plans to use them in the future;
  • A quarter of respondents say their companies are planning to deploy external-facing communities, which is double last year’s total;
  • Some 37% of organizations plan to focus communities on specialty areas where they can provide focused business value;
  • More than 40% of respondents report using one or more of the following tools: user groups, tags, communities, blogs, social networking and videos;
  • The most popular internal tools are social networks, blogs and wikis, with adoption rates of between 50% and 55%;
  • Seven in 10 respondents say their companies plan to deploy external blogs.
One of the most notable trends this research reveals is the rapid acceptance of social networking not only for marketing and customer support, but also for employee communications. When you consider that Facebook was barely known outside of the academic realm just two years ago, the acceptance of this technology for internal knowledge management is remarkable.

I’m also intrigued by the findings that seven in 10 businesses allow employees to use social media during business hours. This is a big change in corporate attitude. In the first couple of years of social media, businesses moved slowly to permit employees to speak outside the company walls. There were fears about people revealing company secrets or saying inappropriate things in public forums. Those fears appear to have largely melted away.

The lack of horror stories combined with the powerful utility of features likeLinkedIn’s Answers forum are clearly overwhelming these reservations. It turns out that when you give people the freedom to speak on behalf of the company and combine that freedom with clear guidelines about what’s appropriate to say, the vast majority do the right thing. This is inspiring and affirming. It may be an unanticipated benefit of social media acceptance, but it is a very welcome one.

Caveats: Any research conducted over the Internet needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The Awareness survey accumulated responses from 160 people, of whom 27.5% were from large companies and 40% were at a management level. Awareness says statistical accuracy is +/- 7%. Awareness also has a vested interest in promoting acceptance of social networks. However, the company used an independent research partner, Equation Research, to conduct the survey and I don’t think it has any incentive to fudge the results.

The TSA's bold move

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I sometimes tell people, “If your products suck and your customers hate you, don’t start a blog.”

Well, the Transportation Security Administration has gone against that advice. More power to them.

The TSA blog mostly does it right. The branding is subtle; the TSA logo appears only at the bottom of the page. The slogan – “Terrorists Evolve. Threats Evolve. Security Must Stay Ahead. You Play A Part” – is meant to invite the public into a discussion about security. I think that’s a great marketing statement. The traveling public feels that security has been shoved down their throats, which is one of the reasons they hate TSA.

And they took the opportunity to express their emotions; more than 700 comments on the welcome post, according to the blog. There’s lots of anger, negativity and obscenity, but also a lot of good ideas and observations from people who clearly know something about security. Give TSA credit. They knew there’d be a firestorm of negativity, they were prepared for it and they responded calmly and constructively.

The blog is written by five people: four mid-level employees and a PR guy. Strangely, there are no photos of the bloggers, but maybe that’s a security measure. :-)

As a government agency, TSA could afford to ignore the opinions of travelers if it wanted. Launching the blog is a gutsy move my hat’s off to them for it.

And can you believe it? They’re hosting the whole thing on Blogger!

Thanks to Daily Dish for the tip via Alex Howard.

Corporate Blog Council should swallow hard and learn from critics

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The newly formed Corporate Blog Council is getting slammed in the blogosphere this week. The council is a self-described “professional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging.” It includes some very large companies, although overall membership is small and skewed toward tech and media firms.

The blogosphere has been fairly merciless. Dave Taylor remarks, “My translation: ‘we’re all clueless, but don’t want anyone to realize just how unplugged our organizations have become from the world of ‘marketing 2.0’, so we created a club so our ignorance can be shielded from public eyes.’”

Scoble is skeptical, too: “I’ve done enough speaking to enough corporations now that if they don’t get why they should be talking with their customers already I don’t get how hanging out at yet another boring industry conference is going to help them to get it,” he says, pointedly.

Brian Solis says the focus on blogs shows that corporations still don’t get the concept of conversation. He asks if we’re also going to have a Viral Media Council, and a Conversation Council.

Marketing Pilgrim counts comments and finds that blogs run by the council members perform pretty dismally. She and several others point out that comments are disabled on the Blog Council’s site and that the council used a conventional press release to announce its existence.

Commenters are piling on, mostly trashing the whole Blog Council idea.

I hope the people that put their companies’ names on this initiative won’t be scared off by the thrashing they’re getting in the blogosphere. To veterans of the polite and deferential world of traditional corporate communications, this trash talk sounds juvenile and hateful, but it is really just the way people express their opinions in this medium. Conversations here are raw, blunt and sometimes offensive, but they are always genuine. You need a thick skin to play, but if you don’t take it personally, you can learn a lot.

Having worked with major corporations for many years, I’m inclined to be more generous to the Blog Council. Yes, everything the bloggers cited above have said is true, but the fact that these companies are taking action of any kind (and scheduling an event for next month, apparently) is significant. It probably took months just to get to the announcement phase.

Critics will say that that’s the problem: corporations have to water down and approve everything and that’s why they don’t get social media. That’s also true, but these companies have worked this way for a very long time. The fact that the world has changed around them in the last four years doesn’t mean they can respond in that timeframe. There are plenty of people within these companies advocating conversation marketing and meaningful change. They are being heard, but it takes a long time for voices to work their way up the hierarchy at big companies. And the people who head those companies are the least likely to understand what’s going on out there.

If the Blog Council is smart, it’ll ignore the tone and listen to the message. The blogosphere is delivering some important early feedback on the whole idea of the Blog Council. The members should listen, adjust and move incrementally forward. Bloggers can be quite blunt, but they can also be very forgiving. If the council demonstrates that it’s really serious about this venture, then the tone will turn supportive with remarkable speed.

Coke to launch corporate blog

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The Coca-Cola Co. is just a few weeks away from launching a corporate blog, Adam Brown, Coke’s Director of Digital Communications, told the Executing Social Media conference in Atlanta today. That would make Coke one of the few Fortune 100 companies (it’s 94th) to enter the blogosphere. General Motors, at #3, has been blogging for three years.

Brown identified Coke’s first blogger as Phil Moody, a 30-year employees who’s responsible for the corporate archive. However, “We really want to get to an ensemble cast of bloggers where we can talk about not only our heritage, but also the environment, AIDS in Africa and other important issues,” he said.

In taking that approach, Coke is adopting a tactic that’s being practiced by an increasing number of corporations, including Southwest Airlines, Eastman-Kodak and Chrylser LLC. It spreads the work around and exposes the ideas of interesting individuals in a corporate venue.

Brown didn’t identify the URL of the new blog. If anyone comes across it, please post the address here.

Miller's Brew Blog covers the competition

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I came across the Miller Brew Blog for the first time today, although it’s been up since early this year. While my first reaction was that it’s a lot of dry press releases and reprints from Miller’s corporate magazine (and a lot of it reads that way), the about page revealed that it’s written by a veteran advertising reporter and is intended to be a roundup of news and commentary about the brewing industry.

On that point, the Brew Blog succeeds. A lot of the content is about Miller’s competition and the changes going on in the overall industry. There’s a lot about arch-rival Annheuser-Busch, for example. What’s missing is commentary. While the blog succeeds in talking openly about issues that aren’t usually discussed in corporate communications, it fails to deliver much spirit, attitude or even a distinctive personality.

The Mass. Registry of Motor Vehicles blogs – badly

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I went online today to learn about renewing my drivers license and was amused to discover that the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles has a ”blog.” I use quotation marks because the website violates nearly every rule of good blogging:

  • There have been only five entries in the last 18 months and only one in the last five months.
  • There is only one link in the most recent entry, and it’s to a press release.
  • There are no tags, comments, blogroll or RSS feed. The lack of comments is a shame because the latest topic – widespread abuse of handicapped parking medallions – seems like something a lot of people would want to talk about.
  • There is no distinctive look or feel. The “blog” is dropped in on the home page like a press release.

To give credit where credit is due, the Registry should be commended for even experimenting with a blog, given that government agencies aren’t inclined to live on the edge. Also, the Registrar does make an effort to bring some personality to her writing, though her comments lack passion. I have to wonder if her posts are approved by the press office before publishing.

All in all, this effort s a good example of why some organizations should avoid the blogosphere.