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Business blogs are required reading

BlogKing May 4th, 2007

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Reading books in your field is an important trait of leaders. The same applies to business blogs. The greatest business minds are sharing their knowledge for free. Smart competitors are constantly reading more and therefore learning more. What about you? Are you reinventing your knowledge continuously or is your intellectual capital getting staler by the month?

Seth Godin elaborates.

Authors , Blog Trends , Marketing
Comments(2)

Search consolidates but diversifies also

BlogKing April 20th, 2007

Google just keeps going and going … almost puts the Energizer Bunny to shame. Google market share gained another 2ppts in March. So here’s a question. If Google gains one more point in market share, will we lose our veto power? That’s right, for all intents and purposes two-thirds of the 6.4 billion web search queries in the US pass through the Google servers.

How Blogging Allows Six Degree of Perspective

BlogKing March 31st, 2007

Why Blogging Matters

Wow, what a great post over at The Marketing Excellence blog by Eric Kintz, Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence for HP.

Technology has enabled customers to dramatically change their attitude towards marketing. As a result, they are tuning out in increasing numbers and talking back. Customers are shifting massively their entertainment and information consumption away from traditional media to the new web space.

Marketers are responding by shifting their advertising to web properties, but online advertising is struggling to gain trust. According to a recent Forrester survey of US households, only 6% trust search engine ads and 2% online banner ads. Customers trust themselves and each other in influencing their perception of a brand. Yet few marketers have embraced blogging, although it supposedly enables a more personal and two-way interaction with the brand.

So does blogging matter? Six senior marketing executives in established corporations who share a common passion for blogging lent their thoughs:

#1 - PR and Blogging – A Love Story or Peaceful Coexistence

#2 – Blogging and the “new influencers”

#3 – The role of blogging in the changing world of advertising

#4 – The role of blogging as part of an integrated web strategy

#5 – Drive Harmony in Conversational Touchpoints

#6 - Creativity, Innovation + Blogging

If large corporations are having these conversations then blogging for business, both large and small, is here to stay. The only question is… when will your company join the conversation?

Blog, an emotional description

BlogKing January 4th, 2007

Neville Hobson clarifies an often poorly defined term: blog.

Answering the question invariably includes a description of the attributes a website must have in order for it to be a blog:

Reverse chronologically-ordered content, written by the author

Author’s personality/passion shining through in the posts

Commenting - the means for visitors to comment on the blog itself

Trackbacks (links to and from other blog posts)

Content distribution by RSS

But is commenting THE essential attribute.

I’ve always maintained that a blog without the ability for visitors to leave comments isn’t really a blog, given that a blog is all about openness of unfiltered expression and conversation. It takes more than one to have a conversation.

I’ve been thinking about this after reading Dave Winer’s post yesterday in which he defines the one true characteristic of a blog:

The unedited voice of a person.

That’s all. Nothing else is a requirement.

That’s a pretty good definition. If you think about it, the attributes I mentioned above are the technical description of a website that’s a blog (and see Dave Winer’s 2003 definition). What Dave is talking about is the emotional description.

I very much like this emotional description. But what about commenting?

Well, I’d look at it this way - comments are to conversations as blogs are to individual and unfiltered expression.

In other words, to have a conversation, you must have either comments on your blog itself or a related device that connects people’s expressions, those unfiltered/unedited voices. Trackbacks, for instance, which link and connect content on the web.

But to be a blog, a website doesn’t require on-site comments, just the unedited voice of the blogger.

I’d accept that view.

I contend that the value of a blog for service professionals is the articulation of one’s passion and expertise. Having others add their two cents is good but lack of comments does not diminish the value of a blog to both the writer and reader.

The writer in the act of writing clarifies his thoughts and hones the message. The reader is educated and hopefully builds a greater sense of appreciation for the writer.

What’s not to like about that?

How to Measure Blog Influence

BlogKing August 18th, 2006

iMedia Connection: How to Measure Blog Influence.

You’ve read much about blogging and the blogosphere and you are beginning to become a believer in the power of the crowd in helping you get your message across. You’ve convinced your boss that you should spend a certain amount of your day blogging, researching the blogosphere and engaging those who would promote your services far and wide for no otherreason than having an affinity for what good work you do. Great. But at the end of the day, you have no idea how to measure the impact getting your message out on the blogosphere has on your business. The one very important question remains:

What impact does the blogosphere have on my brand?

Like so many facts in marketing, charting the chatter surrounding your brand is more an art than a science. I’m not happy to report that it may indeed be impossible in most cases to see exactly how much revenues are affected by what bloggers are saying about you. There’s no way that I know of to get the fiscal impact of word-of-mouth advertising, as it were, on your sales. That said, it is possible to hold a ruler up to the blogosphere and calculate just how much chatter is being generated around your brand.

Make Your Business More “Conversational”

Michael Klusek July 6th, 2006

How (and Why) to Make Your Business More "Conversational" | Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog.

Are you trying to figure out how to help your company “join the conversation”? Or figure out just why you need to in the first place…?

Amy Gahran points to an excellent article Steve Outing wrote in yesterday’s Editor and Publisher Online. At first pass, How to Make Your Web Site More Conversational focuses on techniques to engage news readers with news media sites and blogs. But in truth, it’s a great primer for how ANY business with any kind of publication — a Web site, newsletter, blog, or whatever — can engage with its audience, foster conversation, and create a sense of community.

For example, read what Amy writes about WHY companies should foster conversation. Ignore the “news” modifier and what’s left is a compelling reason for any company to start talking and listening:

“…the main reason why news organizations should foster strong online conversations boils down to money. Having a loyal, engaged audience is the foundation of almost every aspect of most news organizations’ business model. Few things cement relationships of any kind, but especially with audiences and markets, like strong, mutual communication. Encouraging conversation — and leveraging those conversations to enhance news offerings — demonstrates that your audience is valued not merely as a market, but as a resource.

She adds: “Although only a minority of your audience is likely to engage in online conversations with you at any given time, everyone will notice that you’re open to conversation and making the most of it.

Finally: “All of this enhances reputation, which also helps build brand and audience loyalty.”

A few techniques Steve suggests:

• Specifically ask for comments on any topic by posing pointed questions or asking readers to share their experiences or knowledge about an issue.

• Allow anonymous comments, but screen them first. Encourage people to register before commenting, and don’t screen those.

• Create a "subscribe" feature for each article that allows visitors to receive e-mail alerts whenever someone adds a comment to a story or article.

• Enhance your comments to allow photos.

• Allow your visitors to create their own user-profile pages.

• Add photos of registered readers to comments, and link to their profile pages.

HP Marketing Blog

Michael Klusek July 5th, 2006

This post really helps explain how influence and linking "juice" is generated in the blogosphere, specifically about the topic of new marketing methods in the age of consumer generated media. Thanks Eric.

Web 2.0 viral networks – The Marketing blogging community.

I have always been fascinated by the impact of viral networks on social events and marketing word of mouth. One of my favorite books is the Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, which studies epidemics and applies the learning to explain such social phenomenon as the crime drop in NYC or Sesame Street. One of my main interests in joining the blogosphere was to better understand the emergence of viral blogging networks and other social effects of web 2.0. I was very disappointed when I launched my blog 3 months ago and did not see any real marketing blogging community that I could connect into. The Marketing community was a fragmented ecosphere with a few thought leaders such as Seth Godin or Ben McConnell.

And suddenly, a few players emerged that substantially changed the marketing social blogging network. I have been trying to think about their role in terms of the first law of an epidemic, the “law of the few”.

Social Networks and Viral Marketing (Page 2)

Michael Klusek June 20th, 2006

iMedia Connection: Social Networks and Viral Marketing (Page 2).

Viral marketing isn’t about products or value in the traditional sense; it’s about trust and fair-exchange and is pyramidal in structure. Here is a graphic representation of the pyramid:

The base is Meskauskas’ four elements of entertainment, utility, palpable reward and uniqueness. The top of the pyramid is success. The more you fill that pyramid with trust and fair-exchange, the greater your chances are for a successful campaign.

The message to companies going down this road is a simple one: make the social value of the exchange more important than what’s being exchanged and your campaign will take off every time.

Social Networks and Viral Marketing

Michael Klusek June 20th, 2006

iMedia Connection: Social Networks and Viral Marketing.

The NextStage CRO talks about joke lists, your online network, and how trust powers good word of mouth.

I’m on a joke list– surprise! I don’t know anyone with an email account who isn’t on a joke list. I get jokes from people in all walks of life. Some I’ve never met, yet I have excellent online relationships with them, some I’ve known in person for years. That distinction is important for what comes later in this column. If you’re reading this online, you’re probably on some kind of joke list too.

Recently, I received a joke with a link that lent itself perfectly to two areas of research. The first (just completed) deals with determining value in wikis and blogs; the second concerns viral marketing.

What is viral marketing?
iMedia Connection’s Media Strategies Editor Jim Meskauskas wrote a two part column on viral marketing almost a year ago, and it remains a good source on the topic. Wikipedia has a good and relatively succinct definition as well. The Meskauskas piece is economically oriented and provides online examples; the Wikipedia piece mentions the term’s biological origins.

Meskauskas wrote that viral campaigns are really online versions of word-of-mouth (WOM) advertising. If you remember the "Jesus Christ Superstar" lyric, "What’s the buzz, Tell me what’s a’ happening," then you know what WOM and viral campaigns are all about.

Meskauskas offered four items that good viral marketing campaigns share:

* Entertainment: the marketing is entertaining.
* Utility: what is being marketed is something the reader can use.
* Palpable reward: the marketing provides instant gratification.
* Uniqueness: the marketing is like nothing the reader has ever seen.

He also describes the difference between frictionless and active viral marketing campaigns. Frictionless occurs when the audience spreads the good word via usage, such as Hotmail. Active viral marketing occurs when the audience spreads the word via actively recruiting non-audience members into the audience.

Meskauskas doesn’t quite phrase things that way, and this is where NextStage’s research might extend the concept a bit.

The growing importance of medical blogging

Michael Klusek June 19th, 2006

Envision Solutions, LLC Releases First-Ever Comprehensive Report on Blogs and Healthcare.

New York, NY (PRWEB) April 6, 2006 -– Envision Solutions, LLC, a full-service healthcare marketing communications consultancy, today announced the release of the first comprehensive report on healthcare blogs. This 110-page report is titled, "The Healthcare Blogosphere: What Is It & Why Does It Matter?" It focuses on how blogs have influenced major players in the healthcare industry, including patients, medical professionals, pharmaceutical companies and non-profit organizations.

The report also features commentary on healthcare blogs from seven prominent Weblog experts, educators and patients, including Steve Rubel and B.L. Ochman. Rubel is author of the well-regarded blog, Micro Persuasion (www.micropersuasion.com). Ochman writes the popular What’s Next Blog (www.whatsnextblog.com).

Readers of this report will learn:

- Who is blogging about healthcare and why they are doing it.

- Who the most prominent and prolific healthcare bloggers are.

- How healthcare blogs may impact the physician-patient relationship, treatment practices, consumer-driven healthcare, communications and more.

- Why pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, medical device manufacturers and hospitals have been slow to embrace blogs and why their fears may be misplaced.

- The pros and cons of blogs for healthcare non-profit organizations.

- How to learn about and track the healthcare blogosphere.

- How to start and maintain a successful organizational or individual blog.

The report is available for purchase and download at Envision Solutions’ Web site: www.envisionsolutionsnow.com/spotlight.

Prominent Healthcare Bloggers Endorse Report

Shahid Shah, chief executive officer of healthcare information technology firm Netspective (www.netspective.com), and author of the well-regarded blog, The Healthcare IT Guy (www.healthcareguy.com), praised the report. “In preparing this report, Envision Solutions has taken on an important and timely task,” said Shah. “Instead of speculating about the potential impact of the emerging healthcare blogosphere, the consultancy has conducted thorough primary and secondary research and created a work of great significance. Healthcare companies are already being talked about in blogs, but are not taking control of their own messages. I hope that Envision Solutions’ report will change that.”

Dmitriy Kruglyak, publisher of The Medical Blog Network (www.healthvoices.com), an online healthcare blog community and hosting service, also endorsed the report.

He said: “The publication of this first-of-its-kind report is an important milestone that validates the growing importance of medical blogging. Blogs have already changed the rules of the game in technology, politics and news. Envision Solutions’ comprehensive report provides valuable insights on how this communications medium will ultimately impact healthcare.”