Category Archives: Corporate Blog

Blogging Blunders, Part 2

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Part 2 of a series on common business blogging mistakes. Part 1 is here.

Blogs are a new form of communications medium but many marketers still are stuck in the old one-way mode. To really appreciate the value of blogging, you have to approach it as a conversation. That means listening as well as talking. Here are some common mistakes:

Failure to link – Links are online currency. Not only do they enable more efficient communication than that available with the printed word (see my earlier post” “What You Probably Don’t Know About Links”), but they’re an acknowledgment that someone else has published something of value. Bloggers covet links. Links improve their search performance and drive traffic that leads to business opportunities. Mentioning someone else’s work without linking to it is considered rude.

Too often, novice bloggers fail to observe this simple protocol. They cite but don’t link. It takes only a few seconds to add links to your copy and it has all kinds of benefits. Linking engenders goodwill with the source of the information. That may lead to a reciprocal link, which improves your own traffic. It can also start a dialog with a person whose work you respect. You don’t have to agree with people to link to them, but you should always acknowledge that their work had value to you.

Here’s another reason to sweat this detail: failure to link can actually make you enemies. Thanks go Google Alerts, people now know instantly when their name pops up somewhere else online. If that mention doesn’t include a link, they’re going to be annoyed. So linking isn’t an option; it’s a necessity to maintaining good relations with people you respect.

Treating the blog as a wire service – Don’t use your blog to distribute press releases. That’s missing the point of this two-way medium. Blogs are a way for people to connect with each other. They’re a conversation, not a channel. If you treat your blog as another way to deliver a templated mass mail, then readers will abandon you faster than they’d flee a flaming building.

There’s nothing wrong with posting the occasional news release on your blog, but always add a personal message to frame its importance. Even better: link to the release and comment about why it’s significant. Humanize the interaction.

Being irrelevant – Shortly after the stock market crashed last fall, I visited 15 prominent corporate blogs. To my astonishment, only one even mentioned the most perilous financial crisis in two generations. Most were filled with marketing happy talk. These bloggers failed to address a critical customer need for information. Worse, they looked clueless. touch. Imagine if Wells Fargo had used the opportunity to educate its customers about why the markets were in turmoil. Instead, it posted a travel video. What a missed opportunity.

One of the great advantages of blogs is that they’re fast and easy to update. Use them to comment on current events that affect your customers. You don’t have to run afoul of regulatory guidelines to explain something. Educate and inform. Become a trusted source.

Turning off comments – According to some estimates, about 20% of business blogs don’t accept comments. Those companies are missing the point. A blog is a basis of discussion, not a TV program. Turning off comments is the same as saying you’re not interested in what your constituents think. What an insult.

The reason people most often cite for banishing comments is that they fear negativity. Those companies shouldn’t be blogging in the first place. Occasional negativity is part of the fabric of good discussion and it should be embraced as part of the feedback process.  If you’re worried about inappropriateness, then enable comment moderation and filter responses. However, you should never delete a comment simply because it’s negative. The writer will simply take his gripe somewhere else.

Recommended Reading – 8/12/09

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Notice Those Ads on Blogs? Regulators Do, Too – NYTimes.com

The National Advertising Review Council is calling for clear disclosure from bloggers who are paid for product reviews or whose work is sponsored by companies they blog about. However, some people think the guidelines go too far. For example, they would require a blogger to disclose in a product review that the product had been provided free by a vendor. Such disclosure has never been practiced by traditional media companies.

You are SO unfollowed! – Scobleizer

Robert Scoble un-follows 106,000 people in one shot and says he’s relieved. Perhaps we’re beginning to see the backlash against social media over-exposure. We shouldn’t become a victim of the need to constantly communicate.

Managing beyond Web 2.0 – McKinsey Quarterly

What happens when consumers’ shared experiences are more interesting than anything your marketing department can provide? Marketers have to learn the tools of interaction in order to adapt to conversations going on outside of their control. Those consumer experiences can also yield valuable ideas for marketing programs that reflect what the audience really wants to talk about.

The article cites the experience of GlaxoSmithKline, which dealt with consumer confusion over its Alli weight-loss drug  by setting up the My Alli community site to support discussion, videos, FAQs and a membership plan to aid in weight loss. This wrapped useful information (and a marketing message) in a warm and friendly environment.

Four useful tools for social networkers – Strominator

David Strom reviews four online services that increase the productivity of active contributors to social media. I particularly like Pixelpipe and Tr.im.

Beware Social Media Marketing Myths – BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek’s Gene Marks skewers some common misconceptions about social networks. They’re not free, he says. In fact, they require a significant investment of time. And you won’t necessarily find customers there. He also advises business owners not to spread themselves too thin. If you find a platform that works, put your efforts behind that one. Good advice, if not necessarily groundbreaking.

Pepsi Sees a Chance to Fill Newspapers’ Void – BrandWeek

BrandWeek interviews Bonin Bough, PepsiCo’s new social media director. He’s spearheading a broad and deep push into all kinds of channels that enable customers to interact with the company and create their own content. PepsiCo is actually sponsorsing bloggers to cover some trade shows, effectively setting the company up as a competitor to newspapers. Bough has some nice sound bites. “If you really think about it, it’s the largest broadcast network in the world, and in such a short amount of time, too. People are willing to share if they are given a structured opportunity to do so.”

The One Word You Can’t Say: Campaign – MediaPost

“The word ‘campaign’ has become the pariah of social marketing,” says MediaPost. “Preferred alternatives include terms like ‘program,’ ‘initiative,’ or even ‘conversation.’” This article speaks truth. The old 13-week campaign doesn’t work in a conversational medium. You need to build relationships, and that takes times. The good news? Relationships can last for many years.

Still, this new reality challenges conventional thinking and standard operating procedure. For one thing, agencies are paid to create campaigns with defined beginnings and ends. How do you compensate the agency for open-ended conversations? Also, the beneficiaries are likely to extend beyond the marketing department, which means that organizations need broad-based buy-in to make social media “campaigns” successful.

Recommended Reading, 7/8/09

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Four useful tools for social networkers

David Strom reviews four online services that increase the productivity of active contributors to social media.

Beware Social Media Marketing Myths – BusinessWeek

CPA Gene Marks throws a big bucket of cold water or what he calls social media marketing myths.  Social media is neither free nor cheap, he says, and the customers you want to reach probably aren’t hanging out on k Faceboowaiting to hear from you.  If there is action in social network land, it’s probably in the boring advisory sites that help people to run their businesses better. I think he’s mostly right

Pepsi Sees a Chance to Fill Newspapers’ Void

The soft drink company actually paid to have bloggers “cover” a recent trade show and its online marketing programs increasingly look like publishing.  Perhaps Pepsi sees something that a lot of people haven’t yet: the rapid decline of big media is creating a trust gap into which commercial companies can step.  Sure its unconventional, but they give Pepsi credit for not just following the herd.

The One Word You Can’t Say: Campaign

Campaigns have distinct endpoints, while conversations may last for years.  That’s one reason conversational marketing is so difficult for many marketers to internalize.  An advertising campaign may run its course in 13 weeks, but a social media conversation is just getting rolling by then.  Marketers need to twist their thinking a little differently to accept this change in approach.

How to Get a Professional Corporate Blogging Job

Yehuda Berlinger is that rarest of corporate marketers: a professional business blogger.  In this extensive how-to article, he describes the unique characteristics of a business blogging job and offers some ideas on how to land such a position.  There still aren’t many job titles like that out there, but if you’re trying to get one, you could do worse than turn to this article for advice.