Flack's Revenge

Launching a Company Blog: Getting Started in 3 Easy Steps

The following is a step-by-step guide for companies that want to get started with blogging. 

Step 1:  Choose Blogging Platform

There are a variety of options for blogging platforms.  They range from expensive, enterprise-class content management systems to free open source software and hosted services.

It is easiest to get started with hosted options like Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress.   Costs range from free to about $200/year.  Premium services offer more control over the design and implementation of the blog.  Some include built-in metrics (e.g. TypePad does).

Many people swear by WordPress because its open source roots have resulted in a wide array of add-ons and options.  The Fusion blog is based on Blogger, and this blog uses TypePad Professional.

 Step 2: Blogging Concepts – Themes, domain, and design

There are many options when it comes to blogging concepts.  How you approach this should also influence your decisions regarding the design and domain name.  These decisions, in turn, will determine the results the blog can help you achieve, e.g. in areas like marketing and SEO.

The most successful blogs are organized around compelling themes that have specific audiences in mind.  Many blogs are associated with individuals rather than corporate entities.  Either way, the blog(s) can help further the company’s communications goals.  I do not feel that anonymous blogs, or blogs that appear to be little more than an extension of the company website and marketing department are particularly effective.

The blog theme should influence your choice of domain name.  Domain names that include the right keyword(s) for your space can boost SEO results for the blog.  Using a sub-domain of your company website URL can boost traffic for the site, and the website in turn should boost traffic for the blog.  I recommend including a link (or links) to the blog(s) on your home page.

To really separate the company brand and website from the blog, you should get a totally separate domain name.  This will also in general be a shorter string and thus ostensibly easier to remember and enter.

The theme can also influence the design.  Unless you are trying to make the blog blend in with the company website (which, again, I do not recommend) you will need to decide on things like color scheme, graphics, content selection and layout.

Most blogging services make it easy to pick and arrange content and design elements.  It does not cost much to create a distinctive and appealing design that looks more impressive than the standard templates offered.

Step 3: Launching the Blog

Once you have selected the blogging platform and chosen its theme and design you are ready to launch the blog.  The specific steps will vary based on your choice of blogging platform and the options and add-ons you use.  Some of the steps required to set up and design the blog may have already been completed as part of Step 2 above.

In general, you will want to make sure the following items are addressed before publishing the first post:

1. Roles and Permissions – This should be addressed if there will be multiple contributors and/or if the person who sets up and maintains the blog will be different than the one who posts content.  You will need to specify roles and editing/access rights.

2. Domain name mapping – If you have secured a domain name for the blog or want it to be a sub-domain of your company website, you will need to make sure that domain name mapping or redirection from the domain of the hosted service is in place.
   

3. Publicity options – There are a variety of feeds and pinging mechanisms that should be set up.  These alert search engines and RSS news readers/aggregators when you have a new post.
   

4. Commenting, trackbacks, social sharing – There are various ways in which these elements can be enabled.  Having them set up correctly can boost participation in the site and sharing of the content.
   

5. Metrics – You will want to make sure that you have a way to track where traffic is coming from, pages visited, search terms used, RSS feed consumption, etc.  As mentioned above, some platforms have metrics built in.  Otherwise, it is fairly easy to sign up for and start using free services such as Google Analytics, StatCounter and FeedBurner.
   

There, that’s it!  Once the above steps have been completed comes the fun (and often challenging) part: ensuring a steady stream of fresh and interesting content for the blog.   Also, there are a number of ways to promote the blog and drive traffic to it, which I will be covering in a future post.

Article in the NYT covers Changing Nature of Tech PR

There was a fairly lengthy piece in the NY Times yesterday about evolving PR practices: Spinning the Web: PR in Silicon Valley.  It specifically focused on how tech PR is changing, framing the topic by taking a look at Silicon Valley companies and players.

I thought the article did a pretty good job of summarizing some of the forces that are changing in the profession, and of documenting evolving PR practices.  For example, it describes the growing importance of social networking connections and Twitter and positions traditional tools such as press releases and press tours as perhaps passe'. According to the article:

Gone are the days when snaring attention for start-ups in the Valley meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology Web sites and blogs. Now P.R. gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley.

The article was ironic on a number of levels; first it describes newspaper circulation as "old metrics" and said these are sometimes viewed as less important than "the number of followers a pundit has on Twitter."  I am not disagreeing, just saying that this is funny seeing this in the pages of the NY Times.  At the same time, the article is generating buzz in its own right, and I am wondering how many of the people mentioned within do not value the coverage.

Although it does nail some of the changes taking place in the profession, in my opinion, by focusing on Brooke Hammerling (one hyper connected gal) as being emblematic of these changes, it still feeds into the cliche' of the PR person as a fixer and implies that relationships are the only thing that counts.

Her extensive network amongst the tech elite would seem to be of great value if you are raising money, or are otherwise trying to forge connections in the tech world but I wonder how much the average corp tech buyer (or tech consumer) really cares about these tech influencers.

The article described the launch of a new consumer tech Web service and explained the logic behind end-running the tech blogs:

“Why shouldn’t we avoid them? They’re cynical,” [Roger McNamee} says, also noting his concern that Wordnik would probably appeal more to wordsmiths than followers of tech blogs. “That’s where I would be most uncomfortable. They don’t know the difference between ‘they’re’ and ‘there.’ ”

As Brian Solis said in his post on the article

As the New York Times article leads you to believe, everything in PR focuses on the launch

in his piece on the article, Scoble had this to say about the "right reason" for eschewing tech blogs in the launch that was described:

Because people who will use your product don’t read those tech blogs and they don’t read the influentials who read those sites.

Getting Started with Social Media

Some of my recent posts offered seemingly contradictory advice regarding getting started with social media at the organization level.

My post Is ROI Overrated? questioned the need to prove ROI and advised against getting caught up in planning paralysis.  In Don't Become Social Media Roadkill in Your Organization, I said that one needs to take a methodical approach and set the right expectations.

I truly believe that it is possible to accomplish both goals; to proceed decisively and without lots of fanfare yet do so in a rational way that boosts the odds of success.

Defining Success

First, what does it mean to be successful in term of implementing a social media program? 

At the most basic level I suggest that worthy goals are to help spread the good word about an organization's products, services, and to defend the brand and build corporate image.  I know these are the kind of things that many of my clients are looking for.

They are all very fuzzy concepts.  PR has struggled for years with measurement and social media adds a few new wrinkles. 

Suffice it to say, there are ways to do this.  I suggest not getting too caught up with measurement and ROI tracking in the early stages.  You can help set expectations while taking some of the pressure off to prove results by starting out on a small scale that does not threaten to "break the bank."

Defining Scope

Social media is not just another IT project or corporate initiative that needs to be managed and controlled with a vice-like grip.  It involves new ways and styles of communicating.  Success, to an extent, means letting go. 

This means letting your employees know that is OK to blog and Tweet (my wife works for a large company that runs tight control over all PCs, prohibiting use of Facebook and other social networking applications - I think this is incredibly shortsighted).

It means equipping them with tools, education and letting them know what the company is doing in the social media realm.  It means setting and informing about policies but not making these too restrictive or onerous.

Where to Start

There is a myth hat social media is free.  While it is true that you won't need to make major investment on par with the cost of significant ad buys or technology acquisition, there is a cost in terms of time, whether incurred by internal staff or in working with external agencies/consultants.

Here are some quick tips.

Look for low cost, high return areas, such as:

• Brand and reputation monitoring
• Customer service

Using social media to be a better listener is a no-brainer, and there are a range of free tools (some covered in an earlier post) that can keep you up-to-date in near-real-time about topics that are relevant to your brand, customer service and PR efforts.

The next level of commitment involves becoming active in using social media tools to engage.  This means getting involved with online conversations and responding to relevant Twitter streams, blog posts, online articles, chatter found in social networks, etc.

Doing this can either be an overwhelming or trivial task depending the amount of buzz in your space.  We work with clients to determine the types of forums, mentions and situations that should merit a response - the conversations that count - and an agile process for engaging.

Influencing the Conversation and Setting the Pace

The next level is to develop a process and platform for marshaling your content and intellectual capital (meaning experts) and using social media to increase your digital footprint, educate and in general communicate with customers, potential customers and other influencers.  The same general approaches can be used to drive a content marketing effort that could augment demand generation and result in very real payback (as much as I had admonished to put ROI aside in the early stages, it is not a four letter word and does not hurt of course).

This can become involved and tends to take the most time.  But tools such as blogging and Twitter are very well understood and in general not difficult to put to work.

If you are part of a large company that has many products and divisions, it could help to choose one area as a starting point.  Do not think about your organizational or product management grid - think of the audiences you are trying to communicate with and topical areas that they should find compelling.  Launching one or more blogs that focus on these areas would be a good way to get started.  Add Twitter into the mix (see my post Blogging and Twitter: A Powerful Combination) and you will be off to the proverbial races.

Then, you can go on to build from early successes.

Blogging for a Free Iran

I have heard about a number of BlogCatalog "Bloggers Unite" campaigns. They seem to be worthy causes, and I decided it was time to jump in and participate and am doing so in honor of today's event, Bloggers Unite for a Free Iran.

Some may wonder what my blog, which generally focuses on tech PR, marketing and social media has to do with Iran.  Well, one of the luxuries of running a blog is that I decide what to write about.

But anyway, one does not have to look too hard to find a tie in, at least in terms of the power of social media.  It became pretty clear during the unrest following the questionable election results that online rallies can be as potent a force for change as taking it to the streets (see my Tweet on the topic: Twitter as a tool for revolution; what we have learned so far via NYT http://is.gd/1a7xj).  Bill Maher suggested in one of his recent shows that the US should be actively promoting the use of Twitter and blogs abroad, to help foment change in oppressive countries.

I think people deserve to have the government and society that they want.  It has become pretty clear in recent weeks that the Iranian people want change.  I truly hope they get it, and that the social media campaigns of which I am now part of help them in this goal.

So how can one find out more, and get involved in blogging for a free Iran?  See the following link.

Jamming the Frequencies: Fear, Loathing and How to Keep a Secret at Apple

One of the laws of buzz is scarcity.  Things that are in high demand but short supply tend to score well on the buzz index.

This relates to information as well.  And, on that note, you have to admire Apple Computer, one of the most admired companies and the envy of tech marketers everywhere.  Apple is famous for its ability to build a mystique around its brand and generate buzz.  They cloak their product plans in secrecy and stage roll outs that dazzle and capture our collective attentions.

Their ability to do this is even more impressive given how hard it can be to keep a secret these days.  Could Apple be the exception that proves the rule about the need to "just let it all hang out" in this blog-driven age of transparency?

Or perhaps the strategy is starting to backfire.  The NY Times had two stories yesterday that tacked negative; one, about potential issues regarding the disclosure (or lack thereof) of the true state Steve Jobs' health.  The second story covers the company's fabled ability to keep a secret.

According to the latter article:

Secrecy at Apple is not just the prevailing communications strategy; it is baked into the corporate culture...

“They don’t communicate. It’s a total black box,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray who has covered Apple for the last five years.

Mr. Munster said he jokes with other colleagues covering the company about how Apple routinely “jams the frequencies,” or gives them misinformation to throw them off the scent of a new product or other news it hopes to keep confidential.

I thought I would help readers who might be curious about how Apple can achieve this secrecy by distilling tips from the article and including them below (in Apple's defense, it is hard to judge the veracity as most of the sources are anonymous).

• Monitor the workplace with security cameras
• Hide top secret projects behind a maze of security doors
• Require complex combinations of badge swiping and numeric code entry to gain access
• Cover products under development with black cloaks and signal their unveiling with red warning lights
• Discover who is leaking info by spreading false information to insiders, tracking where the false info appears, and connecting the dots
• Lawyer up and sue bloggers that trade in rumors
• Limit communications with the media, shareholders and the public

New eBook on Market Positioning

At Fusion PR, we have teamed up with Silicon Valley tech marketing and strategy guru Rebel Brown on many successful product launches and company rebranding/turnaround efforts.

I am pleased to let you know that Rebel's new eBook It’s Not About You Anymore, P.S. It Never Was is out now (free download, no registration required).  It describes her approach to developing positioning that works.

According to the book:

Buyers do not use marketing propaganda to make decisions – whether they are consumers or B2B buyers. Buyers want credible evidence – and they don’t necessarily view vendors as the best source for those credible facts. Besides, B2B customers can find out every 'truth' they want to know about you. Give them a search engine and they are off and running on a factfinding frenzy. And thanks to social media – not all they learn will be facts. They’ll learn how others feel about your business. Market perception is more important than ever before.

Rebel reminds us that every position needs to be unique, discusses how to develop a positioning matrix, and explains the importance of focusing on the "pivot points" regarding your market, company and solutions.

The book offers great advice for anyone involved in tech PR and marketing, I strongly recommend it.

Promoting Your Business with a Unique Logo

So you thought you knew everything there is to know about the most basic of marketing accessories, the logo?  Guess again.  This guest post from Ben Johnson of Logoinn, custom logo design shares some good advice.

If you have been in business for any period of time  I am sure you have grown to appreciate the importance of your logo.   If you are new to the business world it is important for you to understand the integral role a unique logo can and should play when it comes to promoting and marketing your business.

This article offers an overview for tips for utilizing your logo to best promote your business.  Armed with this information, you will be able to develop a plan of action to help you make the greatest use of your logo.

Your Logo, Your Marketing Essential

Your logo really is the fundamental foundation of your overall marketing and promotional efforts for your business.   It can be utilized in a variety of basic and essential ways.   This includes using your logo as a focal point on letterhead, business cards, product packaging and so forth.

Of course, it is impossible to underestimate these basic uses of your logo; you need to keep in mind that a business logo can be utilized in many other very important and effective ways.  These alternative and yet dynamic uses for your logo are further discussed and explored in this article.

Your Logo and the Media

In this day and age, during these complex and complicated economic times, all responsible business owners are seeking ways to expand their market reach without overextending their advertising budgets.  One avenue that many a wise business owner is pursuing is to take advantage of free media opportunities when it comes to promoting a business.

If you are inclined to take advantage of free media opportunities – through press releases, media coverage and so forth (both online and in the brick and mortar world) – your business's logo can be a crucial element of these efforts.

By promoting your business through news releases and related activities you can make prominent use of your logo.  In fact, when you are using the Internet as a means of distributing and highlighting your press releases and related announcements you will find that it is very easy to include your logo in this process.

Your Logo and Your Marketing Collateral

In addition to the steps outlined thus far, there are many other ways in which you can and should incorporate your logo in your other marketing, promotional and advertising efforts.  

Examples of collateral uses can include the placement of your logo on such items as shirts, pens, cups and the like.  Through this type of effort you are able to provide consumers with practical items that they actually can utilize on a regular basis.  Each time they use one or another of these items they will be exposed to your logo – be exposed to your business and the products or services that you are offering in the marketplace today.

You need to be very careful while ordering your promotional material.  The quality of material as well as the printing quality will ideally leave a positive and lasting impression on all your potential customers about your company.  In fact, all the collateral used for promotion will represent the quality of product and services being offered by you.

Final Lines

By considering all of the options that are available to you when it comes to the use of a custom logo for your business, you will be opening up brand new horizons in regard to your endeavors.  With consistency and right use of your logo, you will be able to obtain maximum marketplace exposure for your business ... and will see an increase in your revenues and profits well into the future.

This is guest post from Ben Johnson of Logoinn, custom logo design service provider based in UK.

Don't Become Social Media Roadkill in Your Organization

In my post Is ROI Overrated?, I advised against getting caught up in planning paralysis when it comes to social media

If you are only just now contemplating a social media strategy, you may well be part of a big company.  Change often does not come easily to large organizations.

Perhaps it has become a political football of sorts.  Some wonder where on the organizational chart social media should belong.  Who should "own" the social media effort?  The communications department would seem to be an obvious home for it.  Then again, social media involves technology, so shouldn't IT have a say too?

If you have been charged with trying to help your organization get its collective arms around social media, I advise a word or two of caution that might seem at odds with my earlier post, but really isn't.

This advice is based on my experiences with social media and my long history helping companies adopt and implement technologies, including marketing systems and what could arguably be called the first social media platform, Lotus Notes.  Before I got into PR I cut my tech teeth on IT consulting.

The caution can help you avoid having a great big target painted on your back that could arise from social media not being well understood.  Political footballs and investments come with risk.

Even when it is understood social media can be amorphous.  Like a Rorschach test, people see different things in it based on their perch in the organization and might have divergent expectations, as examples:

C Suite:  We must do it now!  Everyone's on Twitter! The CEO at X company has a blog! Where are we?
Legal team:  What about the risks?
Marketing:  Great!  One more place to plaster our messages!
Everyone else:  Don't bother me with this now, I already have too much on my plate.

Without taking this into account, and setting the right expectations, you could wind up at the center of an effort doomed to failure because it was not properly conceived, budgeted and implemented.

So how do you reconcile my advice to not get caught up in planning paralysis with these words that urge you to go forward in some kind of methodical and rational way?

Stay tuned for my next post, I will share some practical tips.

Spanning Time with Facebook

In crafting this post I was reminded of a scene from the great independent flick Buffalo '66.  The degenerate played by Vincent Gallo is posing in a photo booth with his waif girlfriend, played by Chrsitina Ricci.  They are rehearsing the story they will tell his parents about their relationship.  Here's an excerpt from the script:

We're taking pictures
like we're a couple.
Like we like each other.
Like we're husband and wife.

We span time together.
We span time together as a couple.

'Cause we're a loving couple,
spanning time.

These photos are us in love,
spanning time.

I have written about Google's ability to span time.  I thought I'd share some recent time-spanning miracles enabled by Facebook.

• Former neighbors and friends from grade school some 40 years ago (who I did not keep in touch with in my adult years) reached out to me via Facebook expressing interest in reconnecting.  They invited me to a 30 year high school reunion picnic.  The gang from the old neighborhood (including my first girlfriend from 6th grade) met there and had a blast.
• My father-in-law Richard divorced my wife's mom when my wife was young, and lost all contact with us shortly before we got married some 19 years ago.  He never met our two beautiful kids.  Richard reached out recently on Facebook, first to cousins and uncle, and then friended our kids.  He extended a friendship invitation to my wife - who accepted after some angst and soul searching.
• My mom lost her three sisters over the course of a couple of years.  Their families do not live close by and we have not seen them much over the years.  My brother posted some pictures on a Facebook group set up by the cousins showing the entire group in front of our house circa 1971.  The cousins chimed in like excited kids and posted some 50 comments sharing memories.

As I said, truly miracles, and I expect the stories will continue to grow.  Do you have any to share?

Tips for Staying Grounded Amidst a Turbulent Sea of Change

There has been  a number of posts and articles recently questioning the continuing relevance of blogs, and the staying power of Twitter and social networks.

Handshake 2.0 blogger Anne Giles Clelland called my attention to this post, which predicted that people would tire of social networks like they have of blogging.  The same post linked to this article in the NY Times, which highlighted an apparent decline in blogging.

Some have suggested that Twitter will suffer the same fate as Second Life - which was all the rage not long ago but not buzzed about quite as much today.

Which leaves one with the question - how do you handicap the social media horse race and decide which tools to bet on?

In ClickZ Experts, Robin Niefield recently wrote in her story Social Media: Seduced by the New?:

We've been privileged and challenged by a steady stream of new and hot technologies and communication channels in digital marketing. Each new star garners outsize attention from the media as marketers, educators, and agencies desperately try to stay abreast or get ahead of yet another new opportunity.

For that brief shining moment, both fads and legitimate strategies and tactics can take on celebrity status while other, equally legitimate strategies and tactics are temporarily displaced. But "hot" shouldn't be a factor in rationale decision making or budget allocation unless it's the kind of hot that creates audience momentum and true marketing opportunity.

....Admittedly, making rational decisions amid the hype and without experience to guide efforts is difficult. Each brand's case is unique, requiring a customized analysis of opportunity, environment, resources, competition, and a host of other factors. New tactics are often missing the guidance of relevant history and example.

On the topic of Twitter (Hot) and blogging (some say decidedly Not), I have offered this advice.

Above and beyond, I think it helps to heed a few tips:

Whatever communications mechanisms you use, tell a good story - This almost goes without saying.  It is like a kind of info Darwinism - the fittest, or most interesting stories will climb the buzz heap and survive; the rest will whither on the vine and be ignored.

Some hear the advice "Tell a good story" and immediately think of the old adage "content is king."

Content is no longer king.  Amidst an explosion of content choices, attention (or the ability to capture and keep it) is king.  Which leads us to the next point.

Think "pull" not push - Where are the eyeballs of your customers today - and how can you get in front of them? How is this changing?  E.g., while Twitter was formerly the fun toy of the techies, it is now becoming much more mainstream.  Facebook was once for the college set.  This is obviously no longer true.

Know your stuff - Today the market quickly separates clueless shills from their credibility.  People are called out and shamed with brutal efficiency - and this info lives forever online.  Stand behind your pitch, understand your space, and seek to have intelligent dialog.

Study how information flows online - How doe information flow and get discovered online?  This is constantly evolving and you need to become a student.  E.g., see my earlier post, in which I discussed the growing role of social networks for content discovery..

Blogging still counts - It may no longer be the cool new social media plaything but does enable easy Web publishing and can be a core component of a content marketing platform (I described this in last week's post.  Also, see my post on Fusion PR Forum: Crossing the Blogging Chasm).

As long as people go to blogs and read them they are still relevant.  The above tip regarding your audiences should be a caveat for this rule.