PR Communications

Brawl Over First Fortune 500 Corporate Blog Resolved!

During Dr. Nora Gamin Barnes’ presentation on her research results at the Society for New Communications Research Symposium in Cambridge, MA on Friday Shel Israel suggested that the first Fortune 500 company to run a corporate blog was General Motor’s Fastlane blog (Jan 2005).

I piped up and suggested there were earlier corporate blogs among the Fortune 500. We also got into a debate about the definition of a corporate blog. If the criterion is the blog is branded by the company and run by company employees not for personal purposes I think I can find at least one blog earlier than GM.

Looking back I conducted my first corporate blogging survey back in 2004, and interviewed Gary Lerhaupt at Dell, the company had started a Linux blog, here’s the interview with Gary.

That blog is no longer around, but it was definitely an official corporate blog.

However, to me Microsoft, and SUN were certainly using blogging for corporate purposes. We had several large technology companies before Jan 2005 encourage employees to write a blog, and gave them a corporate blogging platform to run a blog. The blogs may or may not have been personal though. See this badly written article of mine in 2004, where I mention Microsoft had 700 employee blogs.

Several companies; Microsoft, Oracle, SUN, also had blog aggregation sites. I an article about blog aggregation in 2005, mainly about Macromedia, but I’d found several blog aggregators during 2005 from the large Fortune 500 technology companies. We have to remember that blog search engines were only just appearing, Technorati started in 2005 so many of the big blogging companies build their own blog aggregators to bring the community together.

If you define a corporate blog as the “official” blog then Dell might be the first in the Fortune 500, but if you include employee blogs like John Porcaro’s or Heather Hamilton at Microsoft, I think we have to look back earlier in time.

In addition, Microsoft’s channel9 website goes back to 2004 as this posting from March of 2004 indicates, maybe not the first corporate blog, but certainly the first corporate Fortune 500 video blog.

SNCR Symposium & Awards Gala Day 1

 I'm attending the Society of New Communications Research symposium and awards gala, November 5th and 6th in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hashtag for SNCR is #sncr.

Thursday involved joining other SNCR research fellows and advisory board members at the Harvard Faculty club. We received a report of the society's work in 2009, lots and lots of research conducted, a new model for the society, New Comm Forum spun off, and a new executive director hired.

The fellows brainstormed on predictions for 2010, and reviewed the potential research list for next year.

Then off to MIT's center for civic media, where Christopher Csikszentmihalyi, the center's co-director gave an overview of the center’s work. Two years old, the center has graduate students pick studies/projects that involve web 2.0 projects in the civic space. Christopher’s talk was in the middle of the lab, which was a mix of tables, ceiling mobiles, lego pieces, electronic equipment, comfy chairs, people sitting, people working, people wandering in and out, conference screens, giant flying inflatable elephants, robots, and poster displays. If you have not checked out the lab, they are doing some really cool stuff. Thanks to Greg PC for organizing the tour.

In the early evening Shel Israel gave a talk about his new book, Twitterville. I've seen Shel speak before, and I've read Twitterville and his other book Naked Conversations. Starting with his background, Shel joked with the crowd, and explained why and how twitter works. He described half a dozen stories from how Dell is using Twitter, to citizen journalism of the airplane crash in the Hudson, to photo journalists being rescued from police in Egypt through Twitter. Shel told us 14 books have been published about twitter. To me if you were to read one, Twitterville is the book to read.

Finally, late night supper with Shel and friends, I had a really good conversation with Geoff Livingston about General Motors and the deployment of social media in the enterprise. Really enjoyed having the chance to chat with Geoff extensively for the first time, and I look forward to his new venture in 2010.

Photo courtesy of Todd Van Hoosear

The Counter Reformation of Content Marketing

I watched Garfield's Halloween special over the weekend and since then I've had the phrase "Candy, candy, candy..." running through my mind.

The content marketing people are using social media to engage their customers; however, what they are selling is content, content, content.

There's nothing wrong with this, it works, and in fact I've written lots and lots of articles about using a good content strategy for marketing. After starting in the web industry in 1995 and having worked with lots of web agencies, I've experienced the pain of pleading for more content from clients. Social media has come as a relief to web agencies, customers no longer have to be pushed into action or understanding on the importance of content. Instead the whole industry is doing what it always should have done; giving client's the content they needed with writers, producers and sound engineers.

Yet, I think that when the reformation [of marketing] started in 1517...wait a minute I got my dates wrong, started in 1999 when the cluetrain manifesto was published the thesis was not about content, it was about two way conversation, engagement, and dialog. The reform was to put listening squarely back at the core of marketing.

If you use the concept of content marketing to solve problems and write content, but don't make any changes to your business based upon what you've heard, you probably will generate more sales. However, you are probably missing out on an important part of the reformation, engagement, engagement, engagement.

Dell’s turnaround over 18 months was not a content marketing strategy it was an engagement strategy, by conducting outreach on blogs, twitter, ideaStorm and more. Though the overall turnaround was only effective because Dell listened to customers, changed management of customer service at Dell, and improved products.

Comcast’s success with social media and @Comcastcares is not a content marketing strategy, but a customer service outreach strategy. Comcast still has problems with perception, and I suspect more content will not solve their problems, more listening and taking action on what is heard probably will.

Microsoft just released Windows7 and it looks like the operating system is already going to do better than vista, why because Microsoft took more steps to listen, engage customers and take action on what they heard.

The web is giving business people many opportunities, we can optimize promotions and follow a content marketing strategy, or we could reach out to customers and engage them. Content marketing as a strategy addresses the big changes that have happened because of the web, but without outreach and engagement as part of a company’s business strategy a company can lose out on the biggest promise from the reformation. Tantalizingly the reform because of the web is really about listening to customers and taking action, action, action on what we’ve heard.

Social Media Traits Build Employee Confidence

Shel Holtz writes a thorough post on the depiction of employee communications in a networked company.

1) Ease employee access to social networks.
2) Show employees who’s saying what, right now.
3) Communicate research results.
4) Increase business literacy.
5) Build awareness of business initiatives.
6) Make sure everyone knows the rules of the road.
7) Champion and support internal training.
8) Enlist company advocates.
9) Work with ET to ensure systems support networking.

I assume Shel's original title was 10 communications traits of networked companies, and that he was not able to develop a tenth tip, instead he asks for additional traits from the community.

Reading the post, I'm struck yet again how much foresight went into the writing of the cluetrain manifesto. The book really had a simple idea, consumers are on the web and they are talking with one another. That web of conversation has big consequences for companies. I don't believe the cluetrain got everything right because our exact understanding of the social world of today could not be entirely foreseen.

As I read through Shel's traits, I'm reminded of many of the 95 thesis published ten years ago.

One unknown in 1999 was that employees would need more help and advice to talk directly with customers using the web.

Every employee has the capability to conduct a dialogue, but even the most experienced communications professional has to learn the social media ropes with each new social media technology.

What the cluetrain missed is that the process of talking with consumers using social media is not always an immediate organic process. Some design, some guidelines and structure can help to give employees the confidence to be human in their conversations.

SNCR.org 2009 Symposium & Awards Gala

The 4th annual Society for New Communications Research Research Symposium & Awards Gala is being held this week at the Harvard Faculty Club at Harvard University. I'm attending, as I'm a Research Fellow and Board adviser to the society.

November 5th

1:00pm - 5:00pm - Social Media Metrics & Measurement Workshop - Led by SNCR Fellows Katie Paine & Charlotte Ziems

5:30pm - 7:30pm - An Evening with Shel Israel in Twitterville - Reception & Presentation

November 6th

9:00am - Registration & Breakfast

9:15am - Welcome & Opening Remarks - Jen McClure, SNCR Board President

9:30 - 12:30pm Morning SNCR Research Presentations

A Longitudinal Look at Social Media Adoption by Businesses, Higher Ed and Not for Profits with SNCR Research Chair & SNCR Fellow Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, PhD

Identifying an Untapped Opportunity to Engage High Dollar Non-profit Donors via the Social Web with SNCR Fellow Geoff Livingston

Findings from the 2nd Annual Tribalization of Business Study with SNCR Sr. Fellow & Board Member Francois Gossieaux & Ed Moran, Deloitte

12:30 - 1:30 Luncheon
 
1:30 - 4:30pm Afternoon SNCR Research Presentations

Findings from the Study: The New Symbiosis of Professional Networks with SNCR Fellows Vanessa DiMauro & Don Bulmer, SNCR Board Member

Findings from the Middleberg / SNCR Survey of Media in the Wired World with SNCR Senior Fellow Don Middleberg & SNCR Founder & President Jen McClure

The Global Newspaper Market - Searching for a New Business Model with SNCR Fellow Andria Carter

4:30pm Announcement re: 2010 Initiatives & Research Roadmap & Closing Remarks: Jen McClure

6:00pm - 10:00 - The 4th Annual SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards Dinner & Gala, SNCR Senior Fellow Paul Gillin, Master of Ceremonies

The Mystery Of Marketing

I feel like a voyeur when I watch the TV show Mad Men. Instead of showing the mechanics of the marketing process, the show creates a mystique about marketing.

To me the fascination with marketing comes from order, imagination, process and decision; modern marketers work diligently, typing copy, searching for keywords, crafting a headline for Adwords, designing multiple landing pages and thinking about calls to action, double checking the guidelines to webinar software, practicing a presentation and explaining the value of a product, penning a white paper, reviewing the leads from a download, scoring a prospect while questioning the value of a campaign in excel, accounting for the months of the year cell by cell, estimating a budget, and negotiating a good price while writing a creative brief, saying yes and saying no, striving for black and avoiding red, and listen when ever possible.