1to1 Media’s Senior Editor Kevin Zimmerman wrote yesterday in his blog about his interview with Paul Gillin, who recently authored the book “The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media.”
Gillin says that many companies aren’t committed to their blogs, and don't devote the time and resources to managing it. Others start their blogs without a well-thought plan and as a result their blogs eventually die.
At the Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange this week, I found that many executives struggle with this same issue of how to leverage blogs. Some even are challenged with how to get started, and if they will provide value for their companies.
A brief list of the challenges I overheard include: how to handle negative content, developing a response strategy, who writes it, bandwidth to manage the blog, what metrics to use to measure it, the complexity, maintaining consistency across channels, how to write for corporate blogs, how to morph forums with blogs, how to calculate ROI, and awareness of legal and compliance issues.
While some executives grappled with these issues at the conference, others spoke about their successes. David Doucette, director of Internet strategy at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, said that the hotel chain features a blog “written” by their lobby dogs. The blogs tell the Fairmont stories and gives guests opportunities to tell their experiences. Guests actually bond with the dogs and even call the hotels to inquire about how they’re doing.
Grier Graham, vice president of sales and marketing at TechDirt, a corporate intelligence provider, told me that even though the company has a couple hundred customers, the blog receives 100,000 page hits every day. As a result, the company uses the viral nature of the blog as a marketing tool and major news outlets have linked to the blog recently.
And Rick Short, marcom director for Indium Corporation, a provider of thermal interface materials, said the company’s blog is used as a competitive differentiator. Commmunities of customers like semi-conductor communities and liquid flux communities, have formed as a result. “We’ve been blogging for three years and not a single competitor has tried to enter the space,” Short said.
My belief is that blogs provide a way for companies to engage with customers, they offer new marketing channels, and they offer a avenue for customers’ voices to be heard. It’s up to individual companies to leverage that valuable customer insight and marketing potential.
TechDirt, Fairmont, and Indium are three very different companies in varying industries and all have found success with blogs. If you’re one of those companies spending time debating the value in blogs rather than assembling a team to develop the initial research and plans for one, your competitors are probably out there engaging with your customers through their blogs as we speak.
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