5 Starter Moves- Should Blogging Go Next
In our Five Starter Moves discussion so far, we’ve talked about framing the idea to our organization, and listening/hearing. Now, let’s talk about blogging.
I ask this question because I believe most people advising organizations about social media go straight for a blog as their first option. I’m going to step out and say that maybe a blog ISN’T a good first choice. Why? Because I think that blogs are fairly substantial steps, and that an organization might feel really exposed if their first attempt at clearing their throat is an A Cappella moment on stage in front of thousands.
Why not start with a tumbleblog? In fact, an organization could even do a stealth trial of the feel of blogging by doing a few “throwaway” tumbleblogs that AREN’T about the organization. Start with something that appeals to the person who might be asked to blog. If they’re into Texas Hold-Em, cool. See if you can get them to post once every few days about poker.
Find some blogs that you’d want your organization to emulate in tone or style or content, and subscribe to those in the reader, too (at this point, you might consider adding some folders to the reader, one for “listening” and one for “blogs.” Add a mix of related business blogs and maybe even some “fun” blogs to read, like poker blogs (to match my idea above).
Blogging is fun, empowering, and a great way to build the “face” of an organization, but it’s also some people’s version of standing naked out on stage. Ease them into it. Give them a chance to get comfortable, and then break out blogging.
Internal, External, or Both?
I advocate for blogging inside the firewall (privately), as well as having a public facing blog. The internal blogs make a great way to share and compare knowledge, and now that your company is full of professional RSS listeners, they can learn quickly the benefit of using a blog for information sharing instead of email.
Back outside the firewall, facing the public space, your organization will want to be able to use their voice and talk about what matters to their organization. Some companies, like Sun and Microsoft, have TONS of company blogs, several written by engineers and people in the trenches. Blogging is NOT the responsibility of the Mar/Com team, nor the CEO. It’s whoever should be sharing their voice to open up the conversation to the company.
Choice of Platform
This isn’t very important in the scheme of things, but I’ll put in a plug for WordPress as being simple, configurable, and non-threatening. Hosting a copy of the application on your own site makes it a lot more configurable, but if that’s an issue for IT reasons, or some other roadblock, there’s a free, hosted version too.
Other platforms you can check out in the free and hosted camp are Blogger, TypePad, Vox, and then about a gazillion others. Like I said: it’s not especially important, except in understanding the level of customization you want at your disposal.
Topics of Conversation
If your organization has been reading other blogs that you’ve recommended, or blogs in your space, you should start to get a sense of what’s important. From there, I’d recommend just trying it out. Post something. See what happens. See how people respond or not (comments should be enabled, but we could have another huge whole post just on comments, couldn’t we?).
Here, at [chrisbrogan.com], I tend to talk about things from two levels: starting with a simple strategy, and then finishing with some actionable ideas. I call this notion “giving your ideas handles.” Meaning, I want you to take what I share and apply it to your own needs, make it your own. It’s a great strategy for me, because it keeps people engaged, and it is, I hope, most often helpful.
There are tons of ways to get the conversation started. Don’t bog down on that. Just try something, and see what happens. With that said, read this.
Things to Avoid
Some easy landmines to avoid:
- It’s okay to remove potty talk and unruly trolls from your blog’s comments section (lots of people cite the: “if I wouldn’t allow it in my living room, I won’t allow it on my blog” rule).
- But DON’T delete comments that criticize you, provided the people stay civil. This is just begging for a brawl. It’s considered in poor taste. Besides, that’s one part of blogging: understanding what people think of you. If you can’t learn from your critics, where are you getting all your advice? Your raving fans only?
- Don’t repurpose other people’s content without appropriate permissions. Learn about the Creative Commons and about the difference between RSS making it easy for people to consume content versus making it easy for people to steal content. (A hot button with creative types.)
- Don’t just post press releases and marketing junk into a blog. No one will read it, and things will go ghost town quickly.
- Try to keep your blog open to more than just pitching yourself, your organization, and your services. It’s your place, so you can do what you want, but if it’s just a big fat ad, that gets boring fast, too.
Sounds like there are lots of negatives to this blogging stuff, huh? Not exactly, but there ARE lots of ways to make a crummy first impression, so that’s why I wanted to cover all those.
What You Should Get Out of Blogging
Blogging, when you’re comfortable with it, is a great way to keep people in the loop about what matters to you. It’s a great way to represent your organization. It’s a wonderful way to share information back and forth, especially once you start learning from experiencing other people’s blogs.
Next: Audio and Video
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Comments
I like this. Yes, blogging doesn’t have to be the first step. I’ve found the wiki feature in the new SharePoint 2007 to be very effective in getting managers, departments and ultimately the suits (execs) to accept and embrace social media.
“That’s it? Click edit?” Always brings a smile to my face. I then show them how we can use the blog to make annoucements like we did for current events on our intranet only this time much easier and quicker…and that means keeping everyone informed almost in realtime. Another smile.
I really liked the listening tips. The benefits are many. I will be doing that a lot. Thanks.
Pai
PR guys get storytelling thru press releases, briefings, etc. Marketing guys get message management, taglines, desired brand impressions. Blogging requires them to go outside their comfort zone. It requires them (hopefully) to say less about what they want the user to hear and more about *what is happening here*. The biggest thing I find clients need to understand is they have to “feed the beast” - write good stuff, early and often.
“Why isn’t anyone commenting on my blog post?!!?” - because you keep letting the intern copy-paste press releases into your blog. Users are taking one look at this and decided it is crap. “Why isn’t anyone subscribing to my feed/visiting my blog? - my pageviews suck!” - because you announced the blog through a press release. You didn’t bother to become part of the community your company wants to have a conversation with. You don’t link to or comment on others blogs with anything of value. You are trying to reach a world that doesn’t read press releases and discovers information and stories with a very low “bullsh!t” tolerance.
A lot of clients start blogging long before they learn to listen for one reason - listening is hard work. It doesnt scale well. If you have a blog with 50-60 comments per post (after spam and dirty word filtering) that is a LOT of work to read through them and respond to each one - especially if the users are writing thoughtful comments. If you have your CEO or VP of x as the author of the blog, they are most likely writing the post on their blackberry and sending it to the web team to post, if at all. Reply to each and every one? Not gonna happen.
And when you don’t listen, you anger the users. You are “using” social media tools, but aren’t really invested in the concept or practice of social.
Companies want to jump in with both feet, and will, recognizing they may not have a handle on this whole blogging thing (the active listening side, the active storytelling side or the outreach side) - sometimes actually coming out and saying “we cant respond to all of your comments, but we do read them all”. And thats OK (for now). Its an evolution not a revolution. You have more than one chance to make a good impression, especially if you have some humility, make the effort and invest in the community you are trying to build. A company can get it wrong, dust off and try again.
The irony is, “feeding the beast”, coming up with good stories to tell isn’t very hard if you are listening. The users are telling you what interests them. They are giving you free (and incredibly valuable) advice on comment by comment basis. Real feedback, not focus group “I want to please the moderator and get my $100″ nonsense. The more honest a company is with blogging, the more honest the users will be in their comments.
If companies listen, they will never need to worry about running out of things to blog or podcast or videoblog about. The users will set the editorial calendar for them. Which is actually kinda cool.
Excellent points, Brogan.
Your Internal, External or Both section is near and dear to me personally, as I’ve struggled mightily to integrate both into a large EMS provider’s internal and external messaging strategy with limited success. But I know what I’m up against. To paraphrase one of James Carville’s tried and true branding statements –
“It’s the stock price, stupid.”
Blogging just plain isn’t for everybody, especially when a public company is trying to drive their stock price in a beleaguered market sector, and every cough and fart that sneaks out of the company requires MARCOM and Legal approval.
That dog just don’t hunt in Blogland.
[...] (a living, breathing machine - i have no idea how he gets it all done) wrote this great post: 5 Starter Moves- Should Blogging Go Next : I’m going to step out and say that maybe a blog ISN’T a good first choice. Why? Because I [...]
You’re right about stealing posts being a hot button. Spam blogs infuriate me. I’ve made it a side project to report every one and get them shut down.
Love the tutorial format of these posts, Chris!
I agree that listening should come first, but then it becomes an exercise in patience before a company starts blogging. Once the listening begins and execs see the opportunity to get the “message” out there in another venue, they’re willing to throw just about anything out there without thinking through the strategy completely.
Patience and planning are key, I believe, to developing a long-term blogging strategy.
You’re spot on, Chris, to say listening comes first. I think the next step for a company might be responding and becoming part of the conversation - at that level. Provide comments and feedback to the blogs. Maybe even respond to customers through the comments sections. The response/comment step could be the first step out into the public eye before launching even a throwaway blog.
Once the organization sees the value of listening and responding, an external corporate blog can be more easily sold up the chain.
I realize I work in a behomoth corporation that is less than nimble, so this cautious approach may not be for everyone. In a company our size the challenge is coordinating the blog strategy throughout. Where does it live? MarComm? PR? Internal Com? Who owns it and do all the bloggers need to be working in concert? And best yet, what metrics do we place on blogging to measure it’s effectiveness and justify the work?
Always more questions than answers. Thanks Chris!
I actually use Brogan as an example of listening when I discuss these topics with clients. A while back he wrote about how big companies can use social media:
http://chrisbrogan.com/how-big-companies-could-use-social-media/
The best part of the post (which was a good post) was the Saturn guy leaving a comment. Killer. They were listening. Its a gesture from a monolithic company to the little guy that “hey, we aren’t ignoring you”. And that is a big deal.
Every time I give that example, its wide eyes around the room.
I agree, Chris. I used to try to push blogging on everyone, because everyone should be doing it. I enjoy it and I see benefits beyond what I ever imagined and I want you to do the same, that was my sales pitch. I even set some people up, reluctantly, I think. The blogs didn’t last, they didn’t want to do it and it wasn’t their thing.
Nowadays, I don’t push it at all, generally, and if someone tells me they want to start a blog I really give them the third degree. Asking why, why do you want to start? What do you think you will get out of it? Do you realize that having a blog means you have to write?
I agree that a blog usually should not be the first step out of the gate. I always tell people that they need to start reading blogs first, get a feel for how they flow, understand how the community flows, start commenting, maybe even begin to have a presence in your community through blogging, then maybe it’s time to start blogging.
[...] can start to use social media. After starting with a introductory post he talked about Listening, Blogging, Audio and Video, and Social Networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and [...]
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A friend of mine is a editor on a small newspaper in upstate NY. His company told him he needed to start blogging, so he writes small pieces online. It’s actually been a convenient way for me to keep up with him, more so than particularly “useful” for the paper.
However, I think blogs are a long term strategy not a short term one. They put a human face on any organization; they require regular updating with meaningful information. They need to be authentic, and as much time needs to be spent looking for other similar information on the web, creating valuable hyperlinks, and commenting on other blogs to make the blog more popular. With 70 mill+ blogs, this rise in popularity might only happen with consistent effort over a year or more. It’s not a short term strategy, but a consistent one that becomes part of the online presence of the organization.
Blogs are planting a flag in the sand, and signal that a business is interested in communicating. But unless the blog is active, and interactive (and we all have slow to no comment days), it may not be seen as providing all that much value. That’s when we have to remember this is narrowcasting, not broadcasting, and the people who do come, comment and read are really interested in what you have to say- just the people you want to be talking to. That’s the value.