PR Communications

USAA’s Corporate Blog

Chris Talley in Communications at USAA DM’d me today on Twitter to let me know that USAA now does have a corporate blog, “Inside the Mission Blog”. That's great I've added the blog to the list of blogs in the Fortune 500, and thought I'd take some time to review the new site.

Blogging Review

Generally the blog looks good, simple and clean. It looks like the blog first published in July of this year. I enjoyed the content, and thought the blog was off to a good start.

I wasn't able to tell what blogging platform USAA is using, so it’s probably their Site WCM system. The site is in a folder. I really liked the option to subscribe to multiple different RSS feeds. That's very helpful.

I did find a few issues that I thought I’d mention in the spirit of helpfulness.

Blog Commenting System

The comment system requires that you register with USAA.com. Given that USAA is a financial institution, this may not be a surprise. But in the blogging community, the ability to quickly post comments, even if those comments are moderated is a community norm. The comment system would certainly benefit from using a commenting system like Disqus.

I did see a few comments here and there. I suspect the reason for the lack of comments is the issue with the commenting system. Where I did see comments, they were from people who had been ranked already within their existing forum system. Again using an existing forum commenting system gives the impression that a blog is exclusive rather than open. Now any company can make decisions about what their comment strategy will be, but if USAA wants to get more comments from beyond their membership, and the wider blogging world opening up the comment system (with moderation) would be a good way to do that.

Another issue I notice was that writers are not getting back to respondents. On this post by the CIO, for the comment that did appear, USAA’s CIO, Greg Schwartz did not write the return comment, rather the blog manager did. This is fairly common practice amongst blogs, GM’s blog is well known for having moderators answer executives customer comments, but again if you want more comments encourage your thought leaders to answer comments.

Permanent URLs

Might just be me, but the permanent URLs looked a little bit long for Google, plus there were a number of special characters in the link. Here's an exert from "The Art of SEO," by Eric Enge, Stephen Spencer, Rand Fishkin, and Jessie C. Stricchiola on page 108 under the SEO audit:

 “Make sure you have clean, short, descriptive URLs. Descriptive means keyword-rich but not keyword-stuffed. You don't want parameters appended (or have a minimal number if you must have any), and you want them to be simple and easy for users (and spiders) to understand."

 This URL from a recent post doesn't look too good to me given this advice:

https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_blogs/Blogs?action=blogpost&blogkey=insidethemission&postkey=9_11_shaped_us_all#comments

Blogging Review Final Thoughts

I'm glad to see another large financial institution join the ranks of the corporate blogging world. I'm also curious to know how USAA is building out its content strategy overall and whether it is developing a content garden? This was a quick review and it would be cool if I could follow up with an interview from a USAA social media professional. As I've previously completed interviews with other corporate bloggers, we can use the blogging ranking system together to rate the blog. I always find the internal employees give lower marks than I would! :-)

Agilent's Signal Integrity Blog

It appears that Agilent Technologies' Nano Measure blog is no longer with us. However, Agilent Technologies hasn't dropped off the list of Fortune 500 companies with blogs. The Signal Integrity blog run by Colin Warwick, High Speed Digital Design Flow Manager with the Agilent EEsof EDA high speed digital (formerly signal integrity) design flow group has been blogging since 2008.

The blog is a personal corporate blog, Colin's the sole blogger. I noticed the blog is published in WordPress and site has been updated from 2.7 on the old blog, to 3.2.1.

Record Of Updates To The Fortune 500 Blog List

This post is for house keeping purposes. I'm keeping a list of updates to the Corporate Blogs post in the fortune 500.

5/26/11: Walmart no longer has a check out blog, updated with new giving blog. Need to determine what blogging platform they use. The last post on the giving blog looked as if it was posted in June 2010.

5/26/11: Added the ExxonMobil blog.

9/07/11: Updated the Agilent blog, swapping out the old blog for the new.

9/08/11: Added the USAA Blog.

1/04/11: Added the General Mills Blog.

A Look Behind AutoNation's Business Blog & Social Media

You're Behind The Wheel is the blog of AutoNation, the car retailer. The blog was launched in July of 2009, and continues to post content though on an irregular basis in terms of articles.

I did see several polls posted during February 2011, but the first real post I came across was in January of 2011. There was a post about an announcement regarding AutoNation's new community site called AutoNation Ideas, where the community can share ideas, and then be voted upon by the community. The top three ideas are picked by AutoNation to be published on the blog.

As I scrolled back through the archives of the blog, I saw a lot of polls, but also articles that were helpful tips on how to maintain and run a vehicle, or safety.

Here’s a sampling of titles:

-Jump start your car care routine.
-Does your car need a tune-up? Yes and no.
-The truth about distracted driving.
-Traveling with your pet.

All of these articles provide valuable insights into how to maintain or drive. But I saw little interaction from community members, just one or two comments for recent articles, but more comments as you go further back in time, the pet article had over 25 comments.

I was a little disappointed with the content on the blog, because I did not really get a sense of AutoNation other than the company holds sales contests, polls, and provides some helpful tips every now and then. I enjoyed the content strategy of providing tips and insights into the community, but I thought that just once or twice a month wasn't enough. I think it would be great to have more articles using the same strategy. I also wondered if many of these articles were generated because of SEO, someone searched for the top car related search terms and wrote a car article as a result. There's nothing wrong with doing something like this, but if you do, make sure that you've written the best article on the web, because there's a lot of competition out there, and it's tough getting a number one spot. I’d survey top bloggers in the industry, conduct a poll of customers, and reveal the results in the related article. Really work to make the article stand out with personality, in these days of concern about content farms and Google every publisher has to be worried about their quality of their content, and taking a little extra time survey the web for what will beats already at the top of the engines can pay off dramatically.

I also thought it would be good to hear more from AutoNation employees, I did not see any articles written by retail employees, not only would that bring some much needed personality to the blog, but you might also develop a local search strategy. Here AutoNation would write posts that contain information about the local area, what the store is doing, and feature comments from local bloggers.

I looked back through the archive to the launch of the blog, and it did appear that there were more comments from the community in the early days of the blog. But as you look ahead I don't see as many comments. I did see some answers in comments from AutoNation employees in the early days.

It takes a lot of time to write articles, and to monitor the community, and based on the resources of a company sometimes it doesn't make sense to post a lot of content. I'd really like to hear more from AutoNation, the company is an important retailer in the industry, and I think they have a real chance to get a wider voice in the auto content community by writing more content; perhaps with reviews of cars, or a round-up of the reviews in the industry from the car bloggers, and maybe more voice from employees.

Looking at some of AutoNation’s other social media channels; I did think the folks did a good job of linking back to their other channels, such as Facebook, YouTube, and more.  For the company's Facebook site, they have a nice site, but I did not see much interaction from the community. Twitter however was a different matter; the stream was filled with conversation between the AutoNation Twitter stream and customers.

This post was written as part of my series on reviews of the Fortune 500 business blogs, where I typically review blogs as a way of giving value to the community, and learning from companies like AutoNation. For example, I really thought AutoNation did a great job of integrating their channels. Check out more corporate blogging reviews from myself and the community, and also learn how many Fortune 500 companies have blogs.

Corporate Blogs In The Fortune 500

This is a list of corporate blogs run by Fortune 500 companies. According to research, 88 (17.6%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging as of 01/04/2012.

The table below lists any Fortune 500 companies with blogs, links to one or two blogs owned by the company, and a link to reviews of those blogs. I'm also keeping a list of updates to the table post.

I also list the blogging software used by the blog and where the blog is located: subfolder, subdomain or separate domain.

A corporate blog is defined as: Active public blogs by company employees about the company and/or its products.

Blogging F500 Company	Example Blog	Blogging System & Blog Location choice	Reviews
Advanced Micro Devices	AMD Blogs	Subdomain of the main domain | WordPress 3.0	John Cass on March 11, 2008
Agilent Technologies	Signal Integrity	Subdomain of the main domain| WordPress 3.2.1
Alcoa	Alcoa Recycling, CE Blog	Subdomain, but not the main domain (typepad domain) | TypePad +
Amazon.com	Amazon Web Services Blog	Subdomain, but not the main domain, folder | TypePad
American Express	Open Forum	Separate domain |
Aon Corporation	DiversityExchange, Aon Consulting RPO Blog	Subdomain, but not the main domain (TypePad domain) | TypePad
AT&T	AT&T Public Policy Blog	Separate domain | WordPress 3.0.3
Avnet	The Soft Pitch	Subdomain | WordPress 2.9.1
AutoNation	The AutoNation Blog	Subdomain of the main domain | WordPress	John Cass on March 3, 2011
Baker Hughes	Rig Count	Separate domain | WordPress 2.9.1
Bank of America	Future Banking Blog	Discontinued
Best Buy	Best Buy Community (blogs right nav)	Various | Lithium
Boeing	Randy's Journal	Folder on separate domain name
Caterpillar	Caterpillar SOS Services Oil Analysis	Subdomain on blog vendor's domain | Lithium
CBS	CBS.com Blog	Folder of the main domain |
Chevron	Chevron Blog at World Petroleum Congress	Blog is located in a folder
Cisco Systems	Cisco High Tech Policy Blog	Subfolder of a subdomain | WordPress
Clorox Company	Dr. Laundry	Separate domain	Easton Ellsworth on Nov 6, 2006
Computer Sciences	Outsourcing Blog	Subfolder
Countrywide	discontinued
CSC	Team CSC	Subfolder
Coca Cola	Coca-Cola Conversations	Separate domain | TypePad	Li Evans on Nov 10, 2006, Mack Collier on Aug 7, 2008
Comcast	Comcast Voices Blog	Subdomain
Davita	Davita Blogs	Separate domain | WordPess 3.0.1 & 2.8.6
Dell	Direct2Dell	Folder on subdomain on Dell.com | Telligent Evolution Platform Developer Build	Easton Ellsworth on Jul 13, 2006, Drew Meyers on Oct 23, 2006, and Mack Collier on June 13, 2007
Delta Airlines	Under The Wing	Subdomain of the main domain name | WordPress 2.9.1	Rich Young on April 25, 2008 James Lutes on May 11, 2008
Disney	Disney Parks Blog	Subfolder of a subdomain | WordPress 2.8.4
Emerson Electric	Emerson Process Experts Modeling and Control	Another domain name | Movable Type Commercial 4.25
Eastman Kodak Company	A Thousand Words PluggedIn	Subdomain of main domain |	Li Evans on Nov 17, 2006, Laura Spencer on January 30th, 2008, and Mack Collier on May 30th, 2007
EMC Corp	EMC Employee Blogs	Various platforms and domain choices, from TypePad blogs to communityServer 2007 SP2 from Telligent Systems
eBay	eBay Developers Program Blog	Subdomain on TypePad	Alison Nicole Grise on April 28, 2008
ExxonMobil	ExxonMobil Perspectives Blog	Separate domain |
FedEx	FedEx Citizenship Blog	Subdomain
Foot Locker	Foot Locker Unlocked	Subfolder on a subdomain | WordPress 3.0.5
Ford Motor Company	Ford Story	No corp blog, but have advocates write content.
General Electric Company	GE Reports, GE Global Research blog	Blog is located in a folder | WordPress 2.9	Easton Ellsworth on Sept 20, 2006
General Mills	A Taste of General Mills Blog	subdomain of main domain | WordPress 3.1.1
General Motors Corporation	FastLane Blog	Blog has its own domain | WordPress 2.8.6	Easton Ellsworth on Sept 11, 2006, Easton Ellsworth on Sept 12, 2006, Liz Fuller on January 16th, 2008
Goodyear	Goodyear Blimp Blog	Subdomain of another domain name | TypePad
Google	Google Blog	Subdomain | Google's Blogger	Bryan Saxton on May 14, 2008.
H&R Block	H&R Block Blog
Hewlett-Packard Company	HP Blogs	Folder on a sub-domain of the main domain | CommunityServer 2008.5 SP1 from Telligent Systems
Home Depot	The Apron	Folder of subdomain on the main domain
Honeywell International	Honeywell HR Blog discontinued		Cornelius Puschmann on Oct 19th, 2006
Ingram Micro	Seismic,	Discountined, however, company does have Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
Ingersoll Rand	Industrial Technologies Product & Innovation Blog	Subdomain of main domain | WordPress	Katherine Shin on Feb. 8, 2010
Intel Corporation	Blogs at Intel	Subdomain | Movable Type 4.21	Robyn Tippins on Oct 19th, 2006
International Business Machines	IBM Blogs, Guide to IBM Blogs	Blog is located in a folder	Easton Ellsworth on Sept 25, 2006
John Deere	John Deere Blog	Separate domain | .NET build
Johnson Controls	Your Energy Forum	Separate domain | WordPress	Easton Ellsworth on Oct 27, 2006
Johnson & Johnson	JNJBTW	Blog has its own domain | WordPress 2.9.2	Stacey Rogers on May 11, 2008 Rich Young on May 12, 2008
JPMorganChase	JPMorgan Actuarial Connection	Discontinued
Manpower	Manpower Blogs	Another domain name | WordPress 2.9.2
Marriott International, Inc	Marriott on the move	Subdomain of the main domain	Li Evans on Jan 17, 2007
McDonald's Corporation	Open For Discussion	Another domain name | Awareness	Laura Spencer on April 15, 2008
McGraw-Hill Companies	Social Media Directory	Lots of social media, and preparing a list of blogs.
Micron Technology	Innovations Blog
Microsoft Corporation	Microsoft Blogs	Folder on a subdomain | Telligent Platform CommunityServer	Jean Kim on April 28, 2008
Molson	Molson in the Community	Folder, of a subdomain of main domain | WordPress 3.0.1
Monsanto	Monsanto According to Monsanto	Separate domain | WordPress 3.0	Jeff McIntire-Strasburg on March 30, 2009
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney	Women Financial Advisors Forum	Subdomain of main domain | Blogtronix
Motorola	Wireless Insights Blog Community	Folder on subdomain of the main domain
Newell Rubbermaid	Graco blog Adventures in Organization	Subdomain of the main domain | Typepad	Susan Iskiwitch on April 11, 2008, John Cass on Dec 4, 2008
Nike	Official Nike Running Blog	Sub Folder of a subdomain	Sarah E. Essary on April 29, 2008
Oracle Corporation	Oracle Blogs	Subdomain | Movable Type 1.52	Li Evans on Dec 10, 2006 John Cass on May 26, 2008
Owens Corning	The Pink Panther Energy Blog
Pfizer	Pfizer Science Now Blog	Folder on a subdomain | WordPress 2.9.1
Primerica Financial Services	The Primerica Blog
Proctor & Gamble	Notes from the Front line	Subdomain of typepad | A SixApart TypePad blog
Progressive	Blog	Subfolder of the main domain
Pitney Bowes	Open Mike blogger retired from Pitney		Vincent McBurney on Oct 30, 2006
Safeway	The Safeway Blog	Folder on a subdomain | Lithium	Aaron Uhrmacher on Feb 2, 2009
Southwest Airlines	Nuts about Southwest		Mack Collier on Oct. 04, 2007, Paul Chaney (TBA)
Sprint	Things That Make You Go Wireless, blog discontinued	Folder of a subdomain
Starbucks	My Ideas In Action		John Bell on April 15, 2008
Starwood Hotels & Resorts	The Lobby	Separate domain | Movable Type Pro 4.21	Laura Spencer on February 21, 2008, Mack Collier on September 11, 2008
Symantec
Texas Instruments	TI Blogs	Folder of subdomain of the main domain | Telligent Community platform	Last post February 2008
Time Warner	AOL's Search Blog
TJX Companies, Inc.	HomeGoods Blog
Toys 'R' Us	Daily Deals	Subdomain of the main domain | TypePad
Tribune Company	The Swamp
Tyson	Hunger Relief	Subdomain | .NET CMS from Rockfish Interactive
Viacom International	MTV Video blog
Walt Disney Company	Walt Disney Park Blog	Folder of a subdomain | WordPress 2.8.4
Wal-Mart Stores	Wal-Mart Giving Blog	Subdomain of a separate domain |	Easton Ellsworth on Sept 8, 2006 Krishna De on 10 December 2007 Liz Fuller on March 11, 2008 Mack Collier on May 1, 2008
Waste Management	Think Green	Separate domain
Wells Fargo & Company	Guided by History	Folder on a subdomain | Movable Type Enterprise 4.25	John Bell on April 15th, 2008
Whole Foods Market	Whole Story	Subdomain | WordPress 2.9.2	Katrina Heilman on May 12th 2008 Olga Walsh on May 20th, 2008
UPS	Upside Blog	Subdomain | WordPress | WebTrends User
USAA	Inside the Mission Blog	Folder on the main domain| Corp CMS?	John Cass on September 8th, 2011
Xerox Corporation	Xerox Blogs	Subdomain | WordPress 2.8.4
Verizon Communications	Verizon Social Media	Subdomain of the main domain	Robert Longert on July 16th 2008
Virgin Media	Movie Editor Blog
Yahoo!	Yahoo! Search Blog		Stephanie L on April 29th, 2008
Yum Brands	KFC Nation Weblog

Thanks to Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson for their help in finding more Fortune 500 companies with corporate blogs from their studies on Fortune 500 companies with blogs

TypePad Blogs Reviewed In The Fortune 500

Five more corporate blogs from the Fortune 500 reviewed, two more TypePad Blogs, and interestingly I was going to include a WordPress 1.5.1.3 version blog from Texas Instruments, certainly a case of "if it isn't broken don't fix it." But then I noticed TI has not updated the blog since 2008. I was going to include Sun MicroSystems and then I remembered the company was purchased by Oracle.

CSC | Subfolder | 

Amazon.com | Subdomain, but not the main domain | TypePad

Progressive Insurance | Subfolder of the main domain |

Marriott | Subdomain of the main domain |

Toys R Us | Subdomain of the main domain | TypePad

5 Blog Reviews & Xerox

Another five reviews of the corporate blogs of the Fortune 500, and more WordPress Blogs from Avnet and Xerox. Interesting to see that Xerox has 12 corporate blogs, many of the blogs appear to be run by individuals, and quite a few have not been updated in some time, 2009 in one case, though most of the others were last updated in March, April, May or June of 2010.

Oracle | Subdomain | Movable Type 1.52

Xerox | Subdomain | WordPress 2.8.4

Google | Subdomain | Google's Blogger

Nike | Sub Folder of a subdomain | 

Avnet | Subdomain | WordPress 2.9.1

The Office, American Idol And 5 Corporate Blog Reviews

Mark Toth is the Chief Legal Officer of Manpower North America, and he writes the Manpower Employment Blawg. Mark's blog caught my eye as I ran through my list of five Fortune 500 blogs to review for domain names and blogging system because he conducts a weekly analysis of the TV show The Office for violations of employment law.

What a great idea for a content strategy on a regular basis for a corporate blog. Look around you in movies, popular events and TV shows and see what programs relate to your business, and then write about them. 

Mark also wrote about employment law lessons from American Idol. One great way to get listings and traffic is to find a TV show that's very popular and write about them in a different way. I think you will probably get some traffic that's not relevant, more interest in finding the best singer for the American Idol post, but because the focus of Mark's post was topical, I think it's more likely to be read by people who need help with employment law.

Here are my five additional reviews of Fortune 500 companies with blogs. Six Apart has two blogs, with movable type and TypePad, and two WordPress blogs.

McDonalds | Another domain name | Awareness

Emerson Process | Another domain name | Movable Type Commercial 4.25

Goodyear blog | Subdomain of another domain name | TypePad

Manpower blogs | Another domain name | WordPress 2.9.2

Delta Blog | Subdomain of the main domain name | WordPress 2.9.1

A Few .NET Builds Amongst Fortune 500 Blogs

Another batch of Fortune 500 blog reviews, and I see 3 separate domains, and two subdomains, as well as two .NET builds for Comcast, Coca-Cola, American Express, John Deere and Tyson Foods.

The Comcast blog has always been significant for me in that the company developed their blog after running a very successful engagement marketing strategy using customer service as a focus through Twitter and commenting on customer blogs.

Comcast Voices Blog | Subdomain |

Coca-Cola Conversations | Separate domain | TypePad

American Express | Separate domain | 

John Deere | Separate domain | .NET build

Tyson Foods | Subdomain | .NET CMS from Rockfish Interactive

More WordPress Blogs In The Fortune 500

Continuing my series on a review of Fortune 500 companies with blogs, and where those blogs are placed on a company's main domain, sub-domain or folder. Plus, what the type of blogging platform is used by the company; I review Johnson Controls, FedEx, Walt Disney, Intel and Sprint.

Johnson Controls blog    | Separate domain | WordPress

FedEx Citizenship Blog    | Subdomain | 

Walt Disney Park Blog    | Folder of a subdomain | WordPress 2.8.4

Blogs at Intel    | Subdomain | Movable Type 4.21

Sprint Blogs     | Folder of a subdomain |