Posts tagged corporate blogging
Convincing the CEO to blog: Mission Impossible?
May 24th
By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist
The meeting room looked like most across corporate America. The fluorescent hum of recessed lights, the smell of 1-hour old Starbucks coffee, and the fake maple veneer conference table set the mood for another marketing meeting.
It’s your turn to update the team on your social media efforts for the last week.
Unfortunately the news is mixed.
You can’t seem to attract the right audience. Content on the blog is anemic due to half-hearted writing efforts from various divisions. Declining engagement numbers whisper of a blog that is failing to gain traction.
As you open your file folder you swear you hear Jeffrey, the traditional media superstar, mumble “dead-man walking” before you begin.
You clear your throat, stare intently at the CEO, and begin.
“Our blog is the hub of our social business initiative. It plays a leading role in telling our company’s story. It shows prospects and customers alike that we are a business that matters. It’s the most cost-efficient way to tell a deep story about our products. It’s critical for finding and cultivating brand evangelists.”
Jeffrey straightens in his chair, ever alert for the other shoe to drop.
You nervously re-adjust your water bottle a centimeter to the left and continue.
“But, every indicator shows that our blog, perhaps our most important marketing asset is dying”. You pause for blink waiting for the news to sink in.
After a moment you continue…
“And Maria” , your CEO straightens in her chair, “You are the only one that can save it. If you choose. Or we can continue to run the blog like an after-school project and watch a year’s worth of investment swirl down the toilet.”
The fluorescent lights hum their annoying applause. Everyone unconsciously shifts their bodies away from you.
“Ok…”, Maria says, “Let’s do this”
Leaning onto her elbow, she narrows her eyes and say,
“Convince me.”
Today we’ll talk about what you could and should say.
If your corporate blog is dying a slow, anonymous death then you can plan on having this conversation. Let’s make sure your prepared.
The Objections:
First you need to work your CEO’s most likely objections. The common ones are:
“I Have No Time”
CEOs are beyond busy. They are responsible for the entire business not just marketing. They rely on their marketing team to understand and execute the marketing strategy. The last thing on their mind is producing content for a blog.
In fact, they may get a little irritated by having yet another “to-do” placed on their list. You must be prepared to meet this objection.
“Our Customers Don’t Read Blogs”
There is an ongoing debate in many companies around the social expertise of customers. Many CEOs are skeptical that their customers have the time to read and comment on blogs. While these executives are fine with a placeholder effort for their company they are waiting for news that their suspicions have been confirmed.
These executives have to be shown that customers not only read blogs but make business decisions based on what they read.
I’m Not A Writer
It’s known that Public Speaking is the #1 fear of most business executives. I believe that “Public Writing” is the 2nd. The fear of writing an article from scratch terrifies many CEOs and goads them into rationalizing their fear with other objections.
Even though you may have a bullet-proof argument, be aware that your executive will most likely be wrestling with their secret fear of writing. You’ll need to factor this into your thinking when making your case.
Kicking Your CEO Off The Fence
Now that you know what is rolling around in the mind of your CEO, it’s time to kick them off the fence. The good news is that if you already have a blog then you can take comfort that the CEO is open to making it better. All they need is a reality check.
Here’s how to administer some tough love…
Show them what prospects are saying
Your prospects are talking about you and your competitors on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other blogs. They are asking for advice, getting recommendations and referring others to websites.
I recommend that you use a tool such as SocialMention.com to start compiling a digest of these conversations. Since your CEOs is the top salesperson and cheerleader for your company; they will hate not being a part of these conversations.
Ask your CEO this: “What impact would it have to offer a blog post written by you that answers our prospect’s top concerns or objections?”
For good measure, I would push a little further and inquire -
“Imagine the leadership we could demonstrate in the marketplace by being the first to show our CEO rolling their sleeves and engaging with our audience?”
Show them what the competition is saying
The Social Media party is in full swing. Almost every company is trying to take advantage of the new channel. It’s extremely persuasive to show your CEO that the world isn’t standing still.
Show her what the competition is tweeting or putting on Facebook. Analyze your competition’s blogging efforts and provide a hard-hitting evaluation of their performance. Paint your CEO a picture of how social media can quietly build competitive momentum and loyalty.
Pull examples of other companies with blogging CEOs. Show how these executives are championing their brand, engaging with customers, and how they are leading by example. Take the time to find good examples from a variety of different industries.
Next…
Show them what customers are saying
Go to search.twitter.com and search for your company name. Repeat this exercise on Google and examine the results using the “blog” link in the sidebar. You can also use SocialMention.com (free) or Radian6 to dig a little deeper.
Your goal is to create a snapshot of how your customers are talking about your company’s product and brand.
These customers are looking for cues that your company cares about them. The #1 person for the job is your CEO.
Quick Ways to Get Your CEO Writing
If your CEO is already a writer then laying out your evidence will probably push them in the right direction. Don’t be too critical of their initial posts. Let them get into the groove of writing and watching their work get published. Most of all don’t let them burn themselves out. One post a month is perfect for a new CEO Blogger.
On the other hand, if your CEO isn’t a writer then you will need to do a little (or a lot more) hand-holding.
Try this:
- Create a clear 12-month editorial calendar: An editorial calendar takes the “what will I write” stress off your chief executive. Work on the calendar with your CEO to make sure that their priorities and concerns are baked into the final product.
- Repurpose Current Communications: Your CEO probably already writes regular emails or columns for the internal newsletter. Offer to review and repurpose these existing communications for the company blog
- Ghostwriting: I am a fan of ghostwriting. The benefits of CEO blogging is to great to get dogmatic about how the final post is made. I recommend finding someone inside the company that can create a draft that edited and approved by the CEO.
- One Post a Month: In the beginning, one post a month is fine. Make sure that your CEO understands that the team is still executing the 99% of the work, but one post is needed to move the blog in the right direction. In my experience, most CEOs end up writing more because they learn to enjoy the process.
Ready?
I’m very interested in hearing your perspective on CEO Blogging. Is it worthwhile? Do you think that CEOs see the benefit of being the social voice of their company’s marketing efforts?
Stanford Smith is a hopelessly addicted angler, father of 3 hellions, and the wild-eyed muse behind PushingSocial.com. Follow him on Twitter to get his latest unorthodox tips for getting your blog noticed and promoted.
29 Reasons Why Your Company Blog Has Stalled
Apr 25th
By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist
At {grow} we spend a lot of time talking (sometimes arguing) about the intersection of social marketing and smart business. In almost every situation, publishing a blog is an excellent strategy. A blog creates a new marketing asset that generates leads, qualifies prospects, builds loyalty and retains customers.
Unfortunately, publishing a blog is much easier than maintaining its growth. A quick tour around the blogosphere offers ample evidence of how challenging business blogging can be. Empty comment sections, single-digit retweet tickers, lackluster headlines, and anemic topics are just par for the course.
It’s easy for the social media cool kids to chalk these missteps up to corporate laziness. However, there is a different answer. I think it’s just plain ignorance of what’s required to keep a blog moving in the right direction. Marketing managers are just blind to the danger signals that indicate that a blog is heading for obscurity.
So, we’ll take a quick look at 29 reasons why business blog has stalled.
Starting Without A Vision
1) Focusing On The Wrong Audience: Sometimes your audience isn’t the buyer of your products. I’ve seen companies jumpstart their blog growth by focusing on the user of the products rather than the “decision-maker.”
2) “I” Focused: Remember, social business is not about YOU. Blogs that focus on customers, problems, answers, and dreams build value much faster than online sales pitches.
3) Doesn’t Inspire: Your blog must stand for something beyond making a transaction. Readers must catch a glimpse of your hairy audacious vision of the future.
4) Focused on “Things” and not People: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that products enhance more than people. I love Apple products not because they are well designed but because Apples explains how they are designed for me.
5) Infested with Jargon: It’s impossible to craft a successful blog around jargon and abstract principles. The more specific you are about your vision – the better.
6) Doesn’t Lead (pandering to polls, surveys, and testing): Mark and I have been talking about this for a few months now. Your readers don’t want to lead you. They want to be led. Your editorial calendar is proof of your brilliance; it can’t be outsourced.
7) Isn’t Innovative: Blogs die when they depend on me-too topics. If you are unlucky enough to manufacture a commodity product then you’ll need to blog filled with innovative topics.
8. Hypocritical: Your stated vision isn’t reinforced by your social communications. You can’t say the customer service is a priority and not respond to customer service inquiries via Twitter.
9) Shallow – You aren’t creating the stories and content that adds vibrancy and relevance to your vision
Confusing Monologue with Dialogue
10) Barring Comments: Not accepting comments is stupid. If you need to bar comments then you don’t need social media. Period.
11) No Response: People are funny about communication; if they talk to you they want to hear back! Not responding to comments demonstrates that you don’t respect or care about your audience.
12) Robotic, Party-line Responses: When you do comment make sure you sound like a human being. Leave your buzzword bingo skills back in the cubicle.
13) Spotty Posting and Updating: Erratic and unpredictable posting schedules says “you can’t rely on me for information/”
14) “All About Me”: If your blog comments start with “I”, “We”, “Our”, or “My” then you can bet that they will get ignored. Your readers will listen to you after you’ve talked about them.
15) Lack of Gratitude: Saying Thank You is a dying art. Show genuine appreciation for your readers spending time with your blog. Give them free stuff, thank them in your comments, follow them on Twitter, retweet their stuff, link to them in blog posts. It’s the best investment you’ll ever make.
16) Not Encouraging Feedback – Close-Ended Posts: Business bloggers have a devilishly hard time getting readers to comment. After reviewing hundreds of blogs I’ve discovered that most of these blogs don’t encourage feedback. Their posts are neatly summarized statements that scream “don’t comment”. Consider writing your post as if you need reader input to complete the post. Remember The question mark is your friend in social media.
17) Talking At versus To Your Readers: Here on {grow} almost every commenter is addressed by the first name. Do the same. When a readers sees their name they instantly feel that the blog is talking to them and not at them.
18) No Follow-up in Other Channels: Comments, tweets, and updates isn’t the whole ballgame. Email is still an essential communication channel for businesses. Often your most influential readers will ask questions via email. Answer these as if your business depended it on it.
19) Machiavellian Comment Policy: Deleting everything but the rosiest or blandest comments will destroy your blog. Grow a thick skin or go back to putting brochures in the mail.
Failing to Build Rapport
20) Confusing Logos With People: Using a logo as the face of your social media effort is a risky proposition. I understand that branding is important but people identify with visionary people and passionate communities not logos.
21) Not Talking About Your People: Social business works because it tears away the curtain and shows that your company is human, authentic, and engaged. Talk about your people and their contributions.
22) Not Cheerleading for Your Customers: Your blog is a powerful platform for including your customers in your marketing. Celebrate their successes and crow about their people. They will quickly become the #1 source of traffic for your blog.
23) Treating Your Blog Like a Brochure: Blogs build audiences and establish credibility. They suck at directly selling product. Do so and you will drive away visitors in droves.
24) Using Twitter and Facebook for Advertising: Be careful with using Facebook or Twitter as tool for broadcasting links to your blog. These tools require an upfront investment in rapport building before you can use them for driving traffic
25) RT Laziness: Simply hitting the RT button without reading and adding value puts you in the “spam” category and devalues your contribution.
26) Not Following or liking your customers: Find your customers twitter handles and Facebook pages and follow them. This shows that you are interested in them and want a relationship beyond the transaction.
27) Letting your lawyers control your voice: Social Media requires a degree of empowerment and trust. Craft a clear social media policy and educate your team. They are your voice – not the legal team.
28) Confusing Brand with Voice: One more point, your brand is usually built and set in stone by agencies, graphic designers, media planners and copywriters. Your “voice” evolves through communication, engagement, and collaboration with your customers, readers, and enthusiasts. Don’t confuse the two. You might even find that your social Voice is your true brand.
29) Thinking Social Media is the Marketing Team’s Job: Surprisingly, your marketing team a relatively “small” part to play in your day-to-day social media plan. Successful social media programs inspire collaboration between PR, Customer Service, Production, and the executive team.
Are you responsible for steering a corporate blog to success? What are some of the challenges you’ve faced?
Stanford Smith is a hopelessly addicted angler, father of 3 hellions, and the wild-eyed muse behind PushingSocial.com. Follow him on Twitter to get his latest unorthodox tips for getting your blog noticed and promoted.
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The 10 Best Corporate Blogs in the World
Jan 5th
My reaction to most company blogs: “Blah, Blah and Double Blah!”
I recently taught a class on corporate blogging at the amazing social media marketing graduate program at Rutgers University. In my research for the class, I pored through hundreds of websites looking for examples of the best company blogs in the world.
Amid the coal pile that is the state of corporate blogging today, I did manage to find a few diamonds that don’t bore to tears with pronouncements, promotions and product announcements (the Killer P’s).
Before I provide my view of the best of the best, here are a few general observations about the state of corporate blogging:
1) The best blogs are dominated by the tech sector. In fact, they are so far ahead of the rest of the corporate world that I found it unfair to rank the professionals with the amateurs! IBM, SAP and Oracleare examples of innovative and remarkable blogs. Nearly every hardware, software and services company “gets it.” I thought it would be more interesting here to focus only on the non-tech sector. I also excluded any reference to Zappos simply because I am sick of Zappos and it’s my blog dammit.
2) Corporate blogging has evolvedfar beyond the idea of personal journaling. Think of any company goal and there is likely to be an example of a company blog supporting it. You may be surprised at the diversity of blogs in these examples.
3) There is a chasm between the adoption of blogs at large companies versus the rest of the world. The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts showed in a study that just 22% of the Fortune 500’s blog compared to 45% of the Inc 500′s and about 80% of non-profits. And even when some companies claimed to have a blog, I couldn’t find it. Corporate blogging is still a wide-open area for marketing channel development since there are so many proven benefits of blogging! And many of these blogs are U.S.-based because the adoption of corporate blogging is even lower in the rest of the world.
In no particular order, here are ten examples of exceptional non-high-tech blogs:
Goals: Problem-solving, community-building, loyalty
So you don’t think blogs have a place in the B2B world? Can’t imagine somebody from a road construction crew logging in to read a blog? Think again.
Caterpillar established separate blogs based on industry (construction, electrical, marine) with sub-categories under each industry (products, safety, problem-solving). This company does a wonderful job engaging customers, using the community to solve problems, and rewarding customer ideas.
Goals: New product development, engagement
Well-managed companies usually excel at many things and Starbucks is no exception. They are leading the way in social media marketing but the unexpected aspect of their blog is that it only tangentially has anything to do with coffee. Instead, Starbucks employs its blog as a global brainstorming platform. Customers submit ideas for new drinks, food items, packages, even store designs. The company blogs about the ideas (about 100,000 so far!) and readers build on the ideas through comments and ratings. The idea is brilliant.
Goals: Customer satisfaction, sales, crisis management
Bill Marriott is one of the most famous corporate bloggers in the world. Yes, the company chairman actually does his own posts, dictating them on a weekly basis. This personal involvement has won the site loyal fans since they know they are getting the word from a real executive — a powerful point of differentiation. The company has reported generating millions in direct sales from this blog and has also used this as a platform to set the record straight in the event of a bombing or hostage situation involving one of their properties. Another “personal journal” blog I’ll submit as a runner-up in this category is Randy’s Journal from Boeing.
Goals: Direct sales, loyalty
In a hotly-competitive, low-margin business, this regional grocery chain is trying to stand out with a fun, easy-to-navigate site. The blog design changes every few weeks to reflect colorful seasonal themes. The company has managed to attract a loyal and engaged audience through posts from president Danny Wegman and other store employees on ideas for entertaining at home, recipes and nutrition. I saw one post where the deli chef was responding to questions by telling customers which aisle to find ingredients for some tasty muffins. I love the fun, down-home and authentic engagement on this site!
Goal: Thought leadership
Here’s how blogger Mark Toth describes the mission of the blog: “When we asked visitors to the Manpower US website what information they wanted most, the answer was employment law. This bLAWg is an attempt to meet that demand and engaging and educational content.” You mean they actually listened to customers and created a blog around their information needs? Seems like such a simple idea but unfortunately ignored by most companies.
Goal: Brand Awareness
When I use the GE blog as an example in my classes there is usually a comment like “Oh … I thought they were only lightbulbs.”
This blog is aimed squarely at breaking this image through wonderful story-telling. If you want to see a blog that is doing a good job spinning some entertaining stories, look no further. It’s not uncommon to see wonderful photography, video, and even art and music used in a blog post to illustrate a point. The one area that needs to be improved — I think they are trying to hit too many diverse customers with one blog. It’s time to segment with multiple blogs.
Goal: Customer engagement, brand awareness
How in the world do you create passion for scissors? Fiskars has done it in one of the most creative blogs in the corporate world. The company solicited help from four scrapbook fanatics who demonstrate their love of crafting — and the tools they use — with this customer-generated content. One of the greatest marketing applications for blogging I have seen.
Goal: Enhance corporate image and integrate with traditional media
This is one of the world’s best-known corporate blogs but I would be remiss if I didn’t include it here. People generally hate airlines but somehow Southwest has risen above this with a quirky, honest blog about travel and the people who make it happen. This is the anti-corporate-press-release blog. They also wisely use this as a way to connect with employees. Smart business.
Goal: Complement brand image, engage community
Patagonia is a company that sells high-end adventure gear and this no-frills site does a marvelous job featuring reader stories of what else … high-end adventure! You have to love a corporate blog that features a post called “Waking up puking.”
The magic of social media is finding a way to enable your customers to carry your brand promise through to their stories and this site is a best practice.
Goal: Complement brand image, direct sales
Like Starbucks and Zappos, Whole Foods is a social media darling, and for good reason. They do great work! This popular blog is full of how-to’s, best practices and exciting product ideas.
Of course it would be impossible for me — or anybody for that matter — to do a comprehensive evaluation of every corporate blog in the world but these are some that demonstrate the use of compelling content to align with tangible business objectives.
I would value your comments on these wonderfully diverse blogs. What company blogs should I consider for my next class? I’m especially interested in any small businesses that are effectively working the blogging channel.
Take the Mystery Out of Twitter!
, the best-selling Twitter book in the world! Learn the three elements behind every Twitter success, 22 ways to build a relevant audience, strategies to create personal and business benefits, and hundreds of amazing tips and time-savers.Click on the image for a Special Amazon promotion!
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