RonAmok!

Last month I wrote a piece commenting on Jeramiah Owyang’s The Many Challenges of Corporate Blogging. As one of my most popular posts, I figured that you wanted to hear more on this topic. Therefore, when I read Sally Faulkow’s post reporting on Forrester’s most recent report How To Derive Value From B2B Blogging, I just had to add my own two cents.

Here are some of the reported findings and my comments:

70% write only about business or technical topics

I don’t see this as a bad thing. A corporate blog should talk about business. Why wouldn’t it? In my experience, most companies begin their B2B blogging adventure with an inferiority complex — derived from the “blogging is different than traditional marketing” theme. Newbies to B2B blogging frequently overcompensate and write less about business — that is until nobody reads their blog and they’re forced to go back to the drawing board.

74% rarely get comments

Reader comments are a demonstrable way to gauge audience involvement. Comments offer readers a way to talk back to the author, who has in some way stimulated (agitated?) them enough to grab their keyboard and share a thought. If 74% are not getting comments, it’s time to rethink 74% of the B2B blogs.

I always encourage my B2B bloggers to monitor their comments closely, using them as marketing feedback on their content. I have them review all of their comments, identifying those posts with the most comments and those with goose-eggs. By listening to reader comments, B2B bloggers can fine tune their content — and thus draw a more engaged audience.

55% simply regurgitated press releases or other already-public news

Every writer needs to know their audience. Press Releases are written for journalists, who in turn write for end readers. A blog is written directly for the end reader. Both forms of prose are different — which is the main reason why regurgitation doesn’t make sense.

But that doesn’t mean blogs can’t be used to report news. I recommend that companies experiment with releasing some of their news via a B2B blog. For example, if your company is releasing a new product, spearheading a new community outreach program, or entering into a new partnership, why not have one of your corporate bloggers mention it in a post instead of issuing a Press Release? (Warning: You may need to beat back the Regurgitation Specialists with a big stick!)

53% of B2B marketers say that blogging has marginal significance or is irrelevant to their strategies

This reminds me of the first time corporations started using the web. Hindsight is 20/20 but back then, very few companies understood the web. It’s the same thing with B2B blogging. In my experience, most corporate blogging programs go bad because the company ONLY looks to their PR and Marketing departments for bloggers. I’ve found that the best B2B bloggers won’t come from the ranks of the professional communicators. Rather, they’ll come from the rank and file who deal directly with customers on a day-to-day basis. Those on the front line understand what is “significant” and “relevant.”

This doesn’t mean that your company’s professional communicators are banned from blogging. Just don’t limit the search there. When looking for B2B bloggers, cast the net a little wider. You might be surprised at what you find.

Tags: ronamok new media evangelist social media strategist b2b b2b blogging blog coach ron ploof corporate blogging measurement

I’ve been struggling with the journalist-versus-blogger debate for quite a while. To me, blogging isn’t a threat to journalists. Rather, blogging augments journalism.

It all came together for me at the PRSA’s Digital Impact Conference this past week, when Richard Wilner, Sunday Business Editor for the New York Post said, “I’ve never written a story about the 8000 banks that weren’t robbed today.”

Fascinating. A journalist will test a topic against the following question: “Is it news or not-news?”

One man’s news is another man’s pleasure.
One man’s pleasure is another man’s snooze.

It makes sense. Journalists cover stories considered new, noteworthy, or different.

Compare and contrast that with bloggers, who are passionate about not-news. Using Richard’s example, there are bankers, bank employees and bank customers who are ecstatic that their banks weren’t robbed today, as well as other banking-related stories such as:

• newlyweds who bought there first home
• customers who started a home-based business
• children who opened their first savings account

Although none of these stories are newsworthy, they are all blogworthy.

Corporate blogging is about “not-news,” content that doesn’t meet the news-needs of a general audience. And it’s through publishing these stories that businesses can distinguish themselves from their competition.

Bloggers and journalists can coexist peacefully because they cover totally different things.

Tags: RonAmok New Media Evangelist Ron Ploof journalism blogging corporate blogs newsworthy blogworthy

Saturday morning I sorted through the snail mail pile that had regenerated itself since I performed a similar activity last week. One of the pieces caught my attention — an 8×11 envelope from Bank of America with my name and address handwritten on it. My first impression was that it came from someone who I might have met recently, someone who was following up on a promise to send me something, like an article I might be interested in.

Instead, I found a sales letter with a business card stapled to it.

The business card had a nice shiny picture of Jim Faulkner, Mortgage Loan officer. The copy on the advertisement told me NOTHING…well except for the fact that “More people come directly to Bank of America…,” they are “…dedicated…Close-On-Time…” and have the “…highest service rankings and the lowest foreclosure rates…”

“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…”

“Nurse, we’re losing him. Caffeine. STAT!”

Normally, after dozing off, I’ll just crumple up the paper and try to hit a three pointer from my seat. But for some reason, I felt generous this time. I thought to myself, “Heck, I’ll need another mortgage some day. Jim looks like a nice guy. Let me checkout his blog to see what he’s all about.”

I searched all over his business card, the sales letter, the envelope and found nothing close. Of course it did contain a URL with a tracking number, but let’s be serious; it exists for Bank of America’s benefit, not mine.

That’s when I started to feel a little bad for Jim. How on earth is he gonna distinguish himself from all the other mortgage sales letters that are crammed into my mailbox on a weekly basis? Without a blog, or a Facebook profile, or any online presence, how will I know what kind of person he is, what sorts of advice he offers, or what unique services he provides that go beyond helping me fill out a mortgage application?

Without offering me this outlet, why on earth would I do business with Jim/Bank of America over the local savings bank, Wells Fargo, or Washington Mutual?

New Media Evangelist ronamok Bank of America Washington Mutual Wells Fargo corporate blogging sales letters