7 Reasons to Blog
A few years ago blogging was extremely popular. It has declined in popularity recently despite the fact that it remains a popular social media tool.
Blogs provide a number of business benefits, however many blogs don’t get results because they are not created strategically or written correctly for the web. In working with businesses on their blogs there are a number of simple strategies and tactics that mean the difference between success and failure.
Blogs are definitely worth the investment as they can provide LOTS of value to businesses. Here are few of them:
1) Position yourself as a thought leader
A blog is a powerful way to position yourself and your brand as a thought leader in your industry. By sharing your thoughts and views or uniqu knowledge you can be perceived as an expert in your area.
Most businesses are great at something (hopefully you are!) and sharing your knowledge is a great way to showcase this. Showing your expertise through a blog builds trust in you and your business.
2) Search Engine Traffic
Probably one of the best reasosn to start a blog is for search engine traffic. Search engines like blogs because they have a lot of content that is updated frequently.
This means that when people search for words related to your product or your blog posts you are more likely to show up at the top of the results. This means more traffic for your website and ultimately more sales!
3) To share news
Most small businesses don’t have a fancy PR firm or a press page. That doesn’t mean they don’t have news! A blog is a great way to share news about your business in an honest, opwn and personable way.
4) Get Customer Feedback
Blogs can generate two-way conversations between a company and their customers. Leverage your blog to ask for customer feedback. You can get feedback on current items or have your customers help you build new products or services.
When I worked at a startup we used our blog to generate discussions around what our new products should be. Our blog gave us an opportunity to share what we are working on and our customers an opportunity to tell us what they thought. Our blog comments also helped us to develop our policies, as we got considerable customer feedback and suggestions from our readers.
5) Connect with Customers on Content
Whatever your business line there are subject areas related to your product that your audience is passionate about. Zappos, a company that sells shoes and clothes online runs a fashion blog. They know that frequent shoppers on their site are interested in fashion trends. So, their blog provides information and updates on fashion.
Are there subjects that are related to your business that your customers are passionate about? A blog is a great way to make a connection based around that shared interest.
6) Show you are Human
A blog can show the human side of your business. Remember, people do business with people they know, like and trust. A blog can help people “know”, “like” and “trust you”.
By posting personal content they feel like they know you. It builds a personal connection. For example, people “connect” with me over being Canadian, or drinking WAY too much coffe.
They like you because the blogs show the nice and personable side of you. You share their interests, say nice things, comment and respond.
They trust you because you say smart things about your product or subject area which builds trust over. The human element also builds trust.
7) Provide Context about Your Business
Prior to making a purchase most people do some research online. If it is a big purchase they want to know if you are legitimate, provide a good product and know your stuff.
Often the corporate website is canned and shiny, but doesn’t provide real, transparent and authentic seeming information.
The blog can do this. A blog can show the real side of the company and build the trust that ultimately leads to purchases. It provides more context about you as a business and your products.
How else are companies seeing value from blogging? Why do you blog?
Yahoo! Web Style Guide
Yahoo! Knows How to Write for the Web?
Do you know how to write for the web? Well, Yahoo has just released their new Yahoo! Web Style Guide (available now!) and companion website to help you answer that question. When it was first announced that Yahoo was releasing this guide I was initially excited and felt like it was an important step forward. However, after thinking and reading about it, I’m failing to see why this is important to anyone except a select few, and I fail to see why Yahoo feels they are relevant enough to release this kind of guide.
What if Google Released This Guide?
If a web style guide was put together and published by Google; oh my, the Internet would be on fire about how this is the most important addition to web publishing since the adoption of HTML. This release isn’t from Google though, and Yahoo doesn’t have the juice it once did, are they expecting a wide adoption of this web writing style? So I will be interested to see what kind of adoption there is for the Yahoo style.
Yahoo’s Website Support for Your Style Questions
Aside from the book Yahoo has also introduced a companion website (http://styleguide.yahoo.com/) to assist with all of your web writing needs. I think the most interesting aspect is the Ask an Editor feature, which is basically just a Frequently Asked Questions page. I would love for this to turn into a real-time interactive feature incorporating social media tools to have real conversations with users and writers about their questions.
What About AP Style?
Writing for the web is not the same as writing for print, you don’t have the constraints of space on the web like in print. News reporters have had the AP Style Guide to be their universally accepted standard since the 1950’s and have a new edition released each year, usually in June. Yahoo has definitely become a more reliable and trusted news source over the years, but I think they have overreached their influence in this case.
Is Yahoo’s Web Style for You?
Will the Yahoo! Web Style Guide be widely accepted? I don’t know. It has only been out for a couple of days as this post, so that will be seen. I really wanted to write this article about how important an addition to copywriting and blogging this guide would be, but the more I thought about it the less important this guide seemed. I don’t want to come across as being 100% against this style guide, it’s a good first effort to standardize language and it’s proper usage on the web. I just don’t think Yahoo is the right company to set these standards. I know I will be purchasing a copy to put on my Kindle so I have it with me all the time, and I will use it help with my copywriting style, but aside from me, word nerds and some bloggers, I don’t see this as catching on like wildfire throughout the Internet.
- Brian Tudor
Follow @briantudor on Twitter
Twitter Ads
Twitter Launches Promoted Trends
I read an article recently about Twitter selling ad space, back in April Twitter introduced Promoted Tweets, a platform to allow businesses to promote themselves within the Twitter stream. Now it seems Twitter has launched Promoted Trends, a feature that will allow advertisers to insert their own trends into Twitter’s trending topics.
Twitter’s Value
Twitter’s value was released the other day at one billion dollars, impressive, but only one tenth of Facebook’s reported value. At some point Twitter will need to find a way to monetize their site, without
making it a pay service. I don’t have a problem with the paid placement of tweets and trends; I think it would be an excellent addition to any Internet or Social Media Marketing Plan.
How Twitter Needs to Handle Placed Trends
Here is what I want to see Twitter do with the paid placements. If they are allowing a company to pay to place an ad within the stream, call it out; make sure everyone understands someone paid to put that ad in their stream. As far as the Promoted Trends, I want to be able to ignore this feature, because the whole point of Twitter’s trending topics it to see in real time what is happening in the “twitterverse”. You can already choose between worldwide, by country even by city. I don’t want to see the trending topics “polluted” with a paid placement.
By creating a competition for the top trending spot, with a Google AdWords type auction, it would created a nice competition and help Twitter make money from selling the ads. As Twitter continues to grow they have got to find a non-intrusive way to bring in advertising dollars while still being able to create enough awareness of the ads.
Mobile Application
More people are logging on to Social Media; Twitter specifically, using their mobile devices. If you use an iPhone and a free Twitter app you most likely have to deal with some sort of ad placement now, so by adding ads to the main Twitter page should be too much of a problem.
| Number of Mobile Subscribers Accessing Twitter via Mobile Browser | 3 – month average ending Jan. 2010 vs. Jan. 2009 | Total U.S. Age 13+ | |
| Total Audience | |||
| Jan-09 | Jan-10 | % of Change | |
| Twitter.com | 1,051,000 | 4,700,000 | 347 |
| Source: comScore MobiLens | |||
– brian tudor
follow @briantudor on twitter
From BlogWell: Graco: Communicating with Social Media in a Time of Crisis
This is the last of my posts from the BlogWell conference (a conference covering big brands and how they use social media, held in Cincinnati last week). Kelly Voelker, Brand Manager, PR & Social Media at Graco shared their strategies for dealing with a PR Crisis during a recall (side note – what can Toyota learn from this?).
The Situation
On Jan 20, 2010, at 7:00am the news of the recall went out over the newswire. Graco announced a recall of 1.5 million strollers worldwide after 7 injuries were reported. The recall was only for a few specific models (not for the entire line-up). The story was posted immediately on a large number of national news sites.
How Graco Responded
Being Pro-Active
Graco pro-actively shared their message with specific communication on their blog, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and a dedicated Web Page. They created a landing page with specific information since they knew that consumers might have trouble getting through to customer care.
Reaching out to Influencers
They also reached out to top influencers to help share information. They sent an email prior to the news release to a variety of brand ambassadors who also have blogs. The bloggers appreciated getting the news first and helped to share information.
Dealing with Negativity
There was a lot of negative feedback. Here are some of the tips to deal with negativity:
- First, get ahead of the news and pro-actively search for and respond to conversations.
- Second, work closely with customer service; prepare them in advance and loop them in with a senior person who can approve appropriate real time responses.
- Deal with responses on a case-by-case basis and get permission to act.
- Start building the relationships before the problem exists. Nurture a community of positive advocates who will help in a crisis situation.
- Finally, if there is something that the community can benefit from then keep it online, otherwise move it offline.
One specific example was a woman named “Michelle” – she tweeted to the Chicago Sun Times, was responding to other consumers on the Graco Facebook page and actively shared negativity. Graco had a senior person respond to her personally and it turned her around. She then shared positive experiences across all of the same channels. She was happy that Graco wanted to help and reached out to her.
This is consistent with what we hear time and again. Often those who complain the loudest can become your biggest advocates with a little time and attention.
Key Learnings
- Legal collaboration – Become a legal go-to inside your organization as the communications team. Prepare messages in advance. Make sure that your legal team understands social media.
- Executive Communication – Graco held twice a day calls with leadership leading up to and during the announcement. They sent a daily email with the coverage and red-flags. This helped build consensus.
- Global Integration – Clarify the meaning of a recall outside of the US and treat all customers the same.
The way that the social media team is structured at Graco helps. There is a social media team that is made up of multi-functional people who are passionate about the brand (they don’t have communications backgrounds). They were all briefed in advance and were told how to respond to issues.
How did you work with your social media agency during this recall?
Graco really used their agency as a tool to listen. They were keeping an eye on the conversation to help us comb through the conversation and respond when needed. They don’t respond directly – they provide council and listening. Graco owned the communications.
What do you do about the crazies, nutjobs and wackos and people in that category?
Set expectations with your executives that this will happen. Reach out and let them know that you are there to talk to them. Ask them what they want — be there to talk to them about their issues and deal with it on a case by case basis.
How General Mills creates conversations with influencers through social media
Last week I was at the BlogWell conference in Cincinnati where David Witt, Manager of Brand Public Relations for General Mills shared how General Mills is creating conversations with influencers through social media.
David shared some specific insights from the launch of the Fiber One 50-Calorie Yogurt from April 2009 – March 2010.
Conversations Work at Driving Sales
The Fiber One snack bars launch showed that online conversations were the second most important driver of sales (after being on shelf). Generating and encouraging online conversations worked better than any other marketing tool (other than of course, having the product available to buy). While David couldn’t share a specific ROI from the conversations, they know with certainty that conversations drive sales.
David also shared a chart that shows that conversations and sales are highly correlated – sales grew when there were more conversations and declined when there were fewer.
Getting Set Up For Success
David said that having clear objectives & strategies was important to be able to measure success. For Fiber One the objective was to build awareness and position the Yogurt as a great dieting tool. They planned to leverage Hungry Girl (a well known weight management blogger) as the spokesperson. The goal was to drive trial and conversation.
Tying your metrics to your goals and strategies is important so that you know what success looks like. You can also develop more strategic campaigns.
What Fiber One Did
Fiber One used a lot of different social media tools in different ways to create a comprehensive social media strategy.
- Hungry Girl, a blogger who sends a daily email, and said that Fiber One bars taste better than Snickers. She has over 1 million subscribers to her email. Fiber One brought her on as a “celebrity” endorser and even has Hungry Girl featured on the package.
- General Mills has a program called “Pssst…” that provides “insiders” with special information about the company and a preview of news. The newsletter included Fiber One Yogurt messaging with a coupon. They also featured a video message from Hungry Girl and a Hungry Girl book giveaway. They also did a personal mailing to people in the “Psst…” community who were active dieters and sent them free product. They got very positive feedback from the people in their community who they sent the mailer to.
- To launch the product they also worked with Bloggers in a program called My Blog Spark. They send bloggers product on a relationship basis to let them know about new products. They created a “snack attack” video featuring Hungry Girl and her staff and did some early product seeding – bloggers had the opportunity to try the product first and share a product review.
- They also connected to Facebook and Twitter where consumers like to talk about Yogurt, and through key partners like SparkPeople (a diet/fitness site).
- Part of the key is to find tools that the bloggers want to use. Fiber One created a Embeddable Micro site that provided blog readers with coupons and free product. This makes it easier for bloggers to share their opinions. As a part of a live taste-testing the brand recorded consumer testimonials that were then available to bloggers.
- Consumers are willing to participate and be included with brands.
- There is a natural gravitational pull towards a niche (like a weight management community). Leverage the community.
- Provide meaningful and relevant brand experiences for consumers.
- Provide content in a format and in a location that they find useful and familiar.
- Be respectful and treat consumers as friends. Be respectful. Don’t lie to or embarrass your consumers or “friends”.
- The brand experience must be remarkable. Set clear objectives upfront but test and learn as you go.
Key Learnings
A Note on Blogger Disclosures
When General Mills created the blogging network of My Blog Spark one of their key elements was disclosure. My Blog Spark already had guidelines similar to the new FTC guidelines. My Blog Spark requires bloggers to disclose that they get product for free and if they get a free flipcam. They also request that bloggers do not make product claims that can not be substantiated.
The key to working with legal is to ask them “what is needed for you to say yes?” and engage them. The two key areas are product claim liability and disclosure.
How P&G is Using Social Media – From BlogWell
I attended the BlogWell conference in Cincinnati yesterday (You can see my live coverage of the event at the SocialMedia.org blog).
In the first panel of the day, Anitra Marsh, Global External Relations manager at P&G Beauty Care shared key takeaways and learnings from several P&G Beauty case studies. At Boot Camp Digital we did work with P&G (not beauty) on some of their early social media and community management work, and these steps show how P&G is evolving in their thinking about social media.
Step 1: Know Your Consumer
The first step that Anitra talked about was the importance knowing your consumer and what they are doing online. This is similar to how we at Boot Camp Digital encourage companies to start building their social media strategy. To do this effectively you have to spend a lot of time getting to know who your consumers really are as a person. What are their interests and where do they spend their time online?
P&G Examples:
For example with Olay, consumers have more choices than ever and they need help selecting online. Olay started a new website last year called www.olayforyou.com which takes customization to a new level. It provides a custom diagnosis for consumers based on behavior as well as skin type.
Another Olay program that highlights the deep consumer insights is Olay Pro-X. They had a core insight that consumers are very in to health and wellness and spend a lot of time online researching. Olay Pro-X partnered with WebMD to provide content on SkinCare, since WebMD didn’t have a skin care site. The result is that WebMD skin care includes editorial content from the Doctors at Olay including blogs and videos.
Step 2: Shift from Holistic Communications to Interdependent Model
Anitra stressed the importance of using an interdependent model for creating messaging between online and offline. In holistic communications the message is often an advertising message that is shared across different touch-points and mediums. In the interdependent model the content is created specifically for different channels, and in some cases the web content is driving the traditional content.
P&G Examples
On Herbal Essences this has been used to take consumer testimonials from the web and use them in traditional media.
Hugo Boss presented a unique challenge since the consumer is fickle and there is a lot of clutter. Hugo launched a contest for consumers to design bottles for their “Army Flask” campaign – there were over 13,000 entrants and many of the designs have been featured in print magazines and on billboards. In the new world with an interdependent model the content moves from online to traditional media.
Step 3: Continue Listening and Participate Choicefully
The next step is to continue listening and participate where it makes sense. Big brands can’t participate in every conversation about their brand. It is important to monitor all of the conversations but to be strategic about where specifically you are going to engage.
One of the key learnings in creating community managers was that tone and authenticity are key to success. Community managers must speak in a human tone. Anitra shared that their experience was that the community manager had to be a passionate brand enthusiast – their specific role or function in the organization wasn’t as important. It was also important that they could relate to the target consumer and were a legitimate part of that community.
P&G Examples
Pantene is one of the first brands to launch a community manager (the Pantene Beauty Maven). Her role is to go out, listen and engage with consumers. P&G learned that it is extremely important to align on the key topics that they really want to engage in upfront. This helps manage logistics and approval of the content, since you can gain alignment in advance.
The community manager is just one tool but everyone should be listening online. By listening online P&G can find opportunities to improve their products. Last year they launched CoverGirl with Olay, and they noticed by comments on blogs that consumers were having trouble opening the containers. Within 48 hours they worked with Research & Development to create instructions on how to open the containers. The directions were shared back with the bloggers and there was positive feedback as bloggers were surprised that Olay cared and responded.
Step 4: Build Refreshed Messaging into the Program Up-front
The last idea is building in a refreshed message into the program up-front vs. being reactive after the fact. Plan to adjust your message track based on events that you can anticipate (seasons, weather, etc) and be open to changes based on opportunities as they arise.
To support this P&G has a conversation calendar and they know what they will want to talk about so they can pre-work those with legal. For emerging discussions they have a multi-functional team with PR and Legal that can respond more quickly. Having the team already in place helps speed this up.
P&G Example
A recent example on Cover Girl was a program involving Cover Girl supporting Clean Water. There were opportunities to refresh the message and the brand stayed nimble enough to incorporate live-time events. Shortly after the launch the earthquake in Haiti hit, which brought more awareness to clean drinking water.
Why Your Small Business Needs a Blog
Blogging has shifted in popularity over the last 10 years. It was all the rage a few years ago but today many businesses are more interested in Facebook and Twitter, and blogging has become less popular.
I think that a blog is still one of the best marketing opportunities for many small businesses. They are relatively simple to set up and can typically be added to your existing website for as little as $500 (possibly less). A blog allows you to easily and quickly communicate with your audience (vs. your website, which may be difficult to update) and allows you to share information about your company.
Here are some of the benefits of having a small business blog:
1) Showcase Your Company
No matter what line of business you are in a blog is a great way to share interesting information about your business. For example, if you are a restaurant you can post “behind the scenes” photos or videos of your restaurant. Show people how the food is prepared or some of your special ingredients. Alternately you can have your chef talk about how to find the perfect ingredients (ie. how to know if a mango is ripe). This works for BtoB also – you can talk about areas where you have special expertise. For example a web development company can showcase a User Experience expert talking about how they map user interactions. This shows that the company does more than just develop websites – they put a lot of thought into them. This can help justify premium pricing and also shows you as an expert in the field.
2) Talk about Company News
A blog is a great place to highlight company news. Press releases are often very formal and don’t provide “real” perspective. Use your blog to talk to people like people and share information beyond a press release. For example, you may have a news release about a new store opening. On your blog you can build relationships by talking about the process of opening the store and share how excited you are. You can also share photos. Blogs are great ways to make your company news more human and allow people to really connect with you.
3) Discuss Company Issues or Policies
If you get a lot of feedback on certain areas of your business, a blog can be a great way to have an honest conversation with your customers about it. Don’t accept walk-ins at your salon? Explain why. Let your customers understand and respond to your business policies. You may also be surprised with solutions that they can offer. When I worked for a photo start-up we had policies that our customers didn’t agree with. When we posted about them on our blog our customers actually gave us great solutions.
4) Show What you Know
This is similar to #1. Highlight the knowledge and talent in your organization. Let people know what goes in to making your product. Share photos and videos. Allow them to connect with you and your staff. If you have a coffee shop you can talk about different kind of roasts and what they mean. This can help position your company as a leader in the industry and really highlight why your $3 cup of coffee is better than the one I get for $1 from McDonalds.
5) Educate your Customers
Whatever your line of business, your customers are often seeking out information to better inform their purchase decision. Sell running shoes? Write blog posts on running techniques and the differences between different kinds of shoes. Help your customers better understand how shoes make the difference in running. Educate your customers to show your knowledge and drive loyalty.
6) Search Engine Optimization
A blog can have a positive impact on your search engine ranking results. Essentially this means that when people google keywords related to your product you show up near the top of the results. This can lead to more traffic to your website and ultimately more business. If I search “Cincinnati Bike Shop” and you show up first, I am more likely to go to your store. Blogs help your search engine results because they are full of keywords which helps google understand what your website is about. They also get updated frequently which helps with your google ranking.
Any other benefits for small businesses to blog?
10 Reasons You Should Create a Corporate Blog
Blogs were hot a few years ago, but their popularity with marketers has been lagging lately as focus shifts to twitter, facebook and now iphone apps.
But blogs have tremendous potential to play a key role in your marketing strategy. Most organizations can benefit from a blog and often blogs have benefits beyond what you may initially think. Some reasons to consider a corporate blog include:
1. Search Engine Optimization
This isn’t something that a lot of organizations consider when they start blogging, but blogs are one of the best things that a company can do to increase their traffic from search engines.
Search engine traffic is based on two things: 1) Your site and how it is structured, the content and how often it is updated and 2) People who link to you and how they link to you. Blogs are a great source of both – they typically include lots of keywords and relevant content and they are also updated regularly. In addition people often link to your blog posts which further helps your search engine traffic.
2. Build Positive Equity – Be Someone who Really Cares
Blogs can also help position your organization as caring about the issues that are important to your clients or customers. You can take up their causes, talk about things they care about, offer free advice, etc.
A blog allows you to build equity for your organization, which can lead to positive mentions online, recommendations and ultimately sales.
3. Content for Social Media Syndication
Blogs are a great “hub” for your online presence. Publishing blog content gives you something to share with your customers on other social sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. All of these social sites can be great sources for lead generation, and publishing engaging blog content provides you with something relevant to share.
4. Position Yourself as a Thought Leader
You can use a blog to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. If you are a b-to-b company you can highlight your knowledge of the industry and relevant issues. B-to-C companies can show consumers that they really know their stuff by sharing knowledge and expertise that matters to customers.
For example a laundry detergent manufacturer could share information about how to remove stains or keep clothes looking new. A furniture company can talk about the ergonomics of different furniture and how to select the ideal desk/chair/bed/couch for your body size and use. Options are endless.
5. Humanize Your Brand
People like people. They like to work with people. They like to do business with people. A blog can be a great way to showcase the *real* people behind your brand and put a human face to it.
On your blog you can share videos and photos from your organization, and you can also have real people from your people talking like real people (not like commercials or sales people).
Blogs can be a great way to build stronger relationships with customers by humanizing your brand.
6. Respond to Issues and Problems
When a crisis hits, organizations often scramble to figure out how to respond. The most effective responses are transparent, authentic and genuine. Official PR releases and comments from PR people don’t typically make people feel better or reassure them.
When a crisis hits a blog can be a great place to post a real response from a real person. The message doesn’t have to deviate from the official response, but using more natural language can help people understand. Using your blog you could post a human response, and share a video of the CEO apologizing and explaining the situation. This can go a much further way with your consumers than a canned press release.
7. Build Newsletter Content
Email and newsletter marketing continues to be a great way to stay in touch with your customers. Rather than sending an email newsletter full of promotions you can send insightful and relevant articles from your blog.
This can increase your email distribution list and ultimately lead to more sales over time as customers give you permission to interact with them.
8. Let’s Give them Something to Talk About
You probably have fans – either officially on facebook or unofficially. Writing great blog content allows your fans to interact with you.
They can talk to you and share their opinions. This can help you get even closer to your consumers and allows them to feel like they have a voice with your organization.
It gives them something to talk about.
9. Communicate with Customers
When you have corporate news you may issue a standard press release, but the release may not make it out to most of your audience. A blog lets you communicate with your customers right on your site. You can also talk about things that aren’t press release worthy – like new features, a policy change or fixing a glitch in the system.
A blog is a quick way to get messages out to your customers – especially if you are not currently doing email marketing.
10. People are Tired of Marketing – Blogs Add Value
These days people are inundated with marketing messages – on their phones, their computer, their social networks, TVs, Bathroom stalls, billboards, subway adds, napkin ads, and so on. Most of us have learned to ignore most of this advertising, and we may completely tune it out.
A blog allows you to create a connection with a customer based on providing them with inherently valuable content. I read a blog post once about how to take better pictures that was posted by a photo website. After reading the great post I went and checked out their site.
Great content that is relevant to your audience can get you in the door without accosting them with marketing messages.
