Successful Blogs from the study

Feeds

posted: November 2, 2006 10:22 PM

NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY AND BACKBONE MEDIA BLOGGING SUCCESS STUDY

2.0 SUMMARIES OF BLOGGER STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO BLOG SUCCESS QUESTIONS

2.1 HOW DOES THE SET UP OF A BLOG CONTRIBUTE TO A BLOG’S SUCCESS?

Strategic Planning
Blogger Selection
Reading Other Blogs
Practice With An Internal Blog Before Going External

2.2 WHAT IS IT ABOUT HOW YOU CONDUCT BLOGGING THAT MAKES THE BLOG A SUCCESS?

Blogger_Engagement
Content & Comment Moderation
Building a Blogging Community
Monitoring Your Blogging Community
Feedback from Your Customers
Writing Often for Success

2.3 WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE CONTENT ON A BLOG THAT MAKES A BLOG SUCCESSFUL?

Compelling Content Comes from Unique Experiences
Industry Content Provides Great Relevancy for Audiences
Sometimes The Most Random Content Generates The Most Interest
Put Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing at the Center of Your Blogging Content Strategy

3.0 RECURRING FACTORS THAT HELP WITH THE SUCCESS OF A CORPORATE BLOG

3.1 CULTURE

3.2 TRANSPARENCY

3.3 TIME

3.4 DIALOGUE

3.5 ENTERTAINING WRITING STYLE AND PERSONALIZATION

3.6 DECIDING IF YOUR COMPANY SHOULD BLOG

APPENDIX 1.0 CORPORATE BLOGGER INTERVIEW SUMMARIES

1.1 THE BLOGGERS

1.1.1 Company: Adobe
1.1.2 Company: Adweek
1.1.3 Blogger: Aliza Sherman Risdahl
1.1.4 Company: BzzAgent
1.1.5 Company: Conference Calls Unlimited
1.1.6 Company: Daily Eats
1.1.7 Company: Emerson Process Management
1.1.8 Company: Gourmet Station
1.1.9 Company: Indium Corporation
1.1.10 Company: Landfair Furniture
1.1.11 Company: Marqui
1.1.12 Company: Masi Bicycles
1.1.13 Company: Microsoft - Heather Hamilton
1.1.14 Company: Mississippi Hospital Association
1.1.15 Company: MSInteractive
1.1.16 Company: Paperback Bazaar
1.1.17 Blogger: Jeremy Pepper
1.1.18 Company: Stone Creek Coffee
1.1.19 Company: Stonyfield Farm
1.1.20 Company: SuccessFactors

APPENDIX 2.0 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

APPENDIX 3.0 AUTHORS & BIOS

3.1 LEAD AUTHORS
3.2 STUDENT INTERVIEWERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
3.3 BACKBONE MEDIA, INC. TRANSCRIPTION & EDITING
3.4 NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY EDITING
3.5 LEAD AUTHOR BIOS

APPENDIX 4.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

APPENDIX 5.0 GLOSSARY

BLOG / BLOGGING
BLOG AGGREGATOR
BLOGGER/BLOGSPOT
BLOGOSPHERE
COMMENTS / COMMENTING
PODCASTING
RSS FEED
SEO / ORGANIC SEO
TECHNORATI.COM
TRACKBACKS

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING

1.0 Executive Summary

posted: November 2, 2006 10:07 AM

The Blogging Success Study was conducted by Dr. Walter Carl; the students in his Advanced Organizational Communications class (Spring 2006) at Northeastern University and John Cass and his colleagues at Backbone Media, Inc. The objective of this research was to determine the reasons, conditions and factors that make a blog successful, and to create a list of criteria to help companies assess whether and how they should engage in blogging.

In order to identify the elements of a successful blog, the research team interviewed twenty corporate bloggers from companies of varied size and industry, and asked each blogger a series of standardized questions. (See Appendix 2.0) Only bloggers who had been blogging for over one year and considered their blogging efforts successful were eligible to participate. While the selection of participants was, therefore, somewhat subjective and limiting (without the resources to determine the most successful bloggers on the Web), the research team was able to identify common elements among the subject group and distinguish a number of factors for blogging success. These elements are discussed at length in sections two and three of this paper. Herein you will also find case studies detailing how the twenty corporate blogs achieved success. New and veteran bloggers alike will find the case studies and anecdotes enlightening, as they reveal a variety of different paths to success. Thus, we have included summaries of all twenty blogger interviews within the study’s appendix.

Interview results were transcribed and summarized in twenty separate case studies. Each was then studied and analyzed with three questions in mind:

How does the set up of a blog contribute to a blog’s success?
What is it about how you blog that makes the blog a success?
What is it about the content on a blog that makes the blog a success?

After careful review, the research team identified five factors for success. The majority of the twenty participant bloggers pointed to these factors as important to the success of their blog. We focus in on these factors in Section Three.

The five factors identified by the participants were:

A company should carefully consider all of these factors before making a decision to blog:

Culture: If a company has particular cultural traits worth revealing, or conversely, a bad reputation they want to repudiate, blogging could be an attractive option. A great example of the latter is Microsoft. Microsoft had a distinct problem—distrust on the part of many customers. The company was seen as being very big and unresponsive to customers. Microsoft used blogs to reveal that individual employees do care about customers, and they are willing to provide a lot of value by way of product and developer information. Blogging at Microsoft has worked well because Microsoft and Microsoft bloggers were able to show the public what Microsoft's culture was really like behind the big company image.

Transparency: Transparency is crucial to establishing credibility and trust with an audience. While you do not have to be completely open—it is okay to set boundaries—people want to see an honest picture of a company, and know there are not ulterior motives behind the posts bloggers write. Blog audiences respect a willingness to disclose all points of view on a subject. Thoughtful consideration of all viewpoints demonstrates an expertise, and it shows a willingness to engage in a dialogue rather than just pressing an agenda. Successful corporate blogs are those that establish their credibility well. The level of transparency depends on the industry and audience, but citing other sources of knowledge and perspectives will always bring more credibility to a blog.

Time: It takes a lot of time to set up, research and write a quality blog and engage the blogging community effectively. A company that wants a successful blog needs to identify a person who has the time or free up that person’s time, or needs to leverage its resources so the responsibility is shared among a group of bloggers.

Dialogue: A company’s ability and willingness to engage in a greater dialogue with the blogging community is an important determinant in the success of their blog. The Stonyfield Farm blog is a perfect example of a corporate blog used to engage an audience through discussing topics not just related to their products but also, related to organic farming, healthy lifestyle and other germane subject matter. Despite the fact that these topics are not directly related to the yogurt they sell, Stonyfield demonstrates an expertise in areas of importance to their customer base.

Entertaining Writing Style and Personalization: The writing style and how much a blogger is prepared to reveal about their life, experience and opinions in a blog post bring a human side to a blog. This helps a company build personal connections with their audience. Entertaining content, especially content that contains humor, will also bridge the gap between writer and reader. Personal connections and entertaining content help turn casual readers into return customers.

We believe that the study has identified many factors that will make a blog a success. We provide a more in-depth analysis of these and other factors in sections two and three of this paper. The reader can use this list of factors to determine the readiness of their own company to start blogging and as a roadmap to plan a strategy that will bring them the most success in current and future blogging endeavors.

Thank You For Participating

posted: November 2, 2006 3:10 AM

The authors of this study would like to thank everyone involved for their thoughtful participation and hard work (and patience in waiting for the publishing date!). We are especially grateful to all of the corporate bloggers who participated in the study. Thank you for your participation and your help with editing the case study summaries. They include:

Eric Anderson
Dave Balter
Jim Cahill
Deborah Franke
Max Goldman
Chris Halverson
Heather Hamilton
Tim Jackson
Janet Johnson
Mike Landfair
Shawn Lea
Donna Lynes-Miller
David Paull
Jeremy Pepper
Tom Pionek
Zane Safrit
Aliza Sherman Risdahl
Rick Short
Tery Spataro
Cathy Taylor
Ralph Wayne

2.0 Summaries Of Blogger Statements In Relation To Blog Success Questions

posted: November 2, 2006 3:04 AM

We asked the following questions to understand what a company needs to do to develop a successful corporate blog:

How does the set up of a blog contribute to a blog’s success?
What is it about how you blog that makes the blog a success?
What is it about the content on a blog that makes a blog success?

To answer each of the three questions, we identified a number of practical tips or factors from the blogger interviews that describe the steps a company might take to develop a successful corporate blog. One or more blogger statements were excerpted from the blogger case studies to provide examples for each of the tips, and they were organized by the three questions.

2.1 How Does The Set Up Of A Blog Contribute to a Blog's Success?

posted: November 2, 2006 3:02 AM

We asked some questions about how a blog’s set up affects the relative success of a blog. We chose the most important reoccurring issues described by the interviews. The culture of the company was another important factor that can play a major role in helping to make a blog a success; the issue of culture is described in section three.

Strategic Planning

A number of the corporate bloggers thought that without a reason to blog, it is not a good idea just to start blogging. They felt it was important to develop blogging goals in advance. There has to be some reason as to why a company should blog. There are a variety of reasons why companies start blogging, including building a company’s brand and increasing a company’s search engine rankings. One of the bloggers, Heather Hamilton of Microsoft, thought that corporate bloggers should have a real business goal behind their reasons to blog. Heather stated, "The reason why I’m successful as a blogger at Microsoft is I have a job that can be accomplished through blogging, which is building our employment brand."

Other bloggers, however, did not think it was as important to develop initial blogging goals, These bloggers felt that engaging an audience online today was enough of a reason to start blogging. Dave Balter from BzzAgent said, "It’s a dive right in philosophy. No matter what you think ahead of time, people will not cease to amaze you. So, it’s best to learn over time."

Blogger Selection

In preparing to blog, it is important to pick the right people to begin blogging for your company. Several of the corporate bloggers gave their insights into what characteristics to look for in a good corporate blogger. These characteristics include:

The ability to listen to your audience
Passion for the topic
The ability to communicate a personality online
Perseverance and commitment
Expertise in a field or variety of topics
A warm and friendly approach
Good writing ability
The necessary amount of time for blogging
Openness to criticism

A company can use these insights as a yardstick when identifying the right corporate blogger.

Zane Safrit from Conference Calls Unlimited thought that, "The best blogger is a person who’s the most honest, the most passionate, and the most committed."

Here is an example of how Emerson Process Management selected Jim Cahill to be their corporate blogger. Deb Franke explained that decision makers in her company had two main concerns: Would their bloggers understand their brand and messaging? And how do you associate a single real person or a number of real people in a very large company with huge brands like ours? Deb said, “Jim Cahill became the obvious choice, however. He has an engineering background; he has grown into a position where he is the hub of so many stories; and Jim knows so many people across the entire company. In addition, Jim is the brand manager for many of the most popular brands. The objections and concerns went away."

Jim from Emerson continued, "We didn’t expect the people who did have the expertise to begin blogging and building up a number of posts. So, the strategy was that I would be a connector to the experts around the organization where I could tell their story individually and pop back on them in a few months based on what was going on there. From other people in the organization they looked at it as a pilot for the company, but we wanted to show people both internally and externally that this could be effective and kind of a building block to get more bloggers going overtime."

Reading Other Blogs

Reading other blogs in your industry is crucial in gaining an understanding of your industry’s blogging community. Many bloggers suggested monitoring other blogs for an understanding of their blogging community, ideas for posts and uncovering industry trends.

David Paull of MSInteractive's own readership grew the more he read and commented on other blogs. David said, "I think it’s critical, if you want to have a successful blog, to comment on other people's blogs. I think you have to engage in other blogs, otherwise just getting the word out about your blog is very hard to do."

Practice With An Internal Blog Before Going External

Starting a blog internally helps your employees to become familiar with blogging. Ultimately, this makes the launch of a public blog smoother and its implementation more successful.

Deb Franke and Jim Cahill at Emerson Process Management specifically recommended an internal blogging strategy. Initially Emerson set up an internal blog so employees could get used to the idea of blogging and podcasting. The more employees that became interested in blogging and began to write on the internal blog, the more writers were added to the external corporate blog. Once the company had set up their blog, Deb and Jim worked with the HR and legal departments to set up a policy for the company, and then everyone could blog.

2.2 What Is It About How You Conduct Blogging That Makes The Blog A Success?

posted: November 2, 2006 3:01 AM

How a company conducts its corporate blogging effort is important for the development of a successful blog. In this section, we explore how the way a blogger writes or runs their blog will help make a corporate blog successful. Two additional factors, time and dialogue, are discussed in more detail in Section Three.

Blogger Engagement

Engaging others in your blogging community was seen by many bloggers interviewed for the study as an important success factor. Engagement with other bloggers includes conversing with other bloggers on your own blog and on other blogs. Bloggers engage the community by commenting or sending a trackback or pingback (see Glossary) to another author’s blog from a blog post of his/her own.

Dialogue through commenting back and forth in a public blog was seen by many of the bloggers as a way to engage other bloggers and blog readers. Many bloggers interviewed thought that the interaction that occurs through this public discussion was very important to the success of their blog. Commenting on other blogs and how you commented were both seen as being very important, and a step towards engaging other bloggers successfully.

Tom Pionek from Stone Creek Coffee thought that other non-company bloggers had a big impact on the company blog, by commenting and linking to the blog. Those links have helped with higher rankings on Google search terms like ‘wholesale coffee.’

Tim Jackson from Masi Bikes thought it was important to receive comments from fellow bloggers on his blog. Tim Jackson believes that "a key ingredient to being successful with a blog personally, is to network with other bloggers and to do the right thing and post comments and add links and do things like that because you build your strength and credibility within the community and you’re not just another, you know, soulless marketer with a blog site." He thought it was especially important to receive comments from influential bloggers within his industry. Seeking out influential blogs in your industry is very important. Tim said he would leave comments there to invite dialogue. Posts about the latest products, even competitors, generate the most comments from readers on the Masi Bikes blog.

Jim Cahill from the Emerson Process Management blog said that commenting on other people's blogs helps with the success of his blog because, "we are trying to build a conversation about the topic at hand and the more you add to the conversation, then over time others will begin in the conversation on your blog. As more people become more blog and RSS aware, we want them to participate."

Blogger outreach was an important issue for the Emerson blog. According to Deborah Franke, "You are participating because conversations are going on, the conversations just haven’t been as visible. I think people are adopting blogs to be heard and people can jump in and be part of the conversations. Word of mouth has always been around; it just hasn’t been on the web. It’s also about community. It’s about the place. It’s about the exchange that is happening. You’re not pushing a message at them whether you are commenting or posting. You are simply engaging with the community."

Chris Halvorson from Stonyfield stated that readers commenting and sending emails to bloggers was an important measure of success. Stonyfield management wanted to see that the blog was connecting with customers, and commenting was the clearest indication that relationships were being developed.

Cathy Taylor at Adweek described how one of their competitors, the person who runs the blog Adrants, comments on many blogs. Cathy thought that the Adfreak team would probably comment more if they had the time. Cathy said that the Adrants blogger gained a greater boost as a result of the extra comments.

According to Janet Johnson of Marqui, companies should conduct a lot of commenting and send a lot of trackbacks as connecting with other people in the blogosphere is very important to building relationships. Those relationships will help a company to achieve their goals. Janet said that the more you engage other bloggers, the more they will engage you.

Heather Hamilton from Microsoft thought that commenting on other blogs drives traffic back to her blog; while reading blogs about marketing helps her understand her marketplace. Heather said that she receives a lot of comments about her personal posts. Those personal posts also drive the most traffic.

Jeremy Pepper stated that bloggers have to conduct a conversation with their audience, and that it is important to reply to people who comment on a blog and to comment on other blogs. Nonetheless, he warns not to comment for the sake of commenting, only when it fits in with a conversation.

Content & Comment Moderation

Moderating content and comments has powerful implications for the success of a corporate blog, according to the bloggers we interviewed. Allowing comments to appear from blog readers was widely accepted as the right way to set up a corporate blog, although Eric Anderson at Adobe had some different opinions about the quality of comments from blog readers. Most bloggers did agree that commenting added to the success of a blog. Commenting on other blogs helps a blogger acquire links, drive traffic and develop relationships with other bloggers.

Some bloggers don’t moderate their comments; their comments are unrestricted or un-moderated. Rick Short from Indium Corporation leaves commenting open, even to the extent of allowing spam comments to remain on the blog. The reasoning behind this is transparency. Rick said, "You need to be believable and credible. Well, you know, we already are, but when you start acting in another way you sort of degrade your existing image. We’re very well known as a technology company, and as a very high integrity, sophisticated market resource. If I go to market with some filtered, manipulated set of information that takes us backwards. Our customers are smart enough to go through our comments, and see an ad for offshore gambling and realize that it’s just spam, and then overlook it. Or, if some guy starts ranting and raving about how he’s my competitor, he’s the man, my customers are smart enough to realize."

Aliza thought companies edit content on corporate blogs that are being written by employees and that most companies moderate commenting. She also made the point that in the past, on message boards, if a company deleted or edited posts, courts had considered the company a "publisher" and the company became responsible for comments left by other people. Aliza suggested the same rule could apply to blogs: the more control you exert over a blog, the more responsibility you take for all the content.

One blogger, Donna Lynes-Miller from Gourmet Station, moderated comments on her blog for consistency with her company’s brand and image; Donna Lynes-Miller described how everything on the blog has to be consistent with the brand. Donna moderates the comments and makes sure those comments are consistent with the brand. To her, an important part of brand consistency is ensuring there is no profanity and there are no unrelated comments on the blog.

Chris Halvorson from Stonyfield explained that Stonyfield did not review or fact check content before publishing. Chris thought that lack of oversight led to a very human voice for the blog. Chris spends about two hours a day writing the two remaining blogs. Chris writes all the content, except for the Bovine Bugle, the content for that blog is written by one of Stonyfield's organic farmers.

Chris Halvorson does moderate comments to make sure the tone of the comment never gets very “nasty,” which are something she has seen on many Mommy blogs where some people will harshly criticize others for making different choices. Also, Chris would not allow comments that are factually wrong, such as a comment stating that, "babies need to watch television in the first month of life." Chris would do some of her own fact checking, or post the comment with her own comment stating that the issues raised have not been proven.

Originally, the Stonyfield blog did not have a comment policy. Chris decided to create one after receiving a lot of comments on a post where several of the comments were repetitive. If all points of view have been stated in comments, Chris decided not to allow any additional comments. Chris moderated any comments that described repetitive viewpoints.

There is an alternative view, however, as a number of the bloggers thought that comments were not important to the success of their blog. For example, Eric Anderson from Adobe was skeptical of comments generated on blogs, as he has no way to validate the identity of the person who commented. Eric said it’s very difficult to get honest feedback on such major products as Flash and Flex. Eric said the posts that generate the most traffic are those posts that discuss Adobe's competitors and competing technologies and posts about a product’s future direction.

Dave Balter from BzzAgent did not think blogs necessarily had to have a lot of comments. He finds that while some posts generate few comments, readers he meets recall reading the post later.

According to Shawn Lea from the Mississippi Hospital Association, she does not spend very much time commenting on other blogs. Shawn thought she did not comment very much because her readership are members of the hospital association of Mississippi. Editor’s interpretation of this lack of commenting on other blogs by Shawn Lea, is that Shawn thought that her blog’s content is unique, and that she did not have to comment on any other blogs because she had a captive audience who were members of the association.

Building a Blogging Community

One way to develop a successful blog is to concentrate on helping the rest of your blogging community. By helping your community, a blogger can gain a lot of respect and develop a good reputation. The effort put into helping the community gives a blogger thought leadership in the community and instant recognition. Jeremy Pepper discussed how he thought that bloggers in the PR community should focus their efforts on improving the community itself.

An example of someone who helps his community is Constantin Basturea. Constantin maintains a number of helpful and useful websites and blogs that provide information for the PR blogging community. Constantin has a great deal of respect in the PR blogging community because of his tremendous support and participation.

Monitoring Your Blogging Community

Monitoring the web for instances of your company's brand and relevant subject matter can help you to build a successful blog. Bloggers used search engines, blog search engines and other online tools to monitor the blogosphere for their brand and industry terms.

Chris Halvorson from Stonyfield Farm did not spend a lot of time linking to other bloggers. However, she did monitor the web for keyword occurrences of Stonyfield on other blogs. Once found, she would correct any factual errors stated on other blogs and link to relevant websites. Correcting the factual errors in a comment section of another blog helps to clarify Chris and Stonyfield’s position on an issue and demonstrates that Stonyfield is paying attention.

Feedback from Your Customers

Asking for feedback from your customer was an important factor and technique identified in the Backbone Media Corporate blogging survey 2005, and will help with building better products and make your blog a success. The study of 75 bloggers produced six case studies; two of the case studies identified Macromedia and Microsoft as two companies where customer feedback was important. The two case studies described how listening to customer feedback contributed to building successful blogs. A good tip for any corporate blogger is to develop compelling content that leverages feedback from your audience rather than just focusing on your own ideas. Foster relationships with customers, bloggers and readers. Demonstrating that your company encourages and listens to customer feedback transforms casual readers and customers into enthusiastic evangelists.

Tim Jackson from Masi said that one of the most important benefits of the blog has been the ability to ask for feedback from readers. Tim said that the effort has helped to "shape the products that are coming out." It also gives pride of ownership with customers and retailers who read the blog—in a way that promotes a more personal connection with the Masi brand.

Writing Often for Success

Having the discipline to write often will help build the success of your blog. Our subjects found that increased frequency of posting could be correlated with increased readership. In addition, fresh content and incoming links can garner better search engine rankings. The frequency of writing for a blog can vary depending on the abilities of the blogger and the industry in which they are writing. An industry with a lot of bloggers and many changes will probably need more content frequency.

Cathy Taylor from Adweek said there is definitely a correlation between the number of posts and the number of people who come to the blog. The larger the volume of posts on a blog the more traffic is generated. Also, when large influential blogs link to the Adfreak blog, run by Cathy Taylor, the Adweek team sees an increase in traffic.

Max Goldman from SuccessFactors thought that persistence is very important to be a successful blogger, and you also need the patience to keep on blogging, as a company will never know what will attract their audience’s attention and what will not. You have to just keep on writing. Max described how each communication with another blogger helps to build a stronger relationship shifting perceptions about a company positively over time.

2.3 What Is It About The Content On A Blog That Makes A Blog Successful?

posted: November 2, 2006 2:09 AM

Content is very important to the success of a blog. We asked the bloggers what it was about the content on a blog that contributed to the success of a corporate blog. Two very important factors that the bloggers mentioned the most were writing transparently and writing content that is entertaining and/or personal. This issue is discussed in greater detain in Section Three.

Compelling Content Comes from Unique Experiences

Content that is unique and gives readers a view of the world they would not gain from anywhere else is an important factor in the success of many blogs.

Tim Jackson, writing for the Masi Bikes blog, writes about the Tour de France. The irony of the success of his posts about the Tour de France is that he writes about what is happening on the Tour from his office in San Diego. Tim reads news reports about the race and gives his updates and opinions about what’s happening. Readers in the bicycle world appreciate Tim’s insight highly, even if Tim Jackson is not even attending the major cycling event.

The Stonyfield Farm blog was the most successful blog run by Stonyfield Farm. Jonathan the farmer, Stonyfield’s organic farming blogger, writes about whatever is happening in his life, the calving season or maple sugar season. The success of the Stonyfield Farm organic farming blog is because it is all about a farmer’s unique experiences in farming an organic farm. What must seem mundane to the farmer is refreshing, compelling and entertaining content to most readers.
The content on the Masi biking blog and the Stonyfield Farm organic farming blog really defines and reinforces the stature of each company brand. Masi is associated with the most famous cycle race in the world, and from reading the organic farming blog it is pretty clear that Stonyfield makes its yogurt with organic milk because you can read all about how the milk is produced on the farmer’s organic farming blog.

Industry Content Provides Great Relevancy for Audiences

Content that is industry related on a blog can be the content that brings success to a blog. Several bloggers interviewed described how their blogs’ themes changed over time to relate even more to their industry. Content can be very compelling to an audience when a blog author writes about their industry in general as opposed to just their own product line.

Eric Anderson of Adobe writes unique industry content for his audience, who are developers interested in reading about Adobe’s technology. Deborah Franke and Jim Cahill of Emerson Process Management and Dr. Ron Lasky of Indium Corporation focus most of their blog content on their industries (process automation technology and electronic assembly materials, respectively), and in the process hope to demonstrate the skills and expertise of their bloggers through the good coverage of their industry, thereby associating their company’s brands with a blogger who is a thought leader in their communities. In contrast Zane Safrit of Conference Calls Unlimited makes sure he specifically does not write about his company’s industry, rather Zane writes about his customer’s marketplace, the small business environment.

Eric Anderson from Adobe said that publishing content that people need is very important to building a successful blog. Eric said the posts that generate the most traffic are those posts that discuss Adobe's competitors and content about a product’s future direction. Eric said that his style of blog writing has progressed over time. He used to write about new releases etc., all content he had not written, and he got tired of referencing this type of material. Now Eric writes about technical information not covered anywhere else.

Rick Short from Indium Corporation explained the biggest reason their blogs are successful is because of the stature of Dr. Ron Lasky in the industry. He also said that controversial subjects garnered more interest on the blog, but that is not what the Indium blogs aim for in terms of content. As time has progressed, Dr. Lasky has grown in his blog writing; he is now more comfortable writing in this medium. His posts are longer and more detailed. Rick thought he was more comfortable because Dr. Lasky had a better idea of what people wanted to read on his blog. Rick said, "You need to know what people want to hear. You know, you need to know what interests people."

David Paull at MSInteractive described how he started a blog at his company and quickly realized that to be authentic he had to write about more than just his company's products and services. David writes about his clients’ markets and industry, he ensures that the blog provides useful information for his customers. David stated that it took a few iterations before he found the right voice for his blog.

Max Goldman of SuccessFactors stated that he stays on topic about the human resources industry in his blog. He does not post a lot of articles about personal issues because his audience would not be interested.

Deborah Franke and Jim Cahill of Emerson Process Management keep their blog focused on making it as easy as possible for customers in the process-manufacturing world to talk to experts at Emerson Process Management. Deb said, "The best way to get visibility to your expertise message, we believe, is to blog." Both Deb and Jim said that the posts that have generated the most interest are those where there is already some discussion and interest on the web. The Emerson Process blog has added something to the discussion through the bloggers perspective on an issue.

Sometimes The Most Random Content Generates The Most Interest

A common theme discussed by the bloggers was that it is not always predictable which blog posts will attract the most attention. Oftentimes, they are not the posts one would expect, and sometimes not even related to the industry or company at all. Many bloggers described how it was often personal posts unrelated to the main topic of the blog that generated a lot of comments and traffic. A post that is about unrelated subject matter demonstrates the connections between an audience member and a blogger, and so builds a closer connection between blogger and their readership, precisely because the post is less about business and more about living life.

The content that generates the most comments can be very random on Janet Johnson’s blog at Marqui, and she has been surprised that her personal posts have generated some of the most surprising comments.

Put Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing at the Center of Your Blogging Content Strategy

A blog can be a great way to develop a lot of content, but also a way to help a company achieve top rankings on search engine keywords their audience uses to find a company on the web. Many companies hope to gain a lot of traffic from search engines and aim to achieve higher search engine rankings in order to get more traffic. In addition, customers sometimes perceive a top ranking on a search engine to indicate that a company is a stronger brand than their competitors. Thus, to the extent that high search engine rankings help with brand perception it could be stated that blogs help with brand perception.

Both the quantity of Web content and the proper use of keywords used for search are important factors in achieving a high-ranking search engines. Donna makes SEO strategy really pay off for her blog. She is diligent about writing content that targets the keywords her audience finds relevant. The payoff is top rankings on search engines for the keywords she targets. Donna stated that her blog has achieved a number two ranking on the keyword "gourmet dinners" in Yahoo! The Gourmet Station blog has played a big part in helping Donna’s company to achieve those high rankings.

The topic that generates the most conversation and interaction from readers on the Gourmet Station blog is romance. Donna said the reason for traffic success with romance-related keywords is the high search engine volumes for romance, and that romance is so closely associated with dinner in terms of romantic dinners.

Seasonality can also be a factor in search engine marketing. Searches on particular keywords rise and fall with the season depending on the industry and products. As seasons change, Donna changes the content on her blog to target the interests of her audience by targeting different related keywords. Timely publishing can also have an effect on the rankings of a web page related to a keyword. Donna makes sure each of the 14 categories on the Gourmet Station blog has a fresh recent post in each of the categories, so that she can generate a volume of content around a set of keywords.

3.0 Recurring Factors That Help with the Success of a Corporate Blog

posted: November 2, 2006 2:08 AM

During the course of the study, it became apparent rather quickly that the measurement of success for a blog is dependent on the goals and objectives of each corporate blogger. What is success for one blogger may not be success for another. In addition to the many factors of success we discovered in Section Two, we discovered a number of recurring factors described by most bloggers in their interviews. The research teams identified five factors that we believe a company should incorporate into their blog, or at the very least consider these factors in order for a blog to have some chance of success. Those five factors include:

The team discovered that the recurring five factors can be used as a yardstick for measuring the success of a blog. Using the blogger interviews as a starting point, we explored each of the five themes as a way to gain success for a corporate blog.

3.1 Culture

posted: November 2, 2006 2:07 AM

Several bloggers we interviewed discussed how the issue of company culture was key to building a successful blog. If a company’s culture is warm and open, and a company is transparent about their blogging, this will come across in the blog. An audience and customers will then have a better connection with a company through its blog. In addition, a company will better convey its corporate message to an audience if that message is written clearly, and if the blog provides a glimpse into the inner workings of the company culture. A blog may change perceptions about a company’s brand, but in order for that perceptual shift to occur, a company must have a corporate culture that is worth promoting to the world.

Keeping a tight control on the flow of information from a company does not work well in the blogging culture. Many companies have a fear that allowing their employees to blog freely about their work will cause the company to lose control and put the company at risk. To the contrary, our bloggers found that having the ability to connect with their audience in a transparent way and engage in frank and honest discussion garnered more respect from readers and customers. Ultimately, a company should set guidelines for their bloggers, but then allow the free flow of information.

Heather Hamilton thought that companies should decide if blogging fits in with their corporate culture. Heather is the staffing manager for Microsoft’s marketing central sourcing team. She blogs to answer candidate questions and to reveal to candidates that Microsoft employees are real people with the same issues everyone else shares. If a company is apprehensive about revealing too much, or letting employees write on a blog without management control, then blogging may not be for that company. An analysis of the openness of a company’s culture has to be conducted before deciding to blog, as restrictions on openness could restrict the success of a blog once launched. Blogging can quickly demonstrate that a company is open and flexible. What an employee writes on their blog will reveal a lot about a company, also what an employee does not write will also reveal a lot.

Microsoft has not only encouraged blogging, but through bloggers like Heather Hamilton, the company has been able to change many minds in the industry about the willingness of Microsoft to be flexible and entrepreneurial.

Another blogger, Jeremy Pepper, described how Robert Scoble of Microsoft (who has since moved on from Microsoft) had really changed the impression of the company among its customers. Jeremy said, "I can say without any issue that Robert Scoble has given Microsoft a friendly persona out there on the Internet. He’s given a face to the organization that’s different than Steve Balmer or Bill Gates. He’s made it warm and fuzzy. It’s no longer the evil empire. It’s just, “Oh this is the company Scoble works for!” It’s – It helps take off the taint that the company has had." Jeremy went on to say, "He [Scoble] doesn’t talk about Microsoft all that much, but he is known as a Microsoft blogger."

We now know that a company needs to look inward at its corporate culture before that company can start blogging effectively. There needs to be executive support. Management must be willing to reveal the human inner workings of the outer corporation. There needs to be an understanding that blogging does not have to be controlled in the ways that some companies have traditionally tried to restrict dialogue. And, lastly, a company needs a culture worth promoting or revealing through a blog.

Discussing the issue of whether a company should blog or not, Jim Cahill at Emerson Process Management said, "you do have to look at the culture. If you are an organization that wants to keep an iron hand on the flow of communication, this might not be for you. Or, it might be an organization that is very firm in the information they want to go out and when they want it to go out. So if you’re a business that can’t deal with the change of flow in information it may not be for you. But if you look at the companies out there, I would hope there is enough latitude between the two extremes to cultivate at least some type of internal approach."

3.2 Transparency

posted: November 2, 2006 2:06 AM

Having a corporate culture that is worth revealing can only be done if a company is transparent about its activities on a blog. That is why blogging, according to many bloggers, is by its nature more believable and credible than a traditional website. The reason for blogs’ enhanced credibility is the openness of bloggers. Bloggers are open about themselves and thus corporate bloggers especially have a difficult time hiding behind the veneer of a marketing message. Many bloggers believe being free to express positive or negative ideas about their own company adds tremendous credibility to any organization.

On a blog there are several ways for a corporate blogger to be transparent, both in form and content. Bloggers can leave comments open for anyone to write a reaction without moderation, while other bloggers consider comment moderation not only acceptable but required management of a company’s brand online. Transparency is not just about commenting, however. Many bloggers believe transparency has more to do with the content of a blog and how open a blogger is about their reasons for writing content, or for a blogger to be willing to discuss criticisms of a company. For example, as discussed by Jeremy Pepper in the study, Robert Scoble of Microsoft was one of the best-known examples of a corporate blogger. Robert Scoble was a Microsoft employee who runs his own blog called the Scobleizer, the blog attracted a large audience, and Robert Scoble was the best-known Microsoft blogger because of how he wrote his blog. In part, the success of the Scobleizer was because Robert Scoble regularly criticized his own employer, yet still retained his job at Microsoft. He left the company for personal reasons in 2006. However, Robert Scoble's example taught a generation of corporate bloggers what to do in terms of being transparent about their own company on a blog. Many Microsoft customers were impressed by Robert Scoble’s openness and willingness to discuss delicate company issues openly. Scoble’s blog and others at Microsoft helped to change negative perceptions about Microsoft left over from the court case against Microsoft in the late 1990’s.

Taking risks by giving your opinion of a company’s position may raise a few eyebrows with management, but the effort can establish the legitimacy of a blogger with their audience. Transparency builds trust; trust builds interest; and interest builds an audience. Robert Scoble's audience with Microsoft changed their perception of the company from negative to neutral.

Transparency as a blogging strategy is worth considering because rather than losing control, or losing customers, it appears that just the opposite happens: your audience is more likely to believe what you tell them when your blog is more transparent.

3.3 Time

posted: November 2, 2006 2:05 AM

It is important for companies to have a pre-existing website strategy for content creation and to understand the resources necessary to maintain a blog. One of the corporate bloggers, Aliza Sherman Risdahl, believes it takes time and dedication to be a successful corporate blogger, but a company should not expect to be successful if that company was not already successful with their other online efforts. A company has to make the time to blog, and it is the principal issue for many bloggers. Here are some of the tasks a blogger has to conduct to be successful:

Write posts
Reply to comments from readers
Monitor other blogs
Keep up with the latest industry news
Build relationships with other bloggers within a community.

Thus, when choosing a blogger, it is important to pick someone who actually has time available.

Realizing the limits to your resources is very important in starting a blog. If you understand that your blogger may not be able to write on a regular basis, starting a multiple author blog can be a great way to get around the issue of any one individual having enough time. A multiple author blog can help a company to launch a strong, content-rich blog. The authors can write in different styles and might also take different responsibilities for commenting on other blogs or not. A multiple author blog removes the responsibility for blogging from just one author and the chances for building a successful blog are much higher.

Cathy Taylor at Adweek explained that, due to the time constraints, the Adweek management decided the whole editorial staff would be able to contribute to the blog. By having a number of people available to write on the Adweek blog, the company would always have content on the blog, but not overload any one individual blogger.

If a blogger does not have to take a lot of time to write, the amount of articles the blogger needs to write depends on the community. If you’re the blogging community in which you are involved is not very active, writing just a few times a week may mean a company still has the opportunity to build a successful blog. If there is not a lot of activity in the community its easy to comment in blog posts on the community. Eventually, the amount of content that needs to be produced in a blog depends upon the company’s goals. If a particular community is very active and it is not possible for your blogger to keep up with their community, then it may make much more sense to commit resources to a different blogging community where you can have an effect. (See the interview summary regarding the Stonyfield Farm blog in the appendix.)

Time is also an important factor when it comes to the quality of writing produced by a blogger. Bloggers have discovered that their blog writing style produces more results as their understanding of their audience improves. Honing the quality of their posts and the best way to connect with an audience can take time.

The time it takes to run a successful blog also changes with the growing success of a blog. Tim Jackson of Masi Cycles runs marketing for Masi for the Haro Bicycle Corp.; he is literally a one-man marketing department. While Tim initially found the time to write when he first launched his blog, the subsequent success of the blog created a challenge. He does not have as much time to blog and monitor the community. Tim is both a good example of a blogger who gained tremendous benefits and brand recognition in his community from blogging, but now that success has come, he has less time to blog.

Eric Anderson from Adobe explained that Macromedia/Adobe set up a number of blogs with its employees; in fact, the number of blogs at Macromedia grew so rapidly amongst employees and in the community that it was difficult to follow the whole community. There was so much Macromedia content on the blogs there was a need to search through all of the blogs in the community in one place. As a result, Macromedia set up a blog aggregator for all of the RSS feeds from all of the employee and customer blogs about Macromedia products. This saved a lot of time on the part of bloggers in the community in finding content. The Macromedia related blog aggregator was created before sites like today’s popular technorati.com and other RSS feed aggregators. And by aggregating all of the content in the whole community in one place, including employees and customers, Macromedia was able to leverage the content on customers websites so that fewer Macromedia employees had to blog to provide coverage on a Macromedia product. Setting up a community blog aggregator for your product or community can be a great way to empower individual blogs at your company by showcasing a company’s blogs within the community Effectively the community was helping to support Macromedia’s marketing efforts with additional content.

3.4 Dialogue

posted: November 2, 2006 2:04 AM

The web has given companies and their audiences the opportunity to conduct an open online dialogue. The online dialogue between customer and company was once a private conversation that now can be made available on the Web and benefit the greater community. While an individual customer's problem might be answered or ideas discussed online, the very nature of dialogue online enables customers and industry peers to assess the overall strength of a company’s brand. When a customer reads an online interaction between another customer and a warm and friendly employee, the reader will likely take away a positive impression of the company. Such open dialogue is one of the most important benefits of corporate blogging.

For many bloggers generating dialogue is one of the best measurements of success on a blog. However, a blogger may not actually have a high level of interaction with his readers even though there’s a large audience. Customers often prefer to keep to the sidelines and read blog content because they may be uncomfortable about revealing too much about themselves, due to privacy concerns or fear of revealing competitive details to the rest of the industry on the blog. A blogger should realize that confidentiality is important to blog readers and to have their contact information available to blog readers when they need to correspond privately.

Dialogue is not just about conversation on your own blog but also the process of seeking out the places on the web where there is conversation about your industry and interests. Bloggers should search their blogging community for places where conversation and dialogue about their industry occurs. Blogging should never be just a cynical attempt at dialogue, but a real conversation between individuals. Successful blogging occurs when writing is transparent, open, and bloggers are willing to listen to criticism. One of the ways to be transparent and open is for companies to provide insight into how and/or why decisions are made that affect their customers, shareholders and the surrounding community.

Successful blogging requires the development and implementation of a complex blogging strategy. Corporate bloggers might understand that dialogue is important, but so, too, is the subject matter that should be discussed and the other bloggers with whom to communicate online to achieve a company’s blogging goals. To answer those questions, careful content planning and an outreach strategy must be developed. A company needs to create the best content and connect with the most important people in the community.

Corporate bloggers have goals in mind when they prepare to launch a blog, goals such as attaining more leads through blogging. The way to achieve those goals, however, is not necessarily by writing about the company’s products. Success may come from discussing an issue that is totally unrelated to the product but resonates with the company’s audience.

Successful bloggers understand that demonstrating an expertise in topics relevant to their audience can be more important than talking specifically about products. This concept may be new to many marketing professionals. Content generation in corporate blogging is about creating a dialogue with your audience; that dialogue may take place by reacting to another community member’s blog post with a post of your own or by leaving a comment on the other blog. As community dialogue might be unrelated to product discussion, it is sometimes difficult for most marketers to understand how a particular blogging strategy can bring benefits to a company.

Stonyfield Farm is an excellent blogging example of using a blog to speak about related topics rather than product line. Stonyfield sells yogurt but does not write about yogurt; rather Stonyfield’s blogs provide content that addresses the issues that are important to their customers such as children’s health and the environment. A conversation about yogurt on the part of Stonyfield would have been a very lonely experiment in blogging, but a conversation about children’s and the environment as they relate to healthy food and growing healthy food works. The Stonyfield Farm blog’s content strategy is based on the psychographics of the audience – Stonyfield is attempting to create a dialogue with its audience about organic farming and health. The content on the Stonyfield blogs is related to yogurt but not about the products Stonyfield sells. The Stonyfield blog content draws in an audience who can then conduct a dialogue with Stonyfield bloggers. The content and the open comment boxes on the Stonyfield blogs say two things: Stonyfield is willing to talk and this is what we are willing to talk about.

Describing the inspiration for the Stonyfield blogs, the blog author, Chris Halvorson, said the Howard Dean campaign in the last Presidential election, which used blogging to create a dialogue with constituents, had a big effect on the CEO of Stonyfield Farm, Gary Hirshberg. Over time Stonyfield reduced its original number of blogs from five to two, and that reduction is a good example of how a company needs to be self-critical and create content that is of interest to an audience and will facilitate dialogue. We asked Chris why the company cut down the number of blogs. Chris said, "We started out with ah five, I was the only staff person doing it and it did get to be a little too much to write and maintain five. We had five different topic areas and all along we considered it one big experiment. So, we put the five out there to see what works. We got rid of one because it never seemed to find an audience. It was sort of an insider’s view to the company, you know, I wrote about quirky little things we did as employees. We had a potluck today, in Honor of St. Patrick’s Day, or whatever it was and it didn’t really seem to find an audience which is in retrospect, understandable."

When the Stonyfield blogs first started in April of 2004, Chris Halvorson wrote about politics and religion and other non-business issues. Those posts received a lot of comments. The company started a blog about strong women because the majority of yogurt eaters are women. Chris Halvorson told the interviewer that the other blogs were successful even though Chris did not write about yogurt more than three or four times in two years. Chris also spends a lot of time reading the news about parenting because that is the content strategy of this blog. Chris also tied the blog content into Stonyfield yogurt products because the company was one of the first companies to put DHA into their yogurt. DHA is good for developing baby's brains. Chris would not try to pitch the product but ask questions around the subject, whether people know about the importance of their babies eating DHA, and if they or their babies eat food with DHA in it. Chris said she tries to raise questions in people's minds and be provocative by asking questions to generate comments. Dialogue is important for the success of a blog, but only when that dialogue is linked to issues your audience is interested in reading and discussing.

What is surprising about many successful blog posts that create dialogue between bloggers is that success can be very random in nature. As we discovered in the interviews with bloggers many bloggers don’t know if their posts are going to be successful or not. Many of the bloggers did believe that stating an opinion is definitely a factor in creating dialogue. Also, agreeing or disagreeing with the majority of people in their industry will create a greater chance of eliciting a response from the audience. However, even opinion pieces are no guarantee of success. Dialogue is really about showing the community a willingness to talk and engage in meaningful conversation.

3.5 Entertaining Writing Style and Personalization

posted: November 2, 2006 2:03 AM

Many of the bloggers we interviewed suggested that both personalizing blog posts and making a blog post entertaining were techniques that a blogger could use to build a successful blog.

The bloggers in the study suggested that bloggers should write to entertain their readers and not just to give an opinion or inform. Success in part then can be said to come from the personality of the blogger. The personal writing style of a blogger will influence the interaction and reading habits of the audience. And this “personality” can stem from humor, unique personal experience or passion expressed for their topic. The more entertaining a blogger is, the more captivating and riveting the content, the higher the chance for blogging success. In addition, attempts by a blogger to conduct a dialogue with their readership, other bloggers and the community at large will have a positive effect on the success of a blog. Conducting outreach with the blogging community will enhance a blogger’s reputation and draw people to their blog because their content interests the reader. That outreach also has to be personal and hopefully entertaining.

We must consider some different findings from the study that questions whether personalization really is a successful blogging strategy to follow, however. For example, while many bloggers suggested a personal approach will bring more success to a blog, Eric Anderson from Adobe stands out as counter to the argument that content which includes personal information fuels blogging success. Eric writes his blogs and concentrates on technical content avoiding personal details. Interestingly, one of the authors, John Cass, has previously interviewed Macromedia bloggers for the Backbone Media Corporate Blogging Survey 2005. In those interviews, the other Macromedia bloggers suggested non-personalization of blog posts was a company-wide strategy and that this non-personalization strategy has been shown to be successful for the Macromedia blogs.

It is our hypothesis, that it is a matter of audiences. Adobe has a technical audience that demands technical knowledge. Thus, Adobe’s audience is most interested in finding technical information on a blog. Eric Anderson’s blog content might not be entertaining, but it is riveting to a highly technical audience who are affected by Adobe’s product development with Flex. Similarly, the amount of personal reflection might be different depending upon the industry culture you work within. The way people write technical material might include humor or personal reflection, but to the non-industry observer, any such comments would not come across as revealing very much, or be perceived as entertaining or personal. Yet in the context of the industry, those blog posts might be very entertaining and personal.

Dave Balter from BzzAgent feels that the entertainment and personalization component derives from providing an inside scoop on the inner workings of the company. Dave started blogging because he thought it would be a way to explain simply and directly exactly what BzzAgent does. Dave discovered the blog had a powerful impact on the reader. Dave believes discussing the inner workings of BzzAgent is really powerful for clients and creates a bond with customers, investors and readers in a way other traditional communications media could not. In addition to their regular blog, the BeeLog, Dave's company ran a blog called 90 Days of BzzAgent. This blog describe a period of 90 days where the company went through a financing round, and how the company evolved during that period. This is an example of how a blog can be compelling because of the intimate personalization of the content that revealed much of what happened at BzzAgent during that short time period.

If the content on a blog is interesting, a blog has a higher chance for attaining success. The personal perspective of a blogger in a unique role is one way to develop interesting content for a blog. The Stonyfield organic farmer blog is an example of a blog that provides compelling content and provides the average reader the opportunity to talk directly with an organic farmer.

Blogging can be successful not just because of unusual content or related content as in the case of the Stonyfield Farm blogs. Blogs that reveal the inner human from inside the corporation can help to pull down some of the barriers between a company and its audience. Aliza Sherman Risdahl’s comments illustrate a recurring theme in corporate blogging, that is, blogging allows a writer to reveal more about their life, experiences and opinions. And a company has a lot to gain by letting its employees be more open and different in the voices that are revealed through their blogs.

3.6 Deciding if your company should blog

posted: November 2, 2006 2:02 AM

Time, dialogue, transparency, culture, personalization and entertainment are all leading factors that can contribute to the success of a corporate blog, and there are many other factors we have discussed in the study that can help to establish a successful blog. All of these success factors do not necessarily have to be in place to build a blog, but each factor will certainly contribute to a blog’s ultimate success.

Blogging is complex, and each company approaches blogging differently. If one measurement of success is reaching an audience, it is, therefore, important to choose a content strategy that is relevant to your audience. If you do not conduct a dialogue with your audience, but instead try to sell your audience something, your blog will probably not produce the traffic or links you seek. Without results, a company will either change its strategy in order to become an effective blogger or give up blogging entirely. The decision to blog, then, should be based upon an understanding of what resources are available and the commitment that is needed to maintain a successful blog.

Appendix 1.0 Corporate Blogger Interview Summaries

posted: November 2, 2006 2:00 AM

Each student interviewed two corporate bloggers in a recorded session. Each student transcribed one interview for course credit; the remaining interviews were transcribed by Megan Dickinson of Backbone Media, Inc. Rather than provide the complete interview here, we have summarized each interview from the original transcriptions.

See All blogger interviews here.

1.1.1 Company: Adobe
1.1.2 Company: Adweek
1.1.3 Blogger: Aliza Sherman Risdahl
1.1.4 Company: BzzAgent
1.1.5 Company: Conference Calls Unlimited
1.1.6 Company: Daily Eats
1.1.7 Company: Emerson Process Management
1.1.8 Company: Gourmet Station
1.1.9 Company: Indium Corporation
1.1.10 Company: Landfair Furniture
1.1.11 Company: Marqui
1.1.12 Company: Masi Bicycles
1.1.13 Company: Microsoft - Heather Hamilton
1.1.14 Company: Mississippi Hospital Association
1.1.15 Company: MSInteractive
1.1.16 Company: Paperback Bazaar
1.1.17 Blogger: Jeremy Pepper
1.1.18 Company: Stone Creek Coffee
1.1.19 Company: Stonyfield Farm
1.1.20 Company: SuccessFactors

Like this post: | |

SCOUT Corporate Blogging

Recent Comments