SCOUT Corporate Blogging

Choosing the Right Blogger Archive

Adobe, Eric Anderson

posted: November 2, 2006 2:00 AM

1.1.1 Company: Adobe

Blogger: Eric Anderson
Student Interviewer: Amanda Nastari
Blog: http://weblogs.macromedia.com/eanderson/

Eric Anderson is the Product Manager for Adobe’s Flex product. Adobe Flex is an application development solution for building rich Internet applications. Eric formerly worked for Macromedia when it merged with Adobe and he worked for Allaire Corp when it merged with Macromedia. Macromedia was an early corporate blogging company inspired by Jeremy Allaire.

Eric started work with Allaire Corporation six years ago.  He started blogging to get information out to his customer community quickly.  The blog is primarily a way to get technical information out to customers and gather feedback. Eric said that blogging was a way to get "tidbits of information what weren't full blown papers out to the community."

Macromedia allowed its employees to write about their products and a blog aggregator was developed to allow like-minded bloggers to aggregate their blogs together.  This Macromedia blog aggregator was before sites like technorati.com and other RSS feed aggregators were around.  The Macromedia aggregator had content from both Macromedia and other bloggers who wrote Macromedia related blog posts outside of the company.

Eric said that the culture at Adobe is much more controlled by legal than the culture at Macromedia.  However, Eric said that there was a desire to be more open at Adobe over time.  Adobe has hundreds of blogs and the company pays for its employee blogs.  There is no editorial control process for blogging at the company.

Eric told us that his blog helped encourage 30-50 people blogging about Flex, his product. The blog has become a place for the community to go to for information about Flex. When Eric attends a conference, he finds it very rare that customers have not already read his blog.  The blog gives Eric "immediate technical credibility" with his audience.

Eric thought that, "publishing content that people need " is very important when building a successful blog. Eric was skeptical of comments generated on blogs, as he has no way to validate the identity of the person who commented.  Eric has found it to be 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 or posts about a product’s future direction.

Eric stated that his style of blog writing has progressed over time.  He used to write about new releases and content he had not written but he got tired of referencing this type of material.  Eric currently writes about technical information not covered anywhere else. He sees the blog as a very useful tool for communicating technical information with his audience. He sees his blog as a place that established his credibility as a technical writer with his community. Eric said that technical content rather than personal content was the type of content that generated the most comments and traffic to his blog.

Adweek, Cathy Taylor

posted: October 29, 2006 9:19 PM

1.1.2 Company: Adweek

Blogger: Cathy Taylor
Student Interviewer: Melissa Buckley
Blog: http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/

Cathy Taylor is a journalist who works for Adweek. She initiated the Adfreak blog at Adweek and helps run the blog with her colleagues.

Cathy recognized the impact of political blogs on the country’s political discussion during the 2004 presidential election, and also noticed several blogs whose content on advertising competed with Adweek.  She recommended Adweek start a blog to compete with the advertising related blogs.  Cathy said that Adweek noticed the benefits of the blog being the conduit for all content related to advertising.  Cathy said this insight developed over time.

Due to the time constraints of blogging, the Adweek management decided the whole editorial staff would be able to contribute to the blog.  However, all content would pass through two gatekeepers, Cathy and Tim Nudd.  The two journalists serve as editors for the blog. The editors ensure Adweek steers clear of posts that might cause legal problems, makes sure content is on target with what the AdFreak audience is looking for and provides copyediting for the blog posts.

Cathy said there's definitely a correlation between the number of posts and the number of people who come to the blog; more posts produces more traffic.  When large influential blogs link to the blog the Adweek team also sees an increase in traffic.

Cathy said the person who runs the blog at a competitor, Adrants, comments on more blogs than the bloggers at Adfreak.  Cathy thought that the Adfreak team would probably comment more if they had the time.  She also discussed how she and her colleague send out links every once in a while and that she makes sure that the links she sends out are extremely relevant and important to the people she sends them to.  She suggested bloggers had to be judicious in sending links about posts to other bloggers.

Cathy does comment on other blogs, but she has so little time, that it’s just occasionally, and typically she comments when it relates to her blog posts, or when someone else has criticized what she has written previously.

After reviewing two commercials one by Apple featuring the music star, Eminem, and the other by Lugz Footwear, Cathy was really taken aback by how similar the two commercials were and commented on the similarity on her blog. Eventually the New York Times and other major newspapers picked up the story. Lugz Footwear started sending cease and desist letters to Apple.  All because a blog reader had sent a link to Adfreak asking the question, “do you guys think this looks really similar?”

Once Adfreak pointed out the similarity, everyone in the industry started to pay attention. Cathy even received a call from the ad agency who did the Lugz spot.  And Cathy was introduced to the spot's creative director.  There was a misconception that the production company for the Lugz Footwear spot had sent the link around the media community. Cathy took it upon herself to call media who had been contacted by Lugz' agency about the story, to let them know that was not the case. When she was working to set the story straight with other media, she changed her role from reporter to something else; perhaps PR person or a blogger.  Cathy questioned her role in the affair, and asked herself, “What am I now? A PR person getting the story straight, a blogger or the reporter?” and went onto say, “The lines that used to be so stark are just not stark anymore.”

According to Cathy, the content on the blog focuses on ad creative and takes a big time commitment but is also a big listening device about customers and stories.

BzzAgent, Dave Balter

posted: October 29, 2006 9:04 PM

1.1.4 Company: BzzAgent

Blogger: Dave Balter
Student Interviewer: Laura Stevenson
Blog: http://blog.bzzagent.com and http://90days.bzzagent.com/

Dave Balter is CEO and Founder of BzzAgent. The company has developed a network of agents and media channel through which its clients can develop word of mouth marketing campaigns.   

Dave started blogging because he thought it would be a different way of connecting with others and a tool for letting people “inside” the business.  He went on to say, "Over the years we have posted advisor updates, investor information, presentations to clients, how we are deciding on company procedures, all sorts of stuff.  What I’ve found is it’s had a very interesting impact, not just on the outside world, but on staff, on people that want to work here, potential employees and clients."  Dave believes discussing the inner workings of BzzAgent is really powerful for clients and creates a discussion with customers.  Many customers have commented on blog posts to Dave directly.

In addition to their regular blog, the BeeLog, Dave's company implemented a blog called 90 Days of BzzAgent, which ran from February through April of 2006. This blog described a period of 90 days where the company went through a financing round, and how the company evolved during that period. Dave thinks there will be time- or event-specific corporate blogs will be common in the future, especially for campaigns or events.

For the BeeLog, anyone at the company may blog, although Dave moderates all of the posts.  Dave filters the content for issues like employee bashing, or revealing confidential information.

According to Dave, the traffic volume on the blog is not a major factor, but he has found that individuals will sometimes become customers by reading material on the blog.

Dave does not believe that blogs necessarily need to have a lot of comments, as he has experienced situations where a blog post will not generate a lot of comments but when he meets people in person, they will recall the post.

He also explained that the posts that generate the most traffic to the blog include content that would typically only be background information for a traditional communications department: "The things that surprise people, because they are actually live.  Things like being able to review a presentation to a client, information about two people we are thinking about hiring, anything that is sort of going to give them the first instinct of, ‘I can’t believe they are live‘ and those are the ones that get the most traffic."

Dave went onto say, "I think a lot of the corporate blogs you have, say, ‘Can you put something together that talks about our new products?’  When it’s really about how are we communicating to the market in a way that’s never been possible before?  I feel like a lot of them are out there under false premises as opposed to this is a new tool for the whole market place and the whole point is transparency so let’s let this change; what we’re willing to tell the world and see what happens."

Dave believes to successfully start a blog "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."

Since the interview date, BzzAgent decided to suspend the BeeLog, at least for the time being, because Dave felt the content of the posts began to stray away from the original focus of providing an inside glimpse of the inner workings of BzzAgent. BzzAgent will continue to explore the use of time- and event-specific corporate blogs like 90 Days of BzzAgent. In this vein, their latest blog is called the Bento Box and will run for 24 weeks, offering an inside glimpse of the company from the perspective of two outsiders: an author and an artist.

Indium Corporation, Rick Short

posted: October 28, 2006 10:31 PM

1.1.9 Company: Indium Corporation

Blogger: Rick Short
Student Interviewer: Annemarie Martel
Blog: http://www.indium.com/rickshort/

Rick Short is Indium Corporation’s Director of Marketing Communications.  Indium Corporation provides materials to the electronics assembly materials industry.

Rick Short started blogging with a goal. Rick states it’s important to have a goal, a very well-defined, clear end state that you’re desired, and then work backwards to current situation to determine what you’ve got that can you can help reach your goal with.  And, so, our goal was always to gain market share, improve our brand and our image, learn from our customer base, and let them talk to us. That’s something that we’ve always had as a goal. We do that traditionally through seminars and educational sessions, online question and answer type things and knowledge based things, face-to-face meetings. So, I saw blogging as a chance to listen, and that addressed one of our existing goals. And, always start with a goal. Always begin at the end of what you want to achieve.

Listening was one of Indium's goals and so Rick was looking for someone who can listen when the company started blogging. Rick went on to say, "if one of the goals is to learn from your audience, then you need to have a person that’s a good listener. Not somebody who’s all about me, and wants to blab on and on about themselves, but someone who’s good at putting a couple of ideas, and then sitting back and hearing what people have to say."

Rick listed the four Ps of blogging.

• Point: if your blog doesn't have a specific point (purpose), then don't even start
• Passion: if you don't have a burning passion about the topic, then don't bother
• Personality: if you don't have the personality for blogging, then find something else to do with your time (here Rick means that a blogger’s personality must come across in their writing, there must be opinion, likes and dislikes, not just a dry, dull review of the facts.)
• Perseverance: if you won't be able to stick with it once the blogging becomes routine, after you've battled with writer's block, after numerous distractions beckon, then find a new hobby

Rick's story about how his company started is very interesting and in part illustrates how his company was able to reach his customers through blogging. Two people blog at Indium, Rick and Dr. Ronald Lasky.

Rick blogs about Marcom, however, his customers don't buy Marcom, they buy electronic assembly materials.  Rick’s blog does not have all that much affect on his customers.  However, Dr. Lasky's blog covers the topics Indium's customers are most interested in reading, what the customers do.  Dr. Lasky is an expert in the industry. Dr. Lasky’s blog has the content Rick Short’s customers are most interested in reading.  Indium can build better relationships with Indium customers by having Dr. Lasky blog rather than Rick Short. Rick explained the biggest reason their blogs were successful was because of the stature of Dr. Ron Lasky in the industry. He also said that controversial subjects get more interest on the blog, but that's not what the Indium blogs aim for in terms of content.

Rick explained that Dr. Lasky had grown in his blog writing; he is now more comfortable writing in this style of writing.  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. You need to know what success means to you." Relevancy or your audience’s interests depends upon your audience.

Rick 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."

Rick explained that during the first two years of blogging Indium concentrated on developing content for the blog. The company has a lot of opportunities to speak, and present good content.  However sometimes the events don't have enough audience to justify a personal appearance.  Blogging was an alternative where Indium could reach customers constantly through the web.

Describing the characteristics of his industry, Rick said that his company is in an industry where customers what to discuss legislation to ban the use of lead in solders, and other electronic assembly materials.  There's a lot of dialogue from customers on these industry topics.  However not very much of the conversation from customers comes from comments on the blog. As most of Indium's customers don't want to let their competitors know what they are doing.  Instead customers send emails to the blog authors.