Jul 12th, 2007 | Corporate Blogging, Debbie Weil, GlaxoSmithKline, Google, Johnson & Johnson | 4 Comments
I’m sitting in the lobby of Harbour Centre in lovely Vancouver, watching a huge cruise ship leave port and occasionally glancing at my feed reader. Here’s some reading material I’ve discovered today that’s worth sharing.
- Over at oreilly.com, Nat Torkington has an interesting post up about the Lauren Turner/Google incident.
- BrandWeek’s Marc Monseau Jim Edwards compares Johnson & Johnson’s new blog to Pravda.
EDIT July 12th: Adriana points out that Marc Monseau is of course the blogger doing JNJBTW, not the author of the Brandweek piece about that blog (that’s Jim Edwards). Thanks for correcting me, Adriana!
- Finally, Allan Jenkins suggests that Debbie Weil is astroturfing for alliConnect, a new blog meant to promote a weight loss product sold by GlaxoSmithKline.
I’d comment more extensively, but I’m still a bit too jetlagged, plus a long day of conferencing lies behind me. Funny coincident though, all these health-related blogs appearing almost at once, and interesting that they all appear to have their issues. Is it an exaggeration to say that the health care sector has its problems with blog transparency? I’d be interested in your opinion, especially if you’ve worked in that area.
Apr 10th, 2007 | Corporate Blogging, Debbie Weil, Fake Blogs, Gourmet Station, PR, ROI of Blogging, Robert Scoble | 1 Comment
That’s the title of a great 1997 album by Blonde Redhead and as it happens, it is also today’s topic - just in a way not related to alternative rock, but to (corporate) blogging.
Here’s the thing: it never ceases to intrigue me how often I come across blogging-related advice. There’s no shortage of suggestions, guidelines and even rules out there - rules that are often considered absolute and inviolable by those who postulate them. Often suggestions from perceived authorities such as Robert Scoble and Debbie Weil on how to blog are interpreted as dogma; for example, the maxims that blogs are personal, that you must be transparent and so forth have all become pervasive*. How often have you read that a blog is a conversation, or that misleading readers about the identity or motives of the blogger is immoral?
I don’t want to challenge any of these ideas, but I do want to make a distinction between the different shades of meaning of the words blog, blogging and blogger, because it is hard to talk about something when you lack a consistent definition. I also want to question the validity of the judgment that certain blogs are “fake”, or at least ask whether that’s really a bad thing.
Blogging is understood alternately understood as
a) the use of a publishing technology
b) the style in which blogs are often written
c) the type of social interaction between the blogger and his readers
and often - but not always - it is the combination of all three of these things. Note that they build upon each other: a bloggy style makes limited sense when you’re writing a letter (using another publishing technology), because even though the two types of text share several common traits they also differ significantly in other regards.
Say you’re a Java developer who likes to write about coding, snowboarding in the Rockies and Frank Miller comic books. You’ve set up an installation of Wordpress on your own webserver and publish your first entry. It could start like this:
Hey everyone! So, guess what, I’ve decided to start a blog too. I’ll post here from time to time to talk about whatever catches my interest […]
Even with just a handful of words, it can be clearly established that this kind of writing appeared in a blog and not, say, a newspaper, a personal diary, or a speech, even though it contains elements that are also common in these genres (of course it has the word “blog” in it, but even without that keyword I think a classification is possible). Now imagine that you’re a loyal reader of this blog and one day you find out that your snowboarding hacker friend is actually an invention - a fictional character developed by the department of systematic deception (DoSD) of a global PR firm (let’s call it Noble PR).
How would you react to this piece of information?
I think one gets a good idea of how people feel about these things when looking at blogs like this one and reactions such as these (read the first few comments). Blogs like Gourmet Station’s have been widely criticized for “violating the rules” and “being fake”. Where do these sentiments come from? They are the result of a holistic interpretation of blogs as a specific combination of a publishing technology, a style of writing and a kind of social interaction (a + b + c; see above). In other words: if you run a blogging software, write from a first-person viewpoint and directly address your readers, it is assumed that you are a real person, because only real human beings can engage in such an interaction (meaning a + b implicates c).
There are good reasons why you might want to use a blog as a publishing tool without writing in a bloggy style or allowing comments from your readers. Tools such as Wordpress and Movable Type are used for everything from publishing poetry to managing entire websites and their versatility makes “non-traditional” usages plausible. But the Catch 22 appears to be style: if a writer makes frequent use of the first-person pronoun, vocatives, interjections and other stylistic elements that are traditionally frequent in spoken language in what looks like a blog in terms of presentation, it must be assumed that he is communicating with me, because that is how a typical blog works.
Social interactions of even the simplest type represent an investment for the participants. I react to you in a certain way because I have assumptions both about you and about your assumptions about me. If my assumptions turn out to be unfounded, the result is a loss of face. Nobody wants to deal with someone who isn’t honest about their identity.
The special thing about blogs is that the technological frame they live in makes it especially plausible to assume these things. Nobody finds the conversational style described above terribly confusing or irritating in a novel, despite the fact that we usually know the difference between the voice of the author and the voice of his fictional characters**. But the difference is that I can’t interact with the author when reading a novel and thus there is very little likelihood that I’ll mistake what is going on for a real instance of communication that somehow involves me.
So where does that leave us? And why is the title of this post “fake can be just as good”?
Despite the outrage two years ago, the fictional T. Alexander still blogs for Gourmet Station and the blog has a PageRank of 5 out of 10 (this site has a mere 3). It shows up in fourth place if you google for “gourmet blog” and, according to Technorati, almost 400 links poin there. Finally the Northeastern University/Backbone Media Study lists it as an example for successful corporate blogging.
Here’s a (rather long) excerpt that provides an excellent picture of Gourmet Station’s approach to the blog (taken from the study):
Donna described how everything on the blog has to be consistent with the brand. She moderates the comments and makes sure those comments are consistent with the brand. No profanity or unrelated comments are allowed on the blog. Donna explained that “everything has got to be very buttoned up, we have a very buttoned up brand, and we have a very upscale brand, very upscale, well educated customers. So anything that goes out there has to be consistent with that.” The blog also allows the company to discuss their content in a laid back tone. That content has produced higher rankings on search engines and helped to increase traffic to the blog by 10%.
Donna believes it to be important that the people who write on the blog are knowledgeable about food and wine. The blog’s readers are looking for ideas around food, drink, and entertainment.
The blog has helped Donna’s company add content to their website on the topics and products the company is focused on providing. Also, the blog has given Donna the ability to place content that they otherwise would not have been able to put on their website. Donna said it was important that a company covers all of the topics they wish to cover in their blog posts, and to categorize those topics by keyword.
The Gourmet Station blog has achieved a number two ranking on the keyword “gourmet dinners” in Yahoo! The blog has played a big part in helping the company to achieve that ranking. According to Donna, the blog has also helped establish the company’s brand and provide more sales conversions by making a “passionate connection” with readers.
The topic that generates the most conversation and interaction from readers on the blog is romance. Donna said that made sense, as the search volumes for romance and dinner have a great connection.
Donna selects the content of the posts by season. Donna said the blog has 14 categories, and the company always has a recent post in each of the categories.
Donna recommends a company have a strategy before starting to blogging. Her company has two strategies: to fill their categories with content and to increase they’re (sic) ranking on search engines.
The bottom line appears to be: Gourmet Station designed a blog to increase search engine visibility and to publish material that did not fit into the context of a traditional corporate site. Perhaps they felt that this material was too context-dependent (recipes for seasonal gourmet foods, etc), or that a less formal style of writing was needed, but only in a certain limited area and not for the entire site. Whatever their motivation - there is hardly a rational reason to argue against their success. Whether “fake” or “real” (note the quotes), it appears that different strategies can realize different goals for different people.
I’m pretty sure that examples such as the Gourmet Station blog will remain marginal, though. It’s not really because of the outrage “fake” company blogs generate (is there such a thing as bad PR?), but because it seems somewhat contrived and unnecessary to come up with a fictional character to write your blog when you might just as well have a real person do it. It’s not too hard to stick with The Message even when you’re blogging under your own name - numerous product blogs out there prove that. How you measure success is an entirely other question. In that context, note Gourmet Station’s specific goals of increasing visibility and publishing “unconventional” content.
So there it is. You can blog, or you can publish via a blog. Or you can do the latter and hope that people will believe it’s really the former. Not much shame in that, I think.
* The single most important document in this context is probably Scoble’s Corporate Weblog Manifesto, which has seems to have influenced most subsequently formulated blogging guidelines.
** Of course this is systematically exploited in literature, for example in epistolary novels. Playing with the status of a piece of writing as ambiguously real or fictional was also a hallmark of Postmodernism.
(Edit) Here are a few more interesting links I initially forgot to include: one, two, three.
Nov 23rd, 2006 | Corporate Blogging, Debbie Weil, Jonathan Schwartz, PR, Robert Scoble | No Comments
I just came across this short article in the Guardian, posted last week. It follows the usual modus operandi of mentioning Robert Scoble and Jonathan Schwartz (and Thomas Mahon of English Cut fame) and goes on to quote Debbie Weil numerous times (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
But the real gem is right at the beginning of the piece:
When The Carphone Warehouse boss Charles Dunstone started his corporate blog earlier this year, he was hailed as a cutting-edge chief executive; a man prepared to open up the inner workings of his company to the wider world and willing to communicate directly with his customers.
But that was April, when Britain’s biggest mobile phones retailer was riding high on a wave of favourable publicity about its “free” TalkTalk broadband offer.
Scroll forward a few months and the web is full of tales of “My TalkTalk Hell” as the group struggles to cope with the demand it so badly under-estimated, leaving thousands of customers angry and frustrated.
So what did Dunstone do at the height of the crisis? He simply stopped blogging. From September 1 until earlier this week - two and a half months - he failed to make a single entry. His post this Monday largely consists of an apology for his lengthy absence and a reassurance that the broadband supply problems are being worked out.
Ouch. If there’s one general, universal rule of business blogging it’s in the midst of a crisis, silence is not golden. Posting positive messages while the sailing is smooth is fine, but if there’s any time when a blog is almost indispensable, it’s when things go awry. Why? Because a blog is by far the best channel to make clear beyond doubt that
a) you recognize that there’s a problem
b) you’re sorry
If you aren’t convinced that those two aspects are extremely relevant, ask these guys about it. It’s a bit like Seth Godin once pointed out in a very interesting presentation at Google. Godin shocked his listeners by telling them something both harsh and true: nobody cares about your product. I believe he later qualified the statement - obviously a lot of people do care about Google’s products - but in assuming a complete lack of interest and “passion” on the side of customers regarding the phone service, dog food or toilet paper that you sell, you’re usually on the safe side. And the same largely holds true for companies. If wireless provider X is reliable and moderately priced, will I actively seek out X CEO’s blog to add my praise? Not too likely. But once things go wrong - once I’m frustrated and annoyed and quite sure that nobody is doing anything at all about my problem - then I’m going to post a comment on the company blog and make sure that I’m heard.
Silence leaves a barn door open for interpretation. Explaining and apologizing are basic social abilities - a lack of them indicates that you don’t understand how interpersonal interaction works, or (even worse), that you understand quite well but don’t care.
Mr. Dunstone didn’t realize that he was saying a whole lot by not saying anything. Don’t make that mistake.
Sep 27th, 2006 | CEO Blogging, Corporate Blogging, Debbie Weil, Ghostblogging | 8 Comments
Here’s a comment I just wrote as a response to Debbie Weil, who recently (among other things) discussed ghostblogging, i.e. the approach of having someone else write your CEO blog.
(Edit: this post, to which Weil refers, and the discussion that follows is really what this is all about.)
I believe that the debate about whether or not ghostblogging is acceptable is closely related to the importance of blog authorship in general. Let’s start by revisiting a few basic questions.
What are blogs not good for?
From the way they are used by most people, it seems blogs are not good for providing purely informative content that is largely independent of a specific context and derives its authority from an institution (in contrast to an individual). Examples for such writings would be legal texts, official documents, instruction manuals and - to a certain extent - press releases. Who the author is and in what context a piece was written (in terms of time, place and social situation) should not be reflected closely by the text, otherwise it cannot serve the purpose its users assign it (resolving a dispute, confirming your identity, figuring out how your toaster works, etc). A blog is also not independent of its individual author, which is precisely what these texts intend to be. Instruction manuals usually don’t credit the writer because they are meant to be used, not read to gain a better understand of who the author is.
Simplifying a whole lot, blogs are the direct opposite of these text types. Not only are they usually not meant to be “used” in any way, but they also tend to be more argumentative than informative and more subjective than universally objective. Just compare an entry on Wikipedia with any random blog post and check how often the personal pronoun “I” shows up - it’s usually 0 vs. a lot. The author of an encyclopedia entry will seek to stay as far “behind the scenes” as possible, because the article should not be about him, but about the topic described.
So what are blogs good for, then? From what I’ve seen, they primarily serve a social function. They allow me to meet Debbie Weil, Robert Scoble and Jonathan Schwartz in their own virtual living-room, furnished to their own individual taste, while I’m sitting right here in my office at the University of Duesseldorf. The fact that I can not only read what they have to say but actually respond and have a conversation with them is something that was unimaginable before the advent of blogging. There’s just one little catch: I have to know who I’m talking to. Because if I don’t, this miracle of communication unconstrained by time and space disappears in a big puff of smoke, as there is simply no level of trust, depth or relationship that can grow between me and an anonymous voice. Which is fine if the text in question is purely informative or instructional, but not if it’s supposed to tell me who the writer is, in his own language.
Now, you could argue that this is not the case with a ghostwritten blog - it has an author after all, just that he’s not the person under whose name things are published. True, but the problem remains that if people become aware of the disparity, they will probably find it unacceptable. Keep in mind that on the net authorship can never be validated in the same way that it is possible in person, and therefore any form of deception is likely to irreparably damage trust once it is discovered. And if that happens, you’re going to wish you’d never started a blog at all.
“But it works for ghostwritten speeches!”, you might contend. Yes, but do those really serve a social function? Do they necessarily reflect beliefs, goals and ideas which belong to the individual delivering the speech? Are they directed at individual people or crowds?
Blogs aren’t (good) megaphones, they’re fireside chats. And who you’re chatting with is at least as important as what they have to say.
Aug 28th, 2006 | Boeing, Corporate Blogging, Debbie Weil, GM, ROI of Blogging, Randy Baseler | 4 Comments
I’ve just finished listening to an interview with Debbie Weil posted on podtech.net. Needless to say, she talks about her book and provides her views on corporate blogging as part of a marketing strategy, but as has been noted elsewhere, the piece remains rather general and somewhat blurry around the edges. However, I wasn’t interested solely in the topic itself, but also in how interviewer Jennifer Jones and Weil characterize blogging and what their perspective is.
Here’s a summary, with a few comments sprinkled in here and there.
Jones names three categories of corporate blogs (from Weil’s book, I assume) which can be integrated into a corporate marketing strategy:
- thought leadership blogs
- community building blogs
- CRM blogs
She then asks Weil to name examples for each categories and interjects a questions about the ROI of blogging at one point. Weil begins by describing blogs from a technical point of view, as “a kind of web site”. The characterization is interesting because it bypasses the usually cited aspects of content and style, i.e. “like a personal diary” or “written in an informal tone“. Weil’s definition is much more accurate: blogs are similar to personal diaries (or ship’s logs, for that matter) only in terms of post structure. The other reason for the generalization that blogs are diaries stems from the fact that most people seem to use them in that fashion. But whereas e.g. the novel is a form of text (or genre), the blog remains as of yet a publishing technology. Of course it’s possible - probable even - that the format eventually becomes a genre, as people establish a generally accepted notion of what a blog should “sound like” and these concepts become conventions, but I think it’s safe to assume that this hasn’t happened yet.
Weil goes on to name search engine attraction as a prime reason to maintain a blog. I feel that this partly undermines what she later says about “thought leadership” etc, because it implies that exposure is more important than what is actually blogged. Then again, SEO remains the sole advantage of corporate blogging that is measurable, so citing visibility as a relevant incentive makes sense. Either that, or I interpret “thought leadership” a bit too literally.
She goes on to describe a (good) thought leadership blog as telling “the back story”, “what the executive is thinking”, and that it should be “real”, and provides Jonathan Schwartz’ blog as an example. Her counter-example is Randy Baseler of Boeing, whose style she refers to somewhat “bland”.
Interesting tidbit: while I’m not quite ready to tout it as evidence, my metrics on both blogs correlate with her observation in an interesting way. Schwartz uses personal and possessive plural pronouns (”we”, “our”) more frequently than Baseler. His style could be characterized as somewhat more involved than Baseler’s, which could in turn have an effect on reception. Note that I’m careful about drawing any conclusions. Even if I had more data (which I don’t, at least not yet), how interesting one writes is not quantifiable through language analysis. Interestingly enough though, Weil goes into a similar direction when she calls material written by PR people “vetted”, “reviewed”, and “corporate speak”, which is in opposition to the maxim of “telling the back story”.
After discussing community building blogs (which are similar to what I’ve labelled industry blogs), Jones brings up the question of return on investment for blogging. Weil can, of course, provide no answer to the question of “whether blogs work”, but suggests that the influence exerted by blogs is beneficial and thus profitable. This is at least somewhat problematic. A catchy phrase such as “return on influence” actually underlines the problem of not knowing anything about the effects of blogging. When talking about “return on investment”, the investment part of the equation is known, it’s the return that we’re interested in. “Return on influence”, by contrast, is an equation with two unknown variables - we neither know the return, nor whether there is influence, nor how closely the two are related. I wouldn’t deny that blogs may have an influence on consumer perception, only that this relationship can be easily characterized as “return on anything” (ROA).
The third type of blog that Weil discusses is the CRM blog. She cites Google as an example and asserts that the company blog is used partly to “side-step the press”, i.e. to provide customers with an account that provides “the back story” in addition to the “official story” of the press release. “What goes on behind the doors” is what is really interesting to people, etc. Does this suggest that the #1 PR strategy associated with blogging is to proclaim that PR is dead - to then cheerfully resurrect it in a new outfit, speaking a new lingo? Are blogs marketing tools which should not be used by marketers, because that would invalidate their claim of authenticity? Death to PR and marketing, long live PR and marketing 2.0?
Finally, she gives GM’s product blog as an example for how a blog’s goal can be “misunderstood on the part of the customer”. The Fastlane blog is conceived as a means of showcasing GM’s products to potential customers and to the public at large, not to provide customer assistance or publicly debate corporate strategy. Of course, one could object that the “misunderstanding” lies elsewhere, namely in the company’s assumption that it is possible to tout a blog as proof of a commitment to openness and community and then “close the door” when the response is deemed inappropriate or off-topic. The schema of blogging invites comments and feedback - readers are unlikely to care that your company’s blog is devised purely to advertise products if they’ve learned elsewhere that blogs are all about interactivity and people connecting. If enough energy is devoted to making a speaker appear authentic, his authentic speech will produce authentic responses.
