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Conference blog replaced newsletter
For The Human Resources Professionals Organization of Ontario the annual conference is the organization's flagship and a culmination of everything they provide. When they planned the conference, Tara Hunt suggested they would replace the internal-resource heavy newsletter with a blog.
Tara writes about HRPAO's experiences in Conference & Corporate Blogging as a Marketing Tool.
A survey showed that "...a majority of the conference participants knew about the blog, almost 40% of them actually read the blog...". Great result, I think.
What they should have, and will, do differently is mainly related to the visibility of the blog, writes Tara: "I would start posting changes and announcements on the blog sooner than the actual conference days, so that delegates would get used to visiting this source for news early on."
Overall, HRPAO seems to be satisfied: "...the blog proved to be an economical way to report on the conference happenings."
Last week I used a course blog for a two-day course I was responsible for. I started blogging two weeks before the course, published quick tips and resources I thought the participants would find useful considering the course's content. During the course I published links and updated presentations, and after it I've answered some questions and followed up on our discussions.
The response wasn't huge in advance. A few comments but not more. But it didn't take more than half a day before the participants started talking about the "course blog" and by the end of the two days it seemed to be a perfectly natural part of the documentation.
How to write a good recruiting blog
Canadian Headhunter, one of Recruiting.com's bloggers, gives some advice on how to write a good recruiting blog.
Ever had a candidate with dirty nails or yellow teeth? There's a posting for you. Title: "I Don't Hate My Candidate, But I Wish He'd Take An Expletive Deleted Bath.
The future of Web sites in a world of RSS
This is a few days old, but relevant. Matt McAlister: "The day InfoWorld's top news RSS feed received more requests than our home page, I started thinking a frightening thought: RSS is doing to the Web today what the Web has been doing to print for the last several years. We have disintermediated our Web site by offering our news in an easier to access format...again."
This is not only a discussion for the media. It's the same frightening thought your average Communication Director thinks. Will I lose control? What happens to our messages when we no longer can control the presentation?
The answer to the first question is probably Yes. But that's only a problem if your communication needs you in total control to make sense.
You can compete against a product -- not against a community
Sun COO Jonathan Schwartz discusses the success of what they see as their "ecosystem of strategic communities". Apparently all of them are accelerating, hand in hand with financial success. Schwartz's explanation of why these communities are so important should be read and understood by many business leaders.
"If it wasn't obvious, blogs (coupled with extraordinary innovation) are playing a central role in driving community awareness and adoption - of all these platforms. Blogs put a human, and real-time, face on communities, their participants and community evolution.
As will become more obvious by the day, you can compete against a product, but it's close to impossible to compete against a community.
It's no coincidence that as we enter our most aggressive product cycle ever, an understanding of ecology, ecosystems and community development will once again be at the core of our strategy."
Business blogging by Yoda
I love the business blogosphere on weekends. Tris Hussey talks to Yoda in Blog you must for your business!
- Blog you must for your business.
- Truth, passion, authenticity a blogger must have
- Comment and trackback spam paths to the Darkside are
- Prideful blogging, a dangerous thing it is. A way to the Darkside it is
- The Blog-i Masters train you in the way of the Blog, they can
- Blog-i Masters guardians of the Blogosphere they are
- May the Blog be with you
"So blogs are instead of CC:s?"
For two days I've been teaching a course for web and intranet editors, with a focus on what's happening right now on the web that might affect them. Blogs, needless to say, was one part of it. When I talked about intranet blogs and how they can make internal information flows more efficient one participant asked the question in the headline -- and I really like it. It doesn't have to be more complicated that that to, at least, begin to understand internal blogging.
Well, this said mostly to explain why this blog has been dead for a couple of days. Lots of catching up to do, so expect a low frequency of posting for a few days more.
White paper -- The corporate blogosphere
21Publish has released a white paper called "Your Corporate Blogosphere -- Selecting a Solution to Enable More Efficient Workplace Communication & Knowledge Sharing" (download pdf).
As the title says, the white paper focuses primarily on technical issues. 21publish -- that sells one publishing solution -- thinks administrators should look for the following:
- Ease of community administration...
- ...the ease-of-use features that integrate blogging into everyday work. For example, corporate blogging solutions need to support email.
- ...single sign-on integration with other tools and services, like the company intranet.
- ...mechanisms that allow users to systematically track both important discussions and follow-ups to comments that users have made to other people's blog entries are highly desirable.
Management communications, business best practices, technology best practices and internal customer support are examples of what internal blogging could be used for. In summary, the report emphasises these points:
- To motivate the voice of the employee
- To facilitate interdependence
- To organize information (pull versus push mechanisms)
Church blogging
This doesn't fit into "corporate" blogging, of course, but it is all about how an organization can use blogs: 4 Ways Blogging Can Change Your Church (via).
"...a preacher will be able to post a sermon idea at the beginning of the week and have the congregation respond so that when he delivers the sermon he will have brought many along for the ride" the author writes.
Living in one of the most secular societies in the world I don't know for sure, but it sounds like a groundbreaking idea to me. And still, it seems perfectly natural.
Writers wanted!
Together with Neville of NevOn I'm involved in a major communication project for a European client. As one part of the project we need to produce news articles for the client's web site. For this we need writers -- maybe you?
These are our requirements:
- Native English speaker (all texts will be written in English).
- Experienced writer, possibly a journalist, able to show us articles you've written for media and/or organizational websites.
- Preferably experience in writing about scientific topics.
- An ability to write about complex subjects for general audiences who need simple explanations as well as for more technically-minded audiences.
Where you're based doesn't matter as long as you can meet our requirements, above. If everything works fine, you can expect to write one article per week during the coming year for which you'll get paid up to 400 Euros per article. This could mean one writer writing lots of articles or many writers writing fewer each. Either way, there's a lot of potential work here as well as a great opportunity to build a long-term relationship with an innovative European organisation.
Please note: This is not a blogging project. It's about the other 95 percent of organisational communication. We will, though, coordinate this project with the help of new media technology so it's a clear advantage if you know RSS, wikis, etc. Being on Skype is essential.
If you're interested send an email to me with [Writer] in the subject line.
fredrik [at] corporateblogging.info
Tell us how you meet the requirements and why you're perfect for the assignment. Please don't send us portfolios or any attachments -- if we like what you say in your email, we'll be asking you for such things. If we get many responses, we may not be able to answer everyone, but we promise we'll read every email.
So who's the client?
What we can tell you now is that it's a European research institution. "Whatever happened to transparency and openness in blogs?," you might be thinking. "These guys talk about it all the time and now they're not even telling me who their client is."
Our answer is simple. Once this part of the project is up and running, we will be glad to tell you more about it. Including who the client is.
And yes, both Neville and I expect blogs to become part of this organisation's communications mix soon enough...
MS history of corporate blogging -- and a critical eye
In A Brief History of Corporate Blogging at Microsoft Korby Parnell tells his story about how corporate blogging started at MS:
"In the beginning, back in 2002 and 2003, no formal code of blogging conduct existed for Microsoft bloggers. There were few, if any, other companies that allowed its employees to blog. To top it all off, Microsoft has traditionally been a very tight-lipped company in the area of public relations. To this day, all executives receive special PR training upon joining the corporate ranks. It was the wild west. I don't think our legal department or public relations firm (WaggEd) had any idea what we were doing on blogs.gotdotnet.com or of how big and important a force we would soon become."To me, there is a sense of simplicity every time Microsofters talk about blogging. They've made -- and still make -- a major contribution to the rise of corporate blogging, no arguments there, but many of them make it sound so... underground. A bit childish, perhaps: "Heh. Let's do this while the PR folks aren't watching".
Some of this are for obvious reasons in Naked Conversations too. Trevor Cook does a very good job of showing exactly that. He slaughters chapter 7 into bits and pieces. This partly summarizes Trevor's view:
"...PR has always been about getting information out in a way that advances the cause of the company. I can't imagine companies setting up blogs to get out information that damages their interests. Do you have examples of a company encouraging its employees to blog against the interests of the company, now that would be revolutionary."
Blogger wish list
Dear Blogger,
I have tried to find ways to switch from Blogger to another publishing system, but there are problems I'd like to avoid. So I figured I could try influencing you to improve Blogger instead. There are many things I'm satisfied with, you know. It's a stable system. It's easy to customize the look. It's neat to have you publish files on my own server.
But why not continue to develop? I'd for one would be willing to pay a reasonable monthly fee if money is the problem for you. This is what I want:
- Categories -- it's standard in almost every other blog publishing system. Now that categories automate Technorati tagging too, I really need them.
- An integrated TrackBack function -- it's an extra burden to do it manually, and I often skip that part I'm afraid. Give me Pingback too while you're at it. You don't have to be embarrassed that you didn't invent it. Who cares?
- Comments that are as customizable as the rest of the templates. And please stop asking people to sign up for a Blogger account as your default option. It makes many choose not to comment (I use Haloscan instead).
I'm sure that many of your other users would be glad to help you out. Who knows, maybe we can start a "Blogger Wish List" meme that would catch your attention.
Yours truly
Quick tip: Reading feeds on your mobile
Just a quick tip about the perfect(?) solution to keep an eye on your RSS feeds while being away from the computer.
I wanted to make sure that I didn't have to subscribe to interesting feeds in two programmes/services -- one feed reader in the computer and one in the mobile device. The solution was extremely simple. I already use Bloglines as my feed reader and they have a mobile version you can use.
Problem is that many mobile devices have built-in browsers that are more or less useless. My P910i is one example, and I just couldn't log in to Bloglines Mobile with it.
Opera for Mobile came to my rescue. It's free and available for a wide range of devices. It works perfect.
Bloglines Mobile + Opera for Mobile = Your feeds everywhere.
Could this be interesting for a sales force constantly on the run, to help them quickly access internal blogs and news? Not sure, there are as we have seen security issues with Bloglines.
Blog risk assessment teams
Compliance Solutions Advisor takes a look at the risks of business blogging -- pointing out many things to consider but also, I think, misunderstanding the spontaneous and personal nature of blogging.
In Managing the Business Risk of Blogs Christopher Byrne and Richard Schwartz discusses employee misbehaviour, sexual harassment claims, vulnerability to phishing, misuse of corporate assets and many other questions. All in relation to employee blogging.
I do think they exaggerate. I mean, how many sexual harassment claims have we seen in the business blogosphere? Is there anything indicating that this is a risk? At the same time I think it's foolish to dismiss concerns of this nature. They're real. People with the power to say yes or no to blogging have them.
Byrne/Schwartz recommends companies to assemble a risk assessment team. And this is the point where I believe they give bad advice. The people they want to put in charge of developing a blogging policy are the following:
- Senior company official
- Research consultant
- Human resources manager
- Chief information officer
- Risk management consultant
- Computer security expert
- Cyber-insurance broker
- Training specialist
- Writing coach
- Public relations manager
Compare this approach to IBM, where apparently IBM bloggers wrote the guidelines (although certainly with the help of legal experts). Or compare it to many of the other policies we've seen, where often a high-profile blogger has set the ground rules for his co-workers.
I wouldn't have mentioned this if I thought it was just two risk/management consultants making a case for their services. I think this approach is something we will see more of. And I think it's a genuinely bad idea.
IBM Blogs "Truly Scary"
With everyone thrilled -- me included -- about IBM's blog initative (here and here) let Is there a PC Doctor in the house? give us a cold shower. Truly scary the doctor says. I don't agree but it's a refreshing point of view.
Traditional Media Rules
Yahoo! News: Blogs haven't displaced media, study finds. No kidding... Who thought they would have? If that's the way we measure blogs' success we can start discussing again in 5 or 10 years. If ever.
They're Stealing (Not Anymore) My Posts -- Yours Too?
UPDATE May 17: Bas from 2yellows.org has commented on this post and appologized for his mistake. He's also changed over at his own site so that there are relevant credits. That's great. I did hope it was a mistake and I'm glad it was. As I wrote, no hard feelings. And as you say Bas - let's keep blogging. I hope you find more of my stuff interesting enough to syndicate and discuss.
Just found the site www.2yellows.org. It's some kind of aggregator site where they re-publish posts from other blogs. That would be ok, for me at least, if they just said who originally produced them.
But they don't. They even say "...by Bas". That's not my name! This and this and this is "...by Fredrik". No one else.
And this is by Neville. No one else.
I use a very generous Creative Commons License. There are just two conditions: Attribution and Share Alike. The first one means that "You must give the original author credit". So please do.
To the authors of 2yellows.org: I couldn't find an email address to you. But you're obviously reading this blog. Everyone can make mistakes. No hard feelings -- just quickly correct your mistake and everything's fine. Thanks.
IBM Blogging Policy, Guidelines
With maybe thousands of employees about to start blogging, IBM needs guidelines. Over a period of ten days, IBM bloggers has written them using an internal wiki James Snell writes in his blog (via).
He also publishes the guidelines. Interesting reading, and one more example of corporate blogging policies/guidelines to use if and when you need to write something for your own company.
Guidelines for IBM Bloggers: Executive Summary
- Know and follow IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines.
- Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts. Be mindful that what you write will be public for a long time -- protect your privacy.
- Identify yourself -- name and, when relevant, role at IBM -- when you blog about IBM or IBM-related matters. And write in the first person. You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM.
- If you publish a blog or post to a blog and it has something to do with work you do or subjects associated with IBM, use a disclaimer such as this: "The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions."
- Respect copyright, fair use and financial disclosure laws.
- Don't provide IBM's or another's confidential or other proprietary information.
- Don't cite or reference clients, partners or suppliers without their approval.
- Respect your audience. Don't use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc., and show proper consideration for others' privacy and for topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory -- such as politics and religion.
- Find out who else is blogging on the topic, and cite them.
- Don't pick fights, be the first to correct your own mistakes, and don't alter previous posts without indicating that you have done so.
- Try to add value. Provide worthwhile information and perspective.
I construct my view of IBM while reading James Snell. I don't care if it's his personal opinions - he's IBM to me. Scoble is Microsoft to me. Schwartz is Sun to me.
This is of course exactly what IBM, Microsoft or Sun wants. That's the power of the personal blog voice. But perhaps policies/guidelines should make this a bit clearer. The IBMers are not seasoned communicators that know this by heart (and they shouldn't be, that's the point of a blogging initiative like IBM's).
To 130,000 IBM Employees: "Please Blog To Help Us Cut Our Losses"
Silicon Valley Watcher: "Early next week IBM will introduce the largest ever corporate blogging initiative in a bid to encourage any of its 130,000 staff to become online evangelists for the company. [...] The company hopes blogging could help stem further losses if it can galvanize employees into an army of online evangelists for IBM's products and technologies."
No further comment needed, perhaps. This could be one of those defining moments that we look back on in a few years time, saying "that's when corporate blogging started for real".
Valuable Blog Survey Results From Germany
In Germany the CRM agency Proximity has asked 2,700 internet users about weblogs. And the results are both interesting and valuable (assuming that there is reasonable statistical validity). One example: 91% expect a fast and appropriate reaction to questions and comments in enterprise blogs.
Press release in German / Google's English translation
Results:
- 91% of the blog readers expect a fast and appropriate reaction to questions and comments in enterprise blogs.
- 90% think it's important to make a clear difference between commercial and non-commercial content.
- Of the blog readers, 54% form their opinions about products/companies on the basis of blogs.
- 51% of the blog readers visit product and/or corporate sites as a results of reading blogs.
- 58% of the blog readers, read them to find news and information they can't find otherwise.
- 57% of them are interested in the personal opinions of the authors, but only 43% are interested in the discussions.
Disclaimer: I haven't studied German for many years... Should I have misunderstood something in the mix of German and Google English, please correct me. Thanks CyberWriter for the link!
Podcasting: The Evangelist And The Skeptic. And Me.
Neville Hobson has written an excellent piece about podcasting, walking you through what it is and how you can use it to add a human and informal touch to your communication.
Read that - and then read j|turn:
"I realize that podcasting, as a technology, is about as mature as your average nighttime Neverland visitor, and that it's likely to evolve and find a stable form eventually. As will the people behind the microphones. However, I'm sorry to say, I expect it to be about as revolutionary to the world as HAM-radio once was to the general population. Which is to say not much. There will be enthusiasts for whom the world is now a better place, but structures did, and will, not crumble."They both have valid and interesting reflections, and as always the world is neither white nor black. When it comes to podcasting I feel extremely grey. The podcast Neville does with Shel is from what Neville's told me a success. That's really great, I'm glad for you and it makes me think that the format could become more widespread. Here in Sweden the public service broadcaster SR just announced their first podcasts (or "podradio" as they call it).
But then I look at how I listen to podcasts. Or rather, not listen to podcasts. I'm extremely interested in the subjects Neville and Shel is discussing. They podcast about the things that engages me the most, professionally. I've studied the show notes for each one of the 32 podcasts carefully. I've followed the links. But I've listened to maybe 10 minutes of their shows -- in total. I want to, but I never have time to. It's as simple as that for me, as I've said before.
This makes me wonder (and I don't have the answer): Can I recommend podcasting to a client, as a tool for communications, when I'm an example myself that not even a profound interest in a podcast's subjects is enough to make me a listener?
Conversation Does NOT Need Comments
I see blogs as tools for conversation and personality in enterprise communications. On an abstract level of discussion most bloggers probably agree, but what exactly is conversation? How do we do it? The most frequent answer is "comments", but that's a way too simplified and shallow answer. Links are the fundamental conversational tool.
First let me say, though, I like comments. I write two blogs and both are possible to comment on -- you can trash this post totally right here and now. Or applaud it. But even if you couldn't, this post would still be part of the conversation. I'm writing this, you see, because Naked Conversations the other day wrote this: If blogs are about open conversations, how can you turn off comments and claim its a blog?
Noticed that? I linked to their post. If Shel is interested in the conversation about what he wrote, he will find my views about it in an hour or so via both Technorati and Bloglines, for example.
That's conversation too (that we really need better tools to track conversations is another story).
We could get all technical here, talking about TrackBack and Pingback perhaps. But that's not my point. My point is that the basis of conversation is linking. Links are the primary tool for us to talk. We obviously don't have to bother about tracking. If a blogger links to the major dailies (and they're generally not interested in talking at all) with some remarks about the news, the blogger has added conversational content to the Web. And that's blogging too -- with or without comments, with or without tracking.
In summary: Blogging is about conversation. Comments is a very good tool to strenghten conversation, but the fundamental tool is linking. Defining blogs from a "comments or no comments"-perspective is nothing but a way of making blogs a less profound change of communication than they are.
CEOs Refuse To Blog
"Some large companies, including Boeing, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, are letting senior executives blog, but not a single blogger is known to be a Fortune 1000 chairman and/or CEO. In part, that seems surprising."
"...despite all of the power and sway that awaits an early adopter, it's going to take a brave CEO with thick skin to enter the blogosphere. The corporate sphere likes its skeletons packed away, or at least vetted through legal and public relations departments. Companies have been trained to be inoffensive."
"While executive bloggers are careful not to offend, there is one topic that appears to be fair game: the competition."
Corporate Blogs -- Instrument For Conversation Alignment
An interesting perspective on corporate blogging from gapingvoid: Every market has an internal and external conversation. When everything works perfect, these conversations are aligned. That is, what you're thinking about your products/services internally is pretty much what your customers think too. All too often these conversations are misaligned -- and that's where blogs can do their job. They're an instrument for alignment and that's why they work.
In its simplicity this idea is great. If there's anything missing it is the fact that there are other types of corporate blogs that works as well, blogs that not are primarily written to strengthen or "align" conversations. The more fundamentalistic blog evangelists would say that in that case it's not blogging but marketing. There are, for example, many bloggers that successfully builds a personal brand with blogging and that's in some sense a different ball game.
Anyway, great model from Hugh. Now we're waiting for your ideas on why internal corporate blogging works!
Major Italian Daily On Blogs And Business
More mainstream media coverage on blogs and business, this time Corriere della Sera in Italy. I'm interviewed, and I hope I'm quoted saying something intelligent...
...Once Known As A Blog...
I've been saying this for a while too -- the word "blog" will become obsolete. For business purposes we will not need it in the future. But we sure need all the features of the blog. Ed Barista thinks we should just call it "website".
Of course, this is to some extent just semantics. But it's not only that. Isolating the blog from web communications in general serves a purpose. It makes people think. They try to understand what's going on in a much more serious way than if someone had said "Hey, shouldn't you write more openly and authentic on your site?" to them.
There's a price to pay for that method. The blog might be seen as unrelated to the corporate web strategy. The blog might be seen as a temporary hype. It's neither.
I guess the question is when to stop saying You should consider blogging and start saying You know blogs, right, what if you should use that kind of publishing to strengthen your web presence? or even Hey, shouldn't you write more openly and authentic on your site?
To me it's obvious that we're not there yet in Europe. By the end of 2005 we very well could be.
Personal Branding Vs. Corporate Blogging
This could become interesting: Reflections and thoughts about Personal Branding from a Entrepreneurial point of view. It's interesting, as bisonblog says (only in Swedish), from a blog perspective.
Intended or not, personal branding is a result of blogging. The better you are, the stronger your personal brand becomes. And vice versa. For an entrepreneur that could be perfect. But it is a matter to consider in terms of corporate blogging. What if the blogger brand becomes stronger than the corporate brand? I can think of at least a couple examples where this are/might become true, especially in niche markets.
Have you heard of any solution to this, besides "Keep the blogger happy"? Anything said or written about more formal solutions?
P&G Character Blog
Strategic Public Relations: Sparkle Body Spray is a full-fledged character blog from P&G. I'm kind of not the target group (would look terrible in a bikini), so I have no idea if it's good or bad.
Corporate Blogging In Austria
I don't know enough German to be sure, but this seems to be a blog all about corporate blogging in Austria. If so, nice initiative. Would be interesting to see similar ones in more European countries. (Via MEX blog)
Have You Got What It Takes To Do Blog Consulting...?
Can you summarize the early history of blogs, beginning with What's New by Tim Berners-Lee and ending with Evan Williams and Blogger (the First Two Waves of Blog Revolution)? No? According to Blog Core Values you can forget starting a career as a blog consultant. Then again, the early history of blogs might be a smaller problem than the future.
Context For Your Blog
If you want to gain a deeper understanding of the changing field of communication your blog exists in, take a look at the presentations from WOMMA Summit 2005. The focus is obviously word-of-mouth marketing, and blogs are just one tool from that perspective. But many of the speakers did talk about blogs as part of their strategies.
GM Blog in Marketing Strategy Terms
I found it interesting to learn more about the thoughts and plans behind General Motors FastLane Blog in Michael Wiley's presentation (pdf).
"Company position but candid and transparent" is one of the operating principles, and they also use the blog to "subtly introduce or move to important positions that need more clarity".
One of the goals is to use the credibility and influence the blog generates to reach mainstream with a fresh image of GM.
Wiley's presentation is all the proof you need to convince yourself that a blog can be a integral part of a marketing strategy, written in the words your Marketing Director feel comfortable with.
PETA Staying Relevant
For People for the ethical treatment of animals the blog of cofounder and president Ingrid Newkirk is one of several ways of "staying relevant with fresh content daily" (see presentation, pdf).
Influence the Influencers
All of David Reis' presentation (pdf) is worth a read if you want to understand what happens when people are empowered -- and connected -- on the Internet.
"Demographics alone are no longer enough. Think psychographics and sociographics..."
And to truly connect to the important influencers you have to open up. For real.
"Influencers don't only want to influence other people - they want to influence your company to provide a better product which is better suited for their needs..."
Toilets In The World Of Corporate Blogging
Thought corporate blogging was only for IT and media pro's? Forget it. Envirolet Buzz is a weblog published by a maker of waterless and low water composting toilets.
I can already hear the jokes ("why not, most blog posts are crap anyway...") but do take a look at the blog. Scanning through it, it makes sense from a corporate and branding perspective -- a mix of product related news and community building through shared values.
Blogs Generate, Wikis Organize Information
This is on my "to read and study carefully"-list: Wiki This - A Model for Customer Support Using Blogs and Wikis
Blogs and message boards both suffer from the same problem - they are great for presenting emerging information, but poor at organizing it for future reference. The "good stuff" that people often need and companies often want to capture quickly gets buried among all the comments and messages.
You could say that blogs and message boards are good at managing flows, but poor at managing stocks.
With this post, I'm outlining a potential way organizations can use blogs and message boards as a way to generate useful information and a wiki as a way to filter, archive and organize it for future reference.
16 % Of Small Businesses Plan For Blogs (U.S.)
I hadn't seen this before, but according to a HP study (via) ten percent of small business owners in the U.S. have included blogs in their marketing plans. And 16 percent plan to invest in blogs over the next 2 to 3 years.
Blog Event In Sweden
For Swedish - or Scandinavian - readers of this, just a quick pointer to Bloggforum 2.0. This blog event will take place in Stockholm May 28, and I will be on the panel discussing "Blogs for corporations and marketing".
Corporate Fan Blogs
That's a nice, and immediately understandable, phrase: Corporate Fan Blogs. Halley Suitt writes about them in Worthwhile:
Mishandling the blogging relationship with your biggest fans -- whether you ever desired to be in such a relationship or not -- will give companies a big black eye if not done properly. It's a fine line to walk.There could of course be problems with corporate fan blogs, such as journalists misunderstanding them..., but in general it's word-of-mouth by the book. The best thing a company could hope for, even if there should be some critical views expressed.