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ISSUE 8: JANUARY 2008 In This Issue:
CURRENT ISSUE FROM THE ARCHIVES JOIN US |
IT'S TIME TO GET A BLOG (Part One) By Joel Postman, Executive Vice President, Emerging Media, Eastwick Communications As little as a year ago, it was unclear as to whether blogging might become a ubiquitous tool in corporate communications and marketing (more on the "m" word in a bit), but today, more and more companies are coming to understand the powerful communications capabilities of a corporate blog. The largest, and in some cases most traditional corporations, like Hewlett-Packard, GM, and Southwest Airlines, have blogs. Technorati, a popular blog search and tagging site, publishes a quarterly State of the Live Web report which analyzes the number of blogs and blog posts created in the "blogosphere," a popular term meaning simply "all the blogs out there." (If you're going to get involved in blogging, you have to get used to the jargon, which can often sound downright silly.) According to the latest Technorati report, released April 2007:
So what does that mean to you? Why Blog? With 70 million blogs, there's a really good chance that there's a "conversation" going on in the blogosphere about your company and your industry. You can join in the conversation, influence it, and advance your company's brand and market perception, or you can sit on the sidelines. A company blog can be a powerful communications tool. Blogs have significant advantages over traditional HTML web sites, including:
Your company's blog will allow you to become involved in those conversations. The next time someone sends you an e-mail with a link to a blog post about your company or industry, you'll have a vehicle with which to respond, in your own words, consistent with the company strategy, and on your own terms. And you'll be able to take control of the agenda and post important news and commentary to your blog before others do, allowing you to evolve your communications from reactive to strategic. Obviously, the range of professionalism and influence varies wildly across the millions of blogs out there, but there are probably a number of bloggers who are well respected authorities on your industry, and possibly your company, and you should know what they're saying about you. To find out, you can do a blog search, which is not the same as a general web search. The two most popular blog searches are Technorati and Google Blog Search. Search on your company name, competitors' names, and keywords, like your industry, products, services and technologies. You can also search on the names of your executives and others who might be well known in the industry. It's important to track these conversations. You can do so with many tools available online, such as NetVibes, Bloglines and Google Reader, that allow you to subscribe to various RSS feeds of blogs that are of interest to your company. (An RSS feed is a special format output by most blogs allowing these sites and tools to offer blog subscription services, so that users can receive regular updates on their desktop or via a web page.) You can also create Google Blog Alerts that send you an email every time a new item is posted about a company or topic you are tracking. For some, the ability to "participate in the conversation," may not seem like adequate justification, There are ROI measurements that can quantify the return on blogging and other "social media" (such as online community and viral video) investments. Will your blog drive revenue? That might be hard to measure directly, but if your blog is any good, it will drive more traffic to your web site, which could in turn drive lead generation and revenue. It will increase brand awareness and improve executive reputation and influence. And it will give you valuable 1:1 communications directly with customers, reporters, analysts and investors. Getting Started Logistically, there are a couple of decisions you'll need to make regarding your blog, such as:
While this article will not attempt to address these decisions in depth, they will require some research, as your choices will influence the cost and time to deployment and what you can do with your blog. As a very general rule, hosting by the blog application provider or third-party hosting is a faster, more reliable route to deployment but internal hosting offers better security and more control. Some popular blogging platforms are WordPress, TypePad, and Movable Type. More important than choosing blogging software, though, is making sure your blog ties to your company's strategy, and is properly integrated with the rest of your communications vehicles. Linking The Blog To Communications Strategy Your blogging effort should be an integrated part of your communications strategy, which in turn should be driven by your business strategy. The blog should have an overall strategy, such as "engage with vertical market customers 1:1 to communicate our specific value proposition in each of these markets" or "grow the company's credibility and awareness in the enterprise security space." This becomes your blogging "platform." It could be the same or very similar to your overall communications platform, or it could differ given the audiences you intend to reach with your blog. Now that I've given you some very basic considerations on "joining the conversation," you might be wondering who in your organization should take part in those conversations, and what they should talk about. Check out Part Two of this article next month, where I'll cover that, and a few other things you'll want to consider. ______________________________________________ Joel Postman is Executive Vice President, Emerging Media, for Eastwick Communications. Eastwick is one of the top independent technology PR agencies in the country. The company has a unique understanding of the intersection of traditional and social media, offering media relations, blogger relations, messaging, and implementation for clients wishing to deploy blogs, podcasts, videocasts, wikis and other social media initiatives. Prior to joining Eastwick, Joel was Director of Executive Communications for Hewlett-Packard’s Technology Solutions Group. Previously, Joel was the speechwriter for Scott McNealy, then Chairman, CEO and President of Sun Microsystems. Joel's blog is at http://www.blogs.eastwick.com/mediaartifacts
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