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U.S. Air Force: guidelines on responding to blogs

January 12, 2009 By 1 Comment

Kudos to the U.S. Air Force for developing some smart, easy-to-understand criteria and guidelines for how to engage with bloggers.  While you’d think a branch of the military would be especially rigid and controlling, the Air Force appears to be much more progressive than many companies, recognizing that the way to build and maintain reputation is to help your employees be your best word of mouth advocates.

Filed Under: Smart company stories, Social media strategy, Word of mouth Tagged With: , , , , , ,

17 ways to find blog-worthy topics

December 11, 2008 By 4 Comments

More and more companies are starting corporate blogs that are dull, dull, dull. Here are 17 ideas for topics that make for interesting posts and will help get you out of dullsville.

1.    Conferences: Your comments on one (or several) of the speakers. What struck you as interesting and why? Or your takeaway on conference overall: 3 things that were most interesting or most over-hyped.

2.    New studies and reports: What are the top one, three, or five takeaways you think are particularly relevant/interesting. (People like reading lists, bullets in blogs.)

3.    YouTube videos: upload, link, add commentary on what you like, find interesting about video that has caught your attention.

4.    Book recommendations: Note on what you’ve just read and 3- 5 bullet points on what you thought were most interesting about book.

5.    Notes or emails from customers/employees/partners that are worth sharing because of their ideas, advice, appreciation, experience, etc. Just make sure the person is OK with you sharing.

6.    Stories about people: When you hear of a story about a person or fellow employee who does something that moves you, write about it – and include why the story affected you so much. This helps get to know you and your company’s culture.

7.    Views on breaking news: what’s your point of view on a story that’s in today’s headlines that’s relevant to your business?

8.    Dinner/meetings with customers: what’s on their minds and why – about industry trends, the economy, talent, etc

9.   Do a guest “interview”: send 3 questions to someone influential who you respect – a peer at another company, an academic, the head of a major industry association, a sports figure — and ask him/her to email answers. Then post in a Q&A format.

10.    Best practices and management tips: Share some of your company’s best practices – or your management advice — so others can learn from you.

11.   Share a presentation: If you’re making a presentation at a public conference, embed it as a post.

12.     10 things that surprised me about… This theme is evergreen. 10 things that surprise me about my company during my first month here. 10 things that surprised me about working in this new geographic location.  10 things that surprised me about learning to work for our well known CEO.   10 things that surprised me about expanding our business in China …

13.  Be magnanimous: No company has all the answers. Have you seen things at other companies you admire or think deserve attention? Praise and talk about them, taking the opportunity occasionally to tie it back to  your POV.

14.  Wax metaphoric: Observing a thread or theme in your business that’s comparable to something outsiders might find accessible, e.g., baseball? Wrap a post in a metaphor to put a new spin on things and make your view of the world more accessible.

15.  Be a (constructive) critic: Don’t be afraid to weigh in on something – in the news, on other blogs, in the markets – on which you have a strong opinion. Having a well articulated and strong point of view pulls people in, elicit reactions, and, if positioned constructively, can engage you in and expand an existing conversation that’s already got some momentum.

16.  Take sides: (Partly related to the item above.) Is there some big issue playing out in your industry or related ones on which your company has a position? Then say so, articulating why you believe what you do, while always trying to be respectful of those with other points of view.

17.  Historical corollaries: Have any great anecdotes to share that relate to today’s climate? Something in the past that readers will find an interesting and unique perspective that sheds new light on a current issue? Tie the present to the past with an observation that points out the parallels.

Thanks to my Beeline Labs partner Hylton Jolliffe for brainstorming on this.

Filed Under: Communicating, Conversational Marketing, Social media strategy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Execs blocking blogs but encouraging newspapers

May 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I recently came across two companies that block employees’ access to blogs. (“Don’t want people wasting time while at work.”), yet are trying to encourage employees to read newspapers more often. Yikes!

I listened patiently while the executives explained the value employees would get if they would only read the newspaper every day — and how much more valuable that would be than “surfing the net.”  I then told them — both around my age — that the first thing I do in the morning is to open my blog reader — not my newspaper.

Then I shared how blogs are replacing trade magazines, go into more depth than many newspapers are able to, and are becoming the preferred way of learning, keeping current, finding and networking with  new people, hearing about emerging trends.

Blocking blogs is like saying you don’t want your employees to learn or help you find great talent or help you grow the business.”Really?” they asked. “Really.”

Two small breakthroughs in opening up senior executives to the social media age. But hearing their views makes me think we have a long way to go in educating the people who control the controls.

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: ,

Yahoo's Jerry Yang blogs on Microsoft no deal — sort of

May 5, 2008 By 1 Comment

[photopress:Yang_1.jpg,thumb,pp_image] Jerry Yang of Yahoo yesterday blogged (“OK, so now what?” ) about Microsoft’s decision to withdraw its offer. I give Yang credit for writing something and allowing comments, which is more than most CEOs do.

But Yang’s post doesn’t sound genuine; it sounds like something the corporate PR folks wrote in a committee. Too bad. In today’s world, people want the real language of the person behind the ideas. After reading the post my reaction was, “Does Yang really care — or is this just a PR move?”

A better approach would be to give the CEO a few of the major points that communications thinks should be conveyed — and then let him express it in his own words and style. Who cares if the words and grammar aren’t perfect. Neither are real people.

Filed Under: Communicating, Language, Leadership, Public Relations Tagged With: , , ,

Succeeding with PR requires social media

December 6, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Francois Gossieaux has a good post why social media needs to be a big part of any public relations strategy today. Two interesting stats he cites:

  • 84% of journalists say they would or already have used blogs as primary or secondary sources.
  • 54% of journalists report to get their story ideas from blogs, 51% from RSS feeds

Reporters aren’t opening most emails from PR people or agencies unless they have a really good relationship with them. Forget phone calls. But do remember a blog helps you get good ideas direct to people in your market — and is the new source for journalists.

(Note: Recently reporters from The Wall St. Journal, The Baltimore Sun, Business Week, and The Chicago Tribune have called me based on one of my blog posts. I’m witnessing what Francois writes about.)

Filed Under: Public Relations, Social media strategy Tagged With: , ,

Going narrow and The Next Big Thing

April 28, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Going more narrow is an under-valued marketing strategy. When we focus on a narrow slice of an issue or focus on a very specific audience it’s often easier to provide insightful advice and perspectives than appealing more generally. Going narrow doesn’t mean that we don’t understand broader aspects of an issue or industry, but that we understand the issues so well that we’re able to hone in an especially relevant or or overlooked area of importance.

Don Dodge of The Next Big Thing blog and director of business development for Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team gets this. Don and I met this week at a conference where we were both speaking. I asked him why he thought his year-and-a-half-old blog has generated such a following, upwards of 25,000 people a week.

“When I blog I talk about topics that are relevant to to a relatively small group of people — venture capitalists and technology start-ups,” he explained. “I only write about what I think will interest this group, which in reality is maybe just 2,500 people. And I only blog when I have something to say.”

Next time you’re wrestling with what to talk about, try going narrow.

Filed Under: Marketing trends, Social media strategy Tagged With:

Blogger Stories

April 28, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Toby Bloomberg over at Diva Marketing has a special blog called Blogger Stories that shares the stories of “how people have been touched by blogs, podcasts, vlogs and other online interactions. The virtual library is almost at 90 “chapters” that have been contributed by bloggers from all over the world.”

The stories are fascinating and together show just how much blogging is changing the lives and worlds of people. They’re so much more just another marketing channel.

You can find my Blogger Story here.

Filed Under: Social media strategy Tagged With: ,

Blogs & Beyond: Digital Marketing Workshop Highlights

October 2, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Here are some highlights from The IT Services Marketing Association’s (ITSMA) recent “Blogs & Beyond” digital marketing workshop, held at Babson College. I had the pleasure to be a speaker along with Rob Leavitt, ITSMA’s vice president of marketing and member community; Paul Dunay, director of global financial services marketing for BearingPoint; Siobhan Dullea, vice president of community consulting for Communispace, and Cinny Little of the Digital Influence Group.

 

 

Workshop participants said their greatest digital marketing challenges are:

  • Understanding the optimal mix of digital tactics to accomplish goals

  • Reallocation of budgets: what traditional marketing approaches should be cut to fund digital marketing approaches

  • Overcoming pushback from legal, particularly around online communities and blogging

  • Figuring out how to measure new approaches

Listening to the digital conversation (Lois Kelly, Foghound)

If marketing is a conversation, half of the work is listening to customers and what’s being talked about in the market. Listening is as important – maybe more so – than talking (blogging, podcasts, etc.)

The value of listening to the digital conversation:

  • Making customers feel heard, key to building trust and relationships

  • Boarder understanding of relevant issues, players

  • Early warning on new ideas, concerns, competitors

  • Deeper insight into emerging influencers

  • Better tracking of “real conversations.

The three levels of active listening to be successful in the “marketing as a conversation” world:

  • Recognition: recognize the person’s view. Practically, this means providing easy ways for customers to share ideas or even complain.

  • Acknowledgement: acknowledging what a person feels or thinks. Providing a personalized, relevant response shows that your company hears and appreciates the idea.

  • Endorsement: accepting another person’s thoughts or point of view as valid and legitimate: this is where real dialogue kicks in.

Tools for passively listening to the marketing conversation, helping us to see where we can add to the conversation or glean insights.

  • Technorati: see who is blogging about a topic or a company; view by “authority of blogger, by language, how recent

  • Del.icio.us: easy way to see most saved Web page links on a topic, highlighting influence, value

  • Blogpulse: free way to analyst trends and monitor a conversation string among bloggers

  • Google Trends: see search volume on a topic comparing it to news volume. Also get search volume by article

  • Flickr: shows photos tagged by keywords, photos associated with your company name; hints at sentiment, metaphors

  • Touchgraph mapping: shows relationships among and between topics or companies and what issues are closely connected

  • Netrocity: Situational Awareness Mapping tool identifies conversation volume and relationship between topics and d companies

  • Consumer generated media analysis services: thorough way to identify and track online consumers, opinion leaders, key issues, trends, competitive threats and opportunities. Leading service providers include Nielsen/Buzz Metrics, Cymfony, Biz 360, and Umbria.

Microsites and Podcasts (Paul Dunay, BearingPoint)

Why microsites are useful:

  • Isolates content you want to showcase to a particular audience

  • Don’t have to crawl though your website to find content

  • Direct traffic there using a Vanity URL (ex:www.bearingpoint.com/risk)

  • Easy to direct search engines there (using keyword or SEO)

How microsites fit into marketing mix

  • Promotion of thought leadership

  • Interactive self-assessment

  • New product launches

  • Resource centers

Tips on using microsites

  • Don’t clutter up the page

  • Use a strong call to action

  • You don’t have to go it alone – use a media partner

  • Aim for highly-interactive content

  • Decide on what actions you want to track before hand

  • Optimize microsites for search engines

Tips on podcasting

  • No shovelware

  • No direct selling

  • Transparency is the key

  • Formats: multiple article format, blog-like rant, radio show with guest interviews

  • Use strong call to action

  • Commit to a series – you can’t “eat” just one podcast

  • Frequency: weekly

  • Keep it short: 5 to 7 minutes

  • Copywrite the title carefully

  • Costs: $0-$1,000 – quality varies

Private Online Communities (Siobhan Dullea, Communispace)

What Customers Do in Online Communities

  • Talk about competitors

  • Brainstorm ideas for revamping customer website

  • React to marketing campaigns

  • Give advice (solicited and unsolicited) about positioning

  • Chat about work challenges and suggest how the sponsoring company could address unmet needs

  • Give testimonials

  • Review white paper drafts and give feedback

  • Generate hypotheses that serve as basis for other research

Private online community best practices

  • Narrow the focus

  • Invite the right people

  • View members as advisors

  • Work at building the community

  • Be genuine, encourage candor

  • Just plain ask

  • Pay more attention to what members initiate

  • Don’t squelch the negative

  • Don’t ask too much too often

  • Use the right mix of methodologies and technologies

Blogs (Lois Kelly, Foghound)

Blog marketing strategies

  • Gather market intelligence

  • Comment on the conversation

  • Sponsor the conversation

  • Start your own conversation

  • Manage crises and misperceptions

Commenting on blogs and responding to TalkBacks

  • Be genuine and real

  • Someone from company vs. agency

  • Acknowledge, respect others’ views

  • Share facts and ideas that contribute to conversations vs. just opinions or rants

Publishing your own blog

  • Who is it for?

  • Theme? Do the posts add up to a grater whole? Connect to your business?

  • Your points of view, advice, expertise, personality, “humanness”

  • Commitment and skill: ideas, writing, responding thoughtfully to comments

  • Use a linking strategy

  • Add visuals to help convey views

  • Use RSS syndication, tag your posts,

  • Measure and learn

  • Frequency doesn’t rule; quality does

Organizational Challenges (Lois Kelly, Foghound)

Common organizational obstacles and tips for overcoming

  • Fraidy cat syndrome: use data to show why digital channels are popular, valuable to your audiences; show data and studies on the value of allowing and correctly responding to negative comments; show how you can convey points of view and advice that are not material to company; make friends with legal to create a plan on what can and can’t be talked about.

  • Oops, we forget the communications experts: Write to be said vs. read; learn broadcast-like interviewing skills; be prescriptive vs. descriptive; ideas should be valuable and interesting to the audience; be causal and conversational.

  • How do you measure?: Some ideas:

  • Track and show value of consumer insights from online market listening (to product development, customer communications, sales intelligence and communications, positioning, etc.)

  • Use awareness measures for digital

  • Viral marketing effect: use data to demonstrate speed efficiency

  • Search engine lift: show stats on how company brands, are more “findable”

  • Session quality: use increases in content viewed

  • Opt-in activity: track online registrations, requests for information

Ideas for getting started organizationally

  • Make passive and active listening someone’s job

  • Earn customer and prospect trust by giving away valuable advice

  • Start with an internal blog by an influential exec to show pent up interest and value of blogging

  • Start with tactics that fit your corporate culture. Podcasts better for “talking” cultures, blogs for cultures where written communications rule, communities for CRM-focused companies

  • Change your style: conversational communications based on providing value to others in language of people vs. pushing one-way messages. Use throughout ALL communications, digital and traditional

Filed Under: Social media strategy Tagged With: , ,