081118 - blog marketing

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BLOG MARKETING

DIGITAL

Waggener Edstrom Worldwide |Ged Carroll |November 18, 2008

2BLOG MARKETING:

What is a blog?

Blog culture

Corporate culture

Listening

Blogger relations

Running your own blog

Case studies

Questions

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WHAT IS A BLOG?

4WHAT IS A BLOG?

• A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order

• With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning — that of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something

5WHAT IS A BLOG CONTINUED?

• A blog can be an individual site or it can be part of the ‘mainstream media

• Often (but not always allows interaction with the readership through a comments section

• Bloggers are the new columnists: taste-makers and critics


BLOG CULTURE

7BLOG CULTURE

• Participatory• Community – increasingly

complex interaction across social media

• Independent• Informal• Self-referencing

• Meme-driven• Focused• Generally local rather than global• Complex interconnections• Trusted


CORPORATE CULTURE

9CORPORATE CULTURE

• How flat is your organisation structure?

• How open and authentic is your organisation culture?

• Do you trust employees to talk openly about the organisation?

• How regulated is your organisation?• Do you have a unique perspective to

offer the marketplace?• Is there a significant need for trust in

your brands prior to purchase?• Does your organisation need to build

a stronger sense of loyalty and dialogue with stakeholders?

• Is your product/brand category is going through significant change right now?

• Does your product or service have a long purchasing cycle and/or significant decision criteria?

• Is your route to market reliant upon third parties (channel, retail partners)?

• Do you manage issues/crises on a frequent basis?

• Is your organisation high profile (frequently talked about in the media and with key stakeholders)?

10LEVELS OF ONLINE PR ENGAGEMENT

• Monitoring: no engagement but active listening to what is being said about the organisation and its peers – any related issues

• Low-level engagement: as Monitoring plus response-led online presence

• High-level engagement: as low level engagement, but proactive approach, integration with other marketing and customer services activities


LISTENING

12BENCHMARK RESEARCH

• Map out existing community discussions• Your organisation• Brands• Locations• Employees

• Map out competitor discussions• Company• Brands• Key partners• Individuals

•Look at backlinks – Google link: yoursite.com•Google blog search•Technorati•Look at authority – Quarkbase.com is handy•Map out communities, plotting blogs that are referenced to build up a picture of ‘super nodes’ in the community over time

13MONITORING

Measurement tools often don’t have the speed of near real-time updates and you have to go back to basics–Google alerts:

• Ongoing monitoring–Google news alerts–Google blog search

–Technorati:• RSS-fed buzz with authority meter

–Yahoo! Site Explorer:• Inbound links

–Website analytics–Radian6 – commercial offering that many major brands like–Blog metrics (Feedburner is a good place to start)

Pull this all together with RSS

14A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON RSS

• The paradigm– The tickertape (1870s - 1960s)– Reuters, Telerate, Bloomberg– Teletext– Financial TV– PointCast, BackWeb and BBC ticker– RSS & Atom

15READER CHOICE

• Information presentation

• How much information?

• Application, plug-in or online?

• Is mobile access required?

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A quick run through setting up a Bloglines account (www.bloglines.com)• Click on register at the top right of the page

• Complete form

• Complete click on confirmation mail

SETTING UP A READER

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• Select which news feeds you would like

• Go and get an easy subscribe button for your browser from: http://www.bloglines.com/help/easysub

SETTING UP A READER CONT’D


BLOGGER RELATIONS

19BLOGGER RELATIONS

• Use benchmark studies to choose your ‘12 disciples’

• Start reading their blog, occasionally providing relevant comment to posts to develop a rapport

• Develop an influencer panel• Develop a modified approach to

media outreach for the bloggers• Guest bloggers on your own blog• Creating collaborative content


RUNNING A CORPORATE BLOG

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• The right reasons:– We have something to say– We would like to be able to have a dialogue with our customers– We’re passionate about our industry and have something to say (and folks are likely to listen)– We’d like to share some of our know-how with the wider community

• The wrong reasons:– The board says that we need a blog– Someone down the golf/squash club thought that it would be a good idea– PR Week said that blog is the word of 2006– We want to tell people about our latest XXX (insert client product details here)– Its something I can get you guys to do

• Business reasons– Cost effective CMS– Improved market intelligence - getting closer to the customer– Putting the personality in brand– Attracts inbound links (if done well), a form of SEO

THE WHY

22RUNNING A CORPORATE BLOG

Put your house in order• Provide guidance for employees

personal social media• Start understanding the

community that you want to engage

• Start thinking about editorial: not only the first few posts but longer term planning

• Think about ongoing resources for writing posts and responding to comments and indirect feedback

• What is the blog(s) designed to achieve?

• How will that success be measured?

• How will employees be incentivised to participate?

• Do the management team realise the long-term commitment that a blog requires?

• How doe the blog fit into the organisations overall web strategy?

• Is there a willingness to change based on the feedback received?

23SPECIFICATION / DESIGN

Brand guidelines– Guidelines are not tramlines– URL – Working Families for Wal-Mart

Think reader: – Make sure your code works– Make sure it works for different sizes– Test for browser compatibility

• MS IE 6 & 7• Mozilla 2 & 3• Safari 3.2• Opera 9.5

– If you discuss mobile, allow it to be read via a mobile browser like Opera Mini and webkit-based browsers for Symbian an iPhones

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04/07/23


• SEM– Submit your site to Google, Yahoo!, Live.com, Ask

• USABILITY - KISS– Don’t go with a fixed-width– One column if you can– Flash is mostly evil, AJAX can be good– Think navigation – archives, categories/tag clouds– Make it easy to subscribe– Easy to search via Rollyo or Google Co-op to name just two options

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04/07/23


• Choose your platform to run the blog on carefully– Moveable Type– WordPress– MSN Spaces– Blogger– Microsoft Community Server

• Think about the posts, now and in the future– Measurement, bookmarking, video enclosures, dynamic content – support for

JavaScript, AJAX, RSS feeds, audio files, images, documents, blogroll, contributor pages for transparency

26TOOLS

• Open souce – published by Six Apart• Application and ISP hosted service• Spam protection• Comment and community management• Access to hundreds of plug-ins• Fully configurable permissions system• Native support for multiple blogs• Static pages and archiving• Optional paid professional support• Automatic RSS feed generation

• Open source – more information at wordpress.org• Application, ISP and wordpress.com hosted service• Spam protection• Comment and community management• Access to hundreds of plug-ins and themes• Password protection on blog and individual posts• Doesn’t need to rebuild after every posting• Large support eco-system of free and paid

expertise

• Easy RSS feed generation


CASE STUDIES

29PODCASTS & VIDEO

• Tends to be one-way rather than two-way communications

• Dynamic delivery• Audio is portable and flexible

to consume• Video requires captive

attention – need to be respectful of the audiences time

• Content needs to be: original, interesting, humourous

• Two’s company – have a sidekick

• Succinct

Audio blogs

Q&A interviews

Executive speeches

Panel discussions

Storytelling

Self-guided product tourOnline learning