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Problem #1: The Person That Should Blog Can't
As I said in a previous posting, I think it's interesting to discuss why blogging in a corporate environment could be hard or problematic - and what to do about it if you want your organization to blog anyway. I have 7 or 8 potential problems on my list, and here's the first one.
Problem #1: The person that should blog can't
Blogging requires some skills, most of all writing skills. And let's face it, not everyone can write. Or have the time or ideas enough to do it. To blog you also need to know the more or less unwritten rules of the blogosphere. It's unnecessary, and possibly counterproductive, to get a reputation of "the one that never gives credit" and so on.
And there is of course a technical side to blogging as well. The exact minute I'm writing this (it's true) CNN is reporting about blogs, saying "everyone can do it just 3 clicks" and showing the Blogger front page. Well, not really. Not for your company. You'd want to understand what a feed is, what directories to be listed in, how to (if at all) work with Trackback and other features, and many things like that.
So, what to do if the person you have in mind - the one that should blog given the results you want - can't write, has never read a blog and hardly can remember his Windows password?
Training: It's not rocket science. Most people can be taught to write quite well and there's plenty of bloggers/consultants out there who easily, in just a few hours, could tell you all you need to know to start blogging.
Get technical assistance: If you're organization is big enough there will be someone who knows the technical aspects of blogging, or can find out. If not you can buy the help you need. Even if you start from scratch it'll only cost you a fraction of your latest intranet project...
Use a Ghost Writer: This could be controversial. Many bloggers would say that a ghost writer is plain wrong. But all communication professionals knows that ghost writing is everyday work. How many high-level managers writes their own presentations, customer letters or staff magazine editorials? A good writer can use the voice and tone of another person. Certainly blog postings might be harder to ghost write and require more trust between the parties, but it can be done. The thoughts, ideas and opinions would still be the official blogger's.
Audioblog: For some purposes you could just skip the writing part. Give your blogger a phone number and some basic instructions (don't talk more than X minutes etc) and you're off. Many people are far better at talking than writing, and most have 10 minutes in a taxi or at an airport when they're not really doing anything - and could audioblog. I think this is interesting especially for internal blogs. See Audioblog.com and Audioblogger.com for more information.
Start an editorial board: So far I have assumed that the would-be blogger has things to say often enough. This doesn't have to be the case. Your company must have things to say, though, otherwise a blog isn't for you.
To support the blogger one option is to start an informal editorial group - three or four persons that keeps an eye on blogs, sites and magazines and gives the blogger relevant input.
Groupblog: Does it really have to be just one person? As long as the most profiled person (the most well-known of you, the boss, the professor, the head of strategy...) is part of the blogging group others could post as well. It's not hard to see situations where that not only would work, but would be a better alternative if your purpose in any way has to do with the branding of your company.
Europeans Less Exhibitionistic Than Americans?
Why are Europe lagging behind the US in the blog development? It's a question that, as you may have noticed, interests me. And it seems that I'm not the only one asking that question. According to swissinfo.org the answer - at least from a Swiss perspective - could be that "The Swiss probably feel they have less of a need to talk to other people than the Americans. It's possible that our reserve stands in the way of a Swiss blog boom, because you have to expose yourself in a blog."
Link via Micro Persuasion.
Classification Of Business Blogs
Suw Charman suggests a classification of corporate blogs:
1. Marketing blogs - external, B2C blog, used to promote either the company or a product/service.
2. External blogs - used to communicate with the public, but not for sales purposes, for instance, in a consultation process.
3. Insider blogs - employee blogs, sanctioned but not controlled by the company they work for. (Sometimes disclaimed by the company they work for.)
4. Business blogs - blogs used within a company to share knowledge, build communities, disseminate news.
5. Content blogs - public-facing blogs reliant on content to bring in either subscription or, more likely, advertising revenue.
The one I'm having problems with is the "Business blogs" category. I might be wrong but I understand her definition of it as internal blogs, perhaps on an intranet, and that's not the way most people use the term Business blog.
Link via B-spirit.
Blogging And Business Moving Mainstream
Blogs "are fast gaining corporate recognition and soon may be acknowledged simply as important", according to Yahoo! News. In a similar article internetnews.com, link via cyDome, argues that "major IT players like Microsoft, IBM (...) and others are finding that they can embrace blogs instead of fearing them and transition the communication platform from a technical tool to an enterprise goldmine".
Also in Romania...
...we find corporate blogs. eLearning from Timsoft share information and experiences with those interested in eLearning in Romania, and provides news related to the company projects and activities.
This is the first East European blog on my blog list.
University Survey: The Blog As A Meaningful Business Tool
The Blog as a Meaningful Business Tool is a MBA project with the purpose of gathering "information regarding how weblogs are used by business people and to understand the value weblogs provide in the workplace".
Follow the link and you will find a survey you can answer to help out.
The research is conducted by Matthew Lin, an MBA candidate at University of New Brunswick at Saint John, Canada.
Blogs From Italy And France
The European Corporate Blog List is updated with blogs from Italy and France.
Metakappa is "the first Italian knowledge ecosystem blog" according to the blogger Gino Tocchetti, who is an entrepreneur developing knowledge management tools.
In France, No Parking is a small company producing a timesheet software called openTIME. On the corporate blog we find updates about new features of the software and other company information.
Also in France, Glazblog is the blog of the CEO and founder of Disruptive Innovations, Daniel Glazman. I like the way he decided to start his company, but wonders what's wrong with French managers ;-)
SAP Executives Share Their Vision and Strategy with the SAP Community
In my search for European Corporate Blogs I find this really interesting. Four of SAP's Executive Board Members are blogging, and their writing seems to be tightly integrated into the SAP Community. Considering SAP's reputation and credibility, they could be one of the most important forerunners in blogging, not only in Europe.
Three reasons why I was surprised to find SAP execs blogging:
1. It's a German company
I don't want to generalize too much, but it's commonly said that most German companies have a more conservative culture than would, for example, their US equivalent. If SAP can do it, many more can.
2. SAP's target group
SAP sell systems that influences many, if not most, parts of their customers' businesses. The decision to buy SAP's products/services is a decision by the CEO and the board. Of course all major investments are, but I would say that the CEO is more involved with SAP than he or she is with Dell or Macromedia (or many of the other big companies with blogs). And if SAP with its target group isn't deterred by the potential risks of executive blogging, many others won't be either.
3. The level of professionalism
I'm not surprised that SAP are professional. But it was surprising, at least to me, that the blogs are so seamlessly integrated into their web communications in general. I believe in this method, I think this is the way to go to make corporate blogging something else than personal blogging (which it is and must be, even if the two share common ground). SAP is doing this a lot better than, say, Sun Microsystems.
Thanks to Neville Hobson for showing me the SAP blogs.
An interesting fall ahead
I'm back. Had a great vacation. I quickly found out that I had no chance of catching up with the blogs I usually read. Too many posts, too little time. And the massive reporting by and on blogs in relation to the Democratic Convention in the US isn't making it any easier to summarize the last few weeks. So I won't even try.
But it is interesting that the Convention blogging seems to spread the notion of blogs to new groups. Even at this side of the Atlantic. Here in Sweden blogging ("the new phenomenon") has been in both national television and radio. And when I got back from vacation a client had left me a message. He's quite representative for most Communications Managers, at least in the Nordic countries. He has never before mentioned or discussed blogs, but now he wanted to know more. What's this and can I use it? he asked. Could be an interesting fall/winter...
Be Persistent - Or Not
The summer of 2000 I started my first corporate blog. A few weeks later I went to Cannes in France for vacation. 3-4 times per week I left the beautiful beach to go to an internet café. Before travelling to the Riviera I had prepared posts and saved them at a server I could reach from everywhere. I continued to publish to the joy of all my readers. Well, to some of them. I guess I had about 20 readers. Most of them on vacation too...
Looking back that was overambitious. But that kind of persistence was effective in the long run. The audience grew into thousands. So I wouldn't recommend any other strategy: Be persistent.
And here comes the "Or not". This year I wont follow my own advice and example. I'm just going to relax. The prerogative of a small business owner, I guess. Please don't ask me to explain this logically ;-)
Some interesting summer reading:
I'll start posting again end of July/beginning of August. I'm not totally disconnected so you can contact me if you like. Have a great summer.
Explaining Blogs To Executives
You can find more and more attempts to explain what a blog really is, from a corporate point of view. I like my attempt, of course, and I think that the winner of the Perfect Pitch Competition describes internal blogging clearly.
Itra blog offers one more alternative. Here's a quote:
"Although a blog can still be used as a diary it may be less confusing to first think of a blog as a tool for publishing cheaply. What was once something that a fairly geeky person had to code and maintain on an internet server has been productized into an easy to use hosted publishing service."
Personally, I prefer a more non-technical attitude. I don't think executives care if it's easy to publish - the ones I meet wants to know what blogs (or PR, training or whatever) will deliver. Will they be more competitive? Get more productive employees?
Corporate Blogger John Jantsch
My series of blogger interviews has focused on small business bloggers. So why not end it with a small business marketing expert? John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, with The Duct Tape Marketing Weblog, concludes that "smart marketers are adding (blogs) to the mix, but not necessarily looking at it as a way to revolutionalize marketing as we know it."
What do you expect/hope that the blog will deliver in terms of marketing and branding? Something different compared to other ways of communication?
The one thing that my blog seems to do in terms of branding is that it allows people to feel more personally connected. It's almost as though you create a little community of readers. I think this is true for several reason. One, most well read blogs are updated almost daily, and the format of quick little bits allow people to check-up often.
The other thing that blogs seem to do is generate a lot of search traffic. I don't really know why but Google in particular loves to index my blog entries so I get lots of hits from searchers. Blogs are a very hot topic in the media and my blog comes up number one if you search on the term Marketing Weblog.
Another thing that I use my blog for is a bit of a testing ground for marketing messages. Because I know that my target market will read my blog and usually react, I get feedback on what works and doesn't work very quickly. Some of my weblog entries will show up in Google for a key search term in several days so then I can build on that if I wish.
Has clients or prospects reacted in any way? What do they think?
Most people really love it but, like all marketing, there are some people who would just as soon get a hand written note from me. I think the lesson is that the weblog can be just another form of marketing, much like the Internet itself. Smart marketers are adding it to the mix, but not necessarily looking at it as a way to revolutionalize marketing as we know it.
Previous "Corporate Blogger" postings:
Gmail
This is way off-topic for this blog, but if there's still anyone out there who wants to try Gmail I have four invitations left.
Not that I recommend it. For me, nothing beats the Outlook integration of e-mail, contacts, calender and more. When I need webmail I use the account that eventually will end up in Outlook. But it's always fun to try things. E-mail me: "fredrik (at) corporateblogging.info".
Update: Three Two invitations left. No more invitations.
More European Countries With Corporate Blogs
As I have said before: It's not much yet, but if you look hard you will find corporate blogs in more and more European countries. The European Corporate Blogs list is updated with blog examples from e.g. Denmark and Germany. More examples are welcome - I can use some help with France, Spain (in fact any country where anything else than the Scandinavian languages, English or German is spoken...)
New on the list:
Thanks to Andreas Johannsen and Gerrit Eicker
Claim A Blog Space
The Advisory Council writes about blogs in their weekly column in Informationweek. One of their ideas is especially interesting, I think. If you can't decide if blogging will do your organization any good - try it, carefully. Claim your space.
"While blogs are becoming more common, and PR departments are starting to look at them as a viable means of 'getting the word out,' many businesses are still stuck on the question of whether to blog or not. Our advice is to blog a bit, so as to claim some blog space, and then see the impact of blogging to make the decision that would work in the context of your own organization. Blogging is a cultural phenomenon, and what works in one company may or may not work in another."
(Link via Media Guerilla)
Corporate Blogger Ed Kuhlman
Ed Kuhlman of Kuhlman Auction is a good writer. And what in the auction business could have been just a nice skill, becomes through his blog a competetive advantage.
Ed is the fifth business blogger in my survey. Thanks Ed, for answering my questions.
What do you expect/hope that the blog will deliver in terms of marketing and branding? Something different compared to other ways of communication?
I hope that I can use blogging to differentiate myself from my competition. Blogging gives me a way to let people know about who I am and what sort of things are important to me in my business. Each business has it's own set of competencies that it tries to utilize to it's best advantage. For instance, some auctioneers come into the business with skills, equipment, or knowledge from another previous business.
I feel that one of my competitive advantages is my written communication ability. The blog gives me a chance to use this skill. Even though my competition could easily have their own blog, most of them won't do it because they may not have the same level of comfort with written communication.
My long term goal is to have many of my customers using my auction web site to keep aware of my upcoming auctions. My customers come from some distance for auctions and it is difficult if not impossible to reach them efficiently with newspapers or radio ads. By sending an e-mailed blog to my subscriber's list, I can keep in touch with regular customers. My business is a small family business but the blog allows me to project a larger image to prospective customers.
Has clients or prospects reacted in any way? What do they think?
At present most of my business comes from referrals from earlier customers or from my network of contacts. I am using my blog to expand the range of potential contacts. The responses to my blog have been very positive.
It gives me "visibility" that I could not otherwise get. It does take time to keep up and do a good job with a blog. If a business has a blog there must be someone who has the responsibility for updating it. It doesn't really take too long to do, but it does require discipline.
Previous "Corporate Blogger" postings:
Corporate Blogging For Beginners
I've written an article on corporate blogging for the Danish Kommunikationsforum, a site with 50.000 visitors per month. While I on this site mostly try to relate to people that at least has heard of blogs, that piece is written for absolute beginners.
(Yes, that's needed is Scandinavia.)
Perhaps the article could be used as an up-to-date summary to put on your boss's desk...?
Discussing Blogs With Sceptics
Amy Gahran at the Contentious blog writes about the many different ways you can use Furl, the web content archiving and sharing service. One idea is to "pre-blog" by showing anyone interested what pages and postings you have saved for future use.
I'm not sure that one more technical solution will make life easier for blog readers (but I also like Furl). Still, it's a good idea to let readers know what you're planning - and perhaps can do even better with their input.
So let's try it! You're most welcome with any comments or ideas to help me out with a coming series of posts: Discussing Blogs with Sceptics (or something like that...).
What I want to do is a list of the 8, 10 or 12 most common arguments against corporate blogging. Not to prove them wrong, but to discuss what you could do to overcome those concerns or when they're completely reasonable given a certain organization's situation. I think that could be of help for many interested communicators investigating the business potential of blogging.
Do you know of any such arguments or concerns? Let me know. Comment this post or e-mail me: fredrik (at) corporateblogging.info.
The following is my list so far, based on discussions I've had with Corporate Communications Managers, Web Editors, Press Officers and so on.
Corporate Blogger Todd Sattersten
The 800CEOREAD Blog is a perfect example of the way a blog can establish you as an expert. 800-CEO-READ are "selling and recommending business books to the business community". You could also say that with the blog they're a company selling knowledge with knowledge.
800-CEO-READ's blogger Todd Sattersten (also blogging at A Penny for... and participating at the Global PR Week) is the fourth blogger to answer my survey on corporate blogging.
What do you expect/hope that the blog will deliver in terms of marketing and branding? Something different compared to other ways of communication?
For 800CEOREAD, we want to further establish ourselves as experts in business books. With our blog, we have created a place where customers and prospects spend more time with our brand. We give them book reviews. We expose them to authors. We give them an inside view into the publishing industry. For people who love business books, we are the best single source for information.
What is different is that the blog allows for constant communication. If people read the blog every day, they are spending two to seven minutes with us every day. Mailers get thrown away and email get deleted. RSS allows the posts to be delivered to them and they can opt-out at any time. Blogging by its nature is more personal than other marketing communication. I think that strikes a chord with people.
Has clients or prospects reacted in any way? What do they think?
Positive, Positive, Positive. We just had a customer leave a comment saying he started using 800CEOREAD after reading the blog. People see the blog as a great resource.
Previous "Corporate Blogger" postings:
I Want To Speak To The Brand Manager...
From ClickZ's Ads on Blogs, Blogs as Ads, Part 2 today: "If you don't have access to a continual stream of information relating to your company or the product you intend to promote, implement a periodic e-newsletter. Blogging isn't for you."
True - if you want a blog to publish information relating to your company or the product you intend to promote, blogging certainly isn't for you (why?). It doesn't matter if you have a continual stream of information or not.
This quote highlights a common misunderstanding of blogs as a marketing (or even advertising) channel. Blogs might develop that way, who knows. For now I think we can say - a bit incisive, I know - that you're better of talking to your Brand Manager than your Marketing Director about blogs. Or why not the HR- or CSR-directors?
At least if we're really talking about blogs. RSS and the ability to syndicate content of any kind, well, that's another story. Steve Rubel has interesting ideas about that.
Corporate Blogger Russell Buckley
Blogging gives Russell Buckley of The Mobile Technology Weblog quality market exposure he couldn't get in any other way. Speaking about the corporate structures that restrains blogging, he says that "if you're worried about what employees might write about you, you've got some pretty fundamental problems in the company". Russell is the first European corporate blogger in my small survey, and of course I asked him about his opinion on the European trailing.
What do you expect/hope that the blog will deliver in terms of marketing and branding? Something different compared to other ways of communication?
It's a great way of raising personal and therefore your company's profile. It's also something I am doing as part of my job anyway - keeping up to date with what's happening, so blogging it is very little extra effort. In fact, blogging makes me analyse things more than I normally would too, which is a bonus.
But the specific benefit of marketing is that I get maybe 1,000 people to think about what I'm saying every day - and therefore thinking about me. While I hate the word, blogging can turn you into a guru quicker than any other way right now.
I couldn't get this kind of quality exposure in any other way. Even if I spent a million Euro's a year on advertising and marketing, nothing beats the fact that these people actively seek me out.
Has clients or prospects reacted in any way? What do they think?
It's difficult to say. Most/all are aware of the blog and most seem to like it. But I've only been going in this format for about 6 weeks, so early days.
Most corporate blog-examples we see are from the US. Why is that, do you think? Do you think that corporate blogs will become more significant in the UK, where you are, or in Europe as a whole?
I think that blogging generally is bigger over there (as is use of the net generally) and we've been slower to catch on. A surprising amount of people (business not technical) still don't know what blogging is, let alone understand the benefits of corporate blogging.
In the US, the profile of blogging has been higher too because of the media ownership over there. You don't get unbias reporting, so it was natural that blogging could and does fill that vacuum.
There's also a lot of fear in both traditional media (it circumvents the editorial process - dangerous for a publication) and businesses (how do we know what they'll write?). But frankly, if you're worried about what employees might write about you, you've got some pretty fundamental problems in the company.
Yes, I expect corporate blogging to really take off in 2005/6 in Europe, led by a few brave companies. Others will follow, but don't forget in the UK 50% of companies still don't have a website, so it'll be slower than you think.
The other thought I have is that for many companies a website is normally about attracting new business (generalisation, I know) and that once someone is a customer they may not ever go to the website. A blog is as much about communicating effectively with existing customers as attracting new ones. A clever corporate blog will create dialogue and feedback both ways. This adds value to the customer and the corporate blogger.
A marketing director (as an example) will think nothing of spending a morning attending focus group meetings of a few dozen customers. But if your blog takes off you can be meeting thousands of customers every day, without leaving your desk.
Previous blogger surveys: