While co-moderating the Xing Social Media Measurement group, I discovered that our members’ definitions of social media and social media marketing differ quite a bit. After some extensive discussions in the forum, I tried to summarize the findings.

1. Social media definition: 3 essentials
2. Social media marketing definition: 2 essentials
3. Why PR fails with social media marketing

Still to come in this series:

5. 4 ways to foster dialogue with corporate blogs (2010-10-06)
6. 4 strategies to leverage usability tests (2010-10-17)
7. 4 tips for crisis management through social media (2010-10-20)
8. 5 critical steps for reputation management (2010-10-26)
9. 8 guidelines for fostering social media engagement (2010-10-27)
10. 5 corporate blogging trends for 2011 (2010-11-03)

In this post we focus on issues such as whether weblogs are corporate tools that can help with client relationship management or just confused personal ramblings.

What is a blog or weblog?

In short, a blog is a website where a person or a team of employees write and share content that is relevant to their target audience (e.g., friends, customers, suppliers, shareholders).

More specifically, some time ago people defined a weblog as a personal journal. This could take many forms, including but not limited to an online scrapbook for pictures, ideas, musings and stories.

=> How the urban dictionary defined a blog in 2003 – what a difference!

Today, a weblog can be much more – or less. Put differently, blogging software such as WordPress is simply a content management system (CMS), meaning a company could use it to manage its webpage or a different CMS that also allows for blogging (e.g., Drupal).

A blog also allows an individual with limited technical skills to post content on the blog/webpage with hyperlinks, allowing readers to download white papers or view videos.

Weblogs have become accepted sources for information, however, an effective corporate blog requires that management address these four issues:

a) Assess whether your blog meets the criteria to be classified as an organizational blog (includes any not-for-profit, self-employed or charity blog); make changes accordingly to transform it into a corporate blog.
b) Spell out your reasons and objectives for having a corporate blog - entertainment or professional value.
c) Identify and spell out the blog’s target audience and what constitutes valuable content for your desired readers.
d) Develop a set of performance targets using the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle.

Please ensure you don’t miss any post in this series by registering your email with us to get the latest updates first in your inbox – you’ll be glad you did.

Bottom line – usability is fine but usefulness is critical

Based on our definition of social media marketing it is obvious that a weblog does not really sell a product or services. Instead, it helps build the blogger’s and/or company’s credibility and reputation, while gaining the trust of your audience.

To illustrate, if your company is organized according to business lines such as green energy (e.g., renewable resources), the blog might focus on a topic such as solar energy.
However, as a solar cell manufacturer, you may want to reach out to two vastly different groups, namely:

- direct clients (e.g., solar panel manufacturers or electric utilities owning wind ’farms’) and
- indirect clients (e.g., architects, home-owners and regulators)

In fact, it could be that the weblog serves its purpose best by providing targeted content for indirect clients or ultimate users such as home-owners and investors (e.g., government programs supporting the use of solar energy, energy savings, pay-back periods, etc.).

Another alternative is to have a separate blog for each group. This will make it easier to provide each with useful content.

Take away: An effective Internet presence is the ability to communicate and demonstrate expertise. It is what causes people to talk about you and your brand online. A weblog is an effective tool to help this process along if useful content is provided to targeted readers.

Previously we also published a series of posts about the ropes to skip when launching a blog, to help you avoid making the mistakes that most hamper your efforts.

1) Lessons 1 – 4: Starting your blogging off on the right foot
2) Lessons 5 – 7: Setting the stage – ready – go
3) Lessons 8 – 11: Whatever domain, home you choose – beware
4) Lessons 12 – 13: Getting the basic SEO issues right
5) Lessons 14 – 17: Authenticity and quality are key
6) Lessons 18 – 20: Improving blogging effectiveness

What is your take, what worked for you? Please share your thoughts with a comment below!

Article source: Corporate blog definition: 4 essentials

Watch the video for this post:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Previously in this series we published:
1) Lessons 1 – 4: Starting your blogging off on the right foot (2009-06-03)
2) Lessons 5 – 7: Setting the stage – ready – go (2009-06-03)

Today we release the next two installments of these tips and lessons, the fourth of which can be read here:
4) Lessons 12 – 13: Getting the basic SEO issues right

The final set will come your way August 12:
5) Lessons 14 – 17: Authenticity and quality are key
6) Lessons 18 – 20: Improving blogging effectiveness

Corporate bloggers should follow these lessons to save on resources, money and improve blogging effectiveness. It actually takes little effort but the results are astonishing if you correct r completely avoid these mistakes.

To make sure that you don’t miss any of these upcoming posts, just leave your e-mail here:

Lesson 8: Host blog on corporate domain
Most corporations’ main pages have a relatively high Google PageRank (ranking range from 0 to 10, the higher the better). Besides brand recognition and reputation management purposes, this is one more reason why the blog should be hosted under the corporate domain. Advantages include:

a) benefiting from the main page’s Google PageRank,
b) being easier to find for stakeholders, and
c) contributing to and receiving traffic from the main page.

Following the above strategy will result in the blog starting with a higher Google PageRank than it would otherwise get. If one cannot follow the above approach, one has to pay the price as Volvo (212.181.8.238/webbplatser/vbeb/default.aspx) and Swisscom (swisscomnature.blueblog.ch) illustrate.

Lesson 9: Make finding the blog on the corporate website easy
This seems obvious but often it fails to work properly. Nokia does this smartly and effectively (see below). Here, regardless of the visitor’s geographic location, the blog section features prominently on the main website and once one clicks on it, finding the blog one is interested in is simple.

Unfortunately, many corporate blogs use a different approach that is far less user-friendly. For instance, on a visit to the GE corporate website, one will not find a quicklink to a list of all the company’s blogs. Instead, one must search and dig quite a bit to find what one came for. Why make it difficult when easy does it better?

Lesson 10: Make sure variations of the blog’s URL work
Not always do links to the blog’s main page work properly, especially in cases where users type an alternate version of the link, such as:

- www.HowTo.ComMetrics.com instead of HowTo.ComMetrics.com,
- www.blog.Daimler.com instead of blog.Daimler.de, or
- gereports.ge.com instead of gereports.com.

Check the above links for yourself to see which ones work – at least one will give you an error. This is an oversight that can easily be fixed and one wonders why any organization that maintains a corporate blog would overlook this issue.

To see how well your blog strategy works register your blog here:
My.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve your score – sign up for FREE

Lesson 11: Once it is chosen, keep your blog’s URL
Toyota Open Road Blog, a blog with a nice ComMetrics footprint (the lower the score the better your blog ranks within the same category – apples vs. apples), lost a lot of ground when its advertising people decided to change its URL and move the blog to the Toyota website.

In this case, the Google PageRank immediately dropped to 0. Giving up a 6 Google PageRank (some weeks it was a 7) just to move a blog might fit the corporate strategy, but is this  effective in terms of corporate best-practice?

Once you choose a URL stick with it and don’t let any advertising expert or strategy guru tell you otherwise. This will save you time and effort in the long-term. And as Nokia and others demonstrate, any blog can be easily linked to and featured on the global website for people to find quickly and easily.

Okay, now it’s your turn. What techniques you have used to improve your blogging effectiveness? What was your most successful “let’s do this and move on” tactic? If you have come close to resolving these challenges smartly, what did you do? Which of the above four strategies is your favorite? Which one do you think is just baloney? It’s okay – be honest. We can take it. Thanks much.

P.S. – You may find our next set of ropes to skip of interest as well: 4) Lessons 12 – 13: Getting the basic SEO issues right (2009-07-08).

Imagine your boss has just told you that budget cuts necessitate cutting social media expenses and you might lose your job shortly. In a semi-desperate move you suggest that she give you another three months to show what a difference you can make for the company by revamping the corporate blog.

Can we help? Absolutely! After publishing the 2009 FT ComMetrics Blog Index, which ranks FT Global 500 and Fortune 500 companies’ corporate blogs, we came to the conclusion that it might be helpful to share some of the insights we have gained.

Today we release the first installments of these tips and lessons, the second of which can be read here:
2) Lessons 5 – 7: Setting the stage – ready – go (2009-06-03)

The next set will be published July 8:
3) Lessons 8 – 11: Whatever domain or home you choose – beware
4) Lessons 12 – 13: Getting the basic SEO issues right

The final set will come your way August 12:
5) Lessons 14 – 17: Authenticity and quality are key
6) Lessons 18 – 20: Improving blogging effectiveness

To make sure that you don’t miss any of these upcoming posts, just leave your e-mail here:

Lesson 1: Ropes to skip – learn from others
There is no good reason to make the mistakes we discuss below and in subsequent posts. Just read these rules and decide carefully.

ComMetrics – thanks to input and advice from others we have come up with the 20+best WordPress plugins to make our lives easier; and
Daimler – Why did Beck’s not ask Daimler before starting an expensive revamp of its blog?

Lesson 2: Define the type of blog you want
Who or what is it supposed to provide information about? Delivering information to investors is different than blogging about a non-profit organization’s neighborhood initiative.

Dell‘s investor blog, DellShares, serves shareholders, while Direct2Dell offers customers a way to find out about new products and provide feedback.

Dell’s blogs deliver different fare and their success speaks volumes about the company’s smart blogging strategy.

Lesson 3: Define the target audience
The question is, are those that read Renault’s Formula One racing team blog would be the kind of people you want to reach out to. Hence, who is your target audience – sports fans, customers, potential clients, regulators, donors or someone else? Some of your audience may fall into more than one category, such as sports fans who have and will continue to purchase Renault’s cars.

The challenge of finding your target audience is nicely illustrated by:

General Electric – Blogging for shareholders, creditors and financial analysts

General Electric’s blog is one example where institutional investors and shareholders can get information they might not be able to get elsewhere. But if you are interested to find out about its research and what future products it has in store, GE Global Research Blog will serve you better.

To see how well your blog strategy works register your blog here:
My.ComMetrics.com – sign up for FREE and compare your performance to the Renault F1 team or UPS racing blogs – we’ll help you gain the upper hand.

Lesson 4: Determine what the focus of two-thirds of the content will be
People sign up to get a blog’s RSS feed because the content looks of interest to them on a first or second visit. Straying far from the topic is not always appreciated by one’s audience, considering their many other time commitments and options for news sources. So staying on target is key when it comes to delivering unique content.

UPS racing in the US – get the latest results and box news
Renault F1 team – all about the races – from news about the Red Bull team to McLaren Mercedes – this is what you get

Both cases above show that these blogs provide racing news, so choose Renault for Formula One or UPS for NASCAR news. Somebody who is not a car racing fan is definitely not a targeted reader for these blogs, which is fine as long as it remains of interest to the target audience.

Okay, now it’s your turn. Would you have addressed any of these challenges differently? Did I miss something in one of the three points addressed? Do you agree or disagree? Give us shout-out, whether for joy or frustration, but please share your thoughts. Thank you.

P.S. - Continue with our next set of ropes to skip: 2) Lessons  5 – 7: Setting the stage – ready – go (2009-06-03).

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s wisdom, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will make a beaten path to your door.”

A good and insightful saying, to be sure, and the modern equivalent would have to be convincing the boss or a sceptic of the value of social media or blogging.

While blogging may be an effective way to reach many of the company’s customers and suppliers, and reduce customer calls if the help or FAQ section delivers, that may not be enough to convince a boss who neither reads nor writes a blog.

Hence, one needs to demonstrate that current and potential clients are making use of these technologies. Finding competitors or industry leaders that blog will also help convince a budget committee to assign a project manager and get started.

The  2009 FT ComMetrics Blog Index rankings can help you build a case for using social media in your organization (see the statistics at a glance at FTindex results). It illustrates how the largest companies are doing in comparison to their competitors and other large companies around the globe. It provides a tool for tracking success through hard numbers: how big is your company’s social media footprint? In particular, how does it stack up against your competitors’ ComMetrics Footprint and so forth.

Accordingly, deriving value from non revenue-generating activities means demonstrating the sometimes hidden values of blogging and social media activities. This is what the FTindex results can help you with. Findings indicate how blogs are being used to improve consumer relations, recruiting efforts and handling a takeover without ruffling too many feathers.

Download white paper (expanded version of 2004-05-14 FT article)

You can also get a complete report with the results as a free download (just register, and voilà):

Log in ➡ Download the 2009 FT ComMetrics Blog Index report

Additional posts and download of additional materials provided as PDF files:

Download press release
Download Financial Times case study
FT ComMetrics Blog Index published
Financial Times May 14 – by Urs E. Gattiker – Corporate blogs: New way to engage with stakeholders

Relevant blog metrics for diary, personal and business blogs
Please subscribe now so you can claim your personal and/or corporate blog AND trace those that you want to compare yourself to.
For Twitter, please use #hashtag ➡ #FTCBI

Five steps to turn buzz into sales
Which FT Global 500 and Fortune 500 blogs made the FT ComMetrics Blog Index
Financial Times – is blogging good value?

What is the FT ComMetrics Index?
ComMetrics has developed a detailed methodology to benchmark corporate blogs. The FT ComMetrics Blog Index uses the same methodology, but a less-detailed version.

Why create such an index?
We thought creating this index this would help promote good practice as far as corporate blogging is concerned.

If you want to find actionable insights, you need to segment your benchmarking data: pinpoint the various sources, user behavior and outcomes. The FT ComMetrics Blog Index helps corporate bloggers achieve this objective.
More issues below.
Who is included?
Companies included in the Index are taken from the FT Global 500 2008, ranked by market capitalisation. Where possible we have indexed the top 25 from the following categories: the US, Europe and the rest of the world. In some cases we were unable to find a corporate blog. In other instances, the blog may be owned by a subsidiary.

This is the case with Berkshire Hathaway: its subsidiary Business Wired has a successful blog that we included in the list. A similar case is EON: its UK division has a blog, but we found no active corporate blog published by its German headquarters (see also Social Media Marketing in Deutschland).

The 2009 FT ComMetrics Blog Index will appear in the Financial Times newspaper’s regular Digital Business supplement and its webpage (www.ft.com/digitalbusiness) on Wednesday, May 13.
Please subscribe now so you can claim your corporate and/or personal blog AND trace those that you want to compare yourself to.
For Twitter, please use #hashtag ➡ #FTCBI

Our next stop was the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki. It has a few blogs that qualify using the criteria we developed for identifying corporate blogs. Really great job these people did in collecting all this important information, have a look.

Another big help was Peter Kim, who put together A List of Social Media Marketing Examples, (Bernhard Warner also recommended this list). Kim has an impressive list of a vast number of social media marketing examples. Sometimes it mentions brands (not necessarily the corporate owner of the brand) and other times, as in the case of IKEA, customer blogs are listed. This is no obstacle, however, and the list is just plain impressive. By the way, another blog that you have to read, his other stuff is impressive too.

The next step was a tweet to Twitter followers, which garnered a nice response from Michael E. Rubin. He suggested Alltop – all the corporate blogs and Feeds of the Blog Council. Of course, this should have been done earlier, since we ourselves are a member of the Alltop Social Media blog crowd.

We also found a ‘white paper’ (five pages but not much detail) and some presentation slides of a survey that included 132 Nordic companies, all with a market capitalization of more than 1 billion euro. There were a few only that had blogs, most we had included already. Check out Corporate blogging amongst listed Nordic companies, it is interesting reading.

Are we still looking for more blogs?
Yes, we are. Please tell us about yours. Companies often have several blogs listed in our database. For instance, all of Hewlett Packard’s numerous blogs are being tracked; naturally, the best one will be included in the Index.

If you want to check out who is already included, visit the
FT ComMetrics Blog Index

If you have a blog that we should track for the Index, tell us about it by leaving a comment below with the blog URL(s).

If you want to see how you compare to others, check out FTindex.ComMetrics.com (you must be registered to view data/statistics).

When will it be published?
The 2009 index will appear in the Financial Times newspaper’s regular supplement on Digital Business and its webpage (www.ft.com/digitalbusiness) on Wednesday, May 13.

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More resources:
FT/ComMetrics Blog Index

We have tried to keep our Alpha users and the other readers of this blog posted on our progress toward releasing a Beta version of our My.ComMetrics.com blog benchmarking tool.

Things are coming along nicely and the Beta release is just around the corner. In the meantime, we have opened a Twitter account to keep our users informed about:

- new features, and
- progress

So far we have succeeded in keeping the number of tweets down to one or two each week, as promised in one of our early tweets:

MyComMetrics: Dear, reminder, this account keeps you POSTED about software releases/changes on http://My.ComMetrics.com 1or 2 tweets each week #tools2watch

Almost two months have passed since that message was posted and the account is enjoying a steady growth of followers.

My.ComMetrics.com bio on Twitter

Usually the messages we send out look something like the examples listed below. They focus on the web-based software, including providing links to new features or showing screen-shots of the results:

MyComMetrics: Simplified our offerings, 3 service levels is what we offer,still FREE for testers http://howto.commetrics.com… #tools2watch
MyComMetrics: Fixed the descriptions and the sign up procedure so people have an easier time to understand http://short.to/ke2 #tools2watch #smMetrics
MyComMetrics: NOW change profile,get alerts when stats change & start benchmarking against YOUR blog => view image => http://snipr.com/abycz #tools2watch
MyComMetrics: UPDATE | login | http://My.ComMetrics.com | click Profile http://ad.vu/9x4t | change info & customise ALERTS http://ad.vu/9x4t #tools2watch
MyComMetrics: UPDATE | login | http://My.ComMetrics.com | click Profile| blog rankings & key metrics change | get ALERT http://ad.vu/rd73 | #tools2watch

Exclusive Newsletter for Subscribers
Our monthly newsletter appears every four to six weeks, something which associates and Alpha testers are automatically subscribed to receive. It keeps people informed about the most important stuff and alerts them to developments in the blogosphere that might make a splash.

The first issue was: This Month in Blogging Effectiveness – January 20, 2009

The next one will be coming your way soon: This Month in Blogging Effectiveness – February 26 2009 (watch your inbox for it!)

Why we love our Alpha users
We believe that Alpha users are special people; they test our tools and provide us with extremely valuable feedback about how it works.

In return, our Alpha users deserve special treatment, which means that they get the full experience without paying a cent. Even better, people who are Alpha users, AND actively use the tool get a free subscription when we release Beta version 1.0 sometime this Spring. In order to qualify for the freebie, you need to complete a free Alpha-user registration and start testing our tool as much as possible. Why? Because it will help you increase the bang you get for your buck when you blog. We are in the process of packing more oomph into our tool. In turn, this will allow you to track various blogs and see what works and what fails. And that’s just the start.

Various subscription plans on offer – See how they work
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Here’s what I’m suggesting for today. Please register yourself for free or pass on this link to some of your friends so they can benchmark themselves – to get better. Once we release Beta things will change, except for Alpha users: they get a free ride. C’est la vie.

Enough about what I think and feel, what is your take? Share your thoughts below; they are what matter most.
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When data are missing, the appropriate missing data analysis procedures do not generate something out of nothing but do make the most out of the data available

One of the most common forms of analysis with missing data involves simply substituting the mean for the variable whenever a value is missing. Unfortunatley, mean substitution can produce very wrong estimates of variances and covariances. In general, substituting the mean for the missing value has the effect of underestimating the magnitude of both variances and covariances

“1. Whenever possible, use the EM algorithm (or other maximum likelihood procedure, including the multiple-group structural equation-modeling procedure or, where appropriate, multiple imputation) for analyses involving missing data.2. If other analyses must be used, keep in mind that they produce biased results and should not be relied upon for final analyses. Recommmending:

a. Never use mean substitution, even for preliminary analyses.

b. With minimal missing data, analysis of complete cases may be a reasonable solution.

c. If data are missing completely at random, pairwise deletion or complete cases analysis may be a reasonable solution.

d. If data are not missing completely at random and the cause of missingness has been measured, complete cases may produce unbiased e2stimates, although it is a generally less powerful approach than the EM algorithm or multiple-group procedure.”

John W. Graham, Scott M. Hofer, and Andrea M. Piccinin (1994). Analysis With Missing Data in Drug Prevention Research L. M. Collins & L. A. Seitz (eds.), Advances in Data Analysis for Prevention Intervention Research (13-63). NIDA Research Monograph 142 Bethesda, MA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Service

Accordingly, mean substitution:

1. artificially decreases the variation of scores, in turn, this decrease in individual variation for each of the variables is proportional to the number of missing data – in turn, the more missing data, the more “perfectly average scores” will be artificially added to the data set; and

2. substitutes missing data with artificially created “average” data points – this can result in considerably changing the values of correlations.

We have tried to minimize this issue with calculating the mean value for those variables with the same Google Page Rank only (e.g., take all means from variable x for those blogs with Google PageRank 4 only – calculate the average score – use it). In turn, this reduces the impact outliers – high and low – may have on our results. For more see also:

what we do with missing values

We are currently in the process of finding ways for doing multiple – imputations. Want to support our efforts, get in touch and/or leave a comment below.We are wondering how we can integrate this program:

Schafer, J. Software for Multiple Imputation

with our work. Suggestions are welcome.

We need to find a way to run it without using any of the statistical packages to do the job for us – any advice – please leave a comment we need your expertise and appreciate any help we can get.

other resources

Allen, E. I., & Sharpe, N. R. (2005) Demonstration of Ranking Issues for Students: A Case Study. Journal of Statistics Education Volume 13, Number 3

Karen Grace-Martin – writes The Analsis Factor blog – you should subscribe – it is refreshing and very helpful indeed

Why would you want to be an alpha tester – if your answer is yes go here: click here to register yourself now

So you want to be convinced? We could try by writing some fancy text. Instead how about asking you four questions that you should answer for yourself right here:

1) are you a blogger?

If your answer is yes, read on.

2) do you own or are responsible for a blog?

If the answer is yes, read on.

3) do you want to compare your performance against how well other bloggers are doing?

Probably your answer is yes. You want to see how you benchmark and rank against others.

4) want to see how your performance changes over certain periods?

Of course, you want to know how things change over time (e.g., first Quarter against fourth Quarter 2008).

Most importantly, how the First Quarter in 2009 is comparing to your First Quarter in 2008 you want to know.

How about a tool that visualizes these changes and compares things to your closest competitor? You can get it.

so what are you waiting for?

Answered yes to the questions listed above, go register and take us for a test-drive.

Just remember, we are still developing this tool and things are improving as you read this post – which means new services, tools and tricks added every other week it seems.

Nevertheless, start tracking your blog’s performance using this information to become more effective with your blogging efforts.

click here to register yourself now

By registering you can benchmark and compare your blog right away. Of course, alpha testing is free, what else.

Discover ComMetrics and take advantage of our risk-free option now, takes less than 5 minutes to start getting results.

1st step – sign-up
2nd step – claim your blog
3rd step – begin to benchmark and start to improve – you are within this section
4th step – customise to attain better insights

So you have claimed your personal blog and now you wonder whom to compare yourself to (where am I better?), to see how well you are doing.

Here are some ideas. You may follow these suggestions. As well, if you have some ideas that helped you but you cannot find them in the list below, please share them with us and leave a comment. Here are five rules that matter:

1) apples against apples

If you write a travel blog it makes sense to compare yourself to another travel blog.

2) gorilla against gorilla

So if your blog has a huge following, why not compare yourself to another gorilla?

Even if your blog is small, you may compare yourself to one gorilla type of blog that you like very much. This will get you a feel about how well you measure up compared to the guys and gals in the big leagues. So go ahead and trace that gorilla-type blog

3) compare yourself against the most appropriate set of competitors

Some people blog under their own domain which I recommend as the best way to build one’s own brand.

Others may have their blog at a host, whereby their URL may look like similar to this:

http://blog.ebookers.ch/author/wmueller/

It might be interesting to compare oneself to other blogs under this domain, such as:

http://blog.ebookers.ch/author/aroberts/

It might even make sense to compare yourself to the overall blog of this blogger host, such as:

http://blog.ebookers.ch/

Nonetheless, it is helpful to compare yourself also to blogs addressing the same topic that you do that are, however, hosted under their own domain.

4) rule of 10

It is probably a good idea to compare one’s blog with a set of about ten blogs.

This set of 10 blogs that you track and compare with might include a gorilla or two, a colleague or friend and so forth. As well, one or two blogs that you admire could be included in this set of 10 blogs. In fact, these two blogs may cover a different subject than what you write about. Nevertheless, because you like them – maybe even subscribe to their posts – it could be a good idea to track and compare your blog with these. Learn how they measure up compare to your own blog.

At the beginning, comparing oneself to a set of 10 blogs might suffice. Thereafter, you may want to track more blogs enabling you to get a more accurate picture of where you stand in the blogosphere.

5) it took more than 1 day to build Rome or Paris

It takes time. Don’t try to come to any conclusions within 30 days. In fact, it will take at least four months before you can see some trends that might indicate that your blog is improving in the rankings.

Look at the graphics produced at My.ComMetrics.com, ask for a report or just compare yourself and watch the trends.

Rome was not built over night, neither will your blog be a two week project. So take the time, post regularly, provide people with beef and watch how your numbers improve using My.ComMetrics.com to benchmark yourself – easy does it.

When you look at successful web applications, they are all simple to use. Moreover, users benefit from using the tool nearly instantly, such as:

Google, type in your keywords, search and find what you are after;
Plaxo, get a username and password ==> start adding your addresses and synchronize with your PC, and NOW
My.ComMetrics.com, type in your blog’s URL and start tracking your performance.

Of course, Plaxo takes a bit more time to make it work properly on your PC. Nevertheless, its address synchronization feature between your PC and Plaxo works right away after having installed a small plug-in. Other features make it easier to better manage your social network.

When you have to read too much to figure out what ingredients are needed to cook a dish, forget it.

All it takes is a good bread recipe and some flower, yeast, water, salt. Follow the recipe and you are pretty much ready to make the dough, let it rise, put it in the oven …… The result is a delicious bread for you to share with your family and friends.

Good ideas help making you do whatever you need to do. Sure, some web-based applications are a bit more difficult than Google or Plaxo as described above. Nevertheless, they are easy to use, such as Onvista.de allowing you to:

a) track certain stocks, after you;

b) register and get password; thereafter

c) enter the stocks you want to track; AND

d) see the results.

It will take about 30 minutes to familiarize yourself so much that you can really take advantage of the service.

Same way things work with My.ComMetrics.com

All it takes is for you to sign up, register your blog, enter those blog URLs you want to compare yourself against and you are set.

fill in contact form, call or e-mail us to get invited as an alpha user RIGHT NOW.

Imagine having several c-level executives blog. Are they reaching their respective target audiences?

Is blogging time well spent?

Recently I wrote an article for the Financial Times on this subject. Takes a few minutes to read but should be worth your time.

In an ever faster changing global marketplace, the Internet and social media are being used by stakeholder groups to connect to each other. Often this happens without the direct involvement by the corporation owning the brand.

Today, a more effective spending of hard euro marketing costs is needed. Furthermore, it is critical that social media activities should help increase the firm’s lead generation and customer retention.

Such efforts can help in reaching potential clients and embracing existing customers by creating communities. While the company cannot respond to every comment people might leave on a blog or micro-blog to the CEO, social media helps the listening process regarding investors’ and customers’ needs and concerns.

An ever greater number of people is getting excited about Web 2.0 technology. One of the greatest challenges is explaining why this all matters, and how this all works, to people who have no idea what the technology can or cannot do.

Download the version as a pdf file here:

Financial Times – Is blogging good value for the C-suite? 2-pages

Our tools empower you to benchmark social media efforts and activities, while focusing attention on customers, trust and confidence, community, and social connections, interested?

Get ComMetrics now! Contact us

Or read the article online here: Read more on the Financial Times website

What do you think?

]]> http://howto.commetrics.com/articles/knowing-if-one-uses-social-media-smartly-would-be-great-now-you-can/feed/ 0 http://howto.commetrics.com/articles/how-is-the-alpha-test-going/ http://howto.commetrics.com/articles/how-is-the-alpha-test-going/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 14:04:10 +0000 Urs E. Gattiker http://howto.commetrics.com:80/?p=61

We are developing our tool and testing first results
Below we give you a glance at how it is looking

We have been focusing on some of the popularity measures to address benchmarking in the context for blogs, webpages and mini-blogging (e.g., Twitter).

Below is a first screenshot from the dashboard that we offer our Alpha users so far. Well, let us tell you more below:

If you cannot see the above screenshot try – crowdscoring your social media efforts – ComMetrics tool

Naturally, data presented in a table such as the one above have to be added and normalized to arrive at the compositive index. As well, there are a set of compositive indices that you can use to benchmark and rank yourself.

The dashboard enables the user to decide if things are listed in ascending or descending order, if she would like to see raw data or normalized data instead or both.

Naturally, the preference given to which indicators one wants to look at is another option.

Bottom Line

We continue to work on this to make it work even smoother than it does now. As well, we are putting in the visual options that allow users to get a trend analysis. In the latter, comparing one(s) blog(s) or webpage(s) with a set of possible competitors or best practic examples is a feature you can look forward to.

So stay tuned.

A few of our clients and readers have asked to hear what we have been up to and when the alpha version will finally go Beta.

Well we are in the process of inviting a few of you to pre-test the Beta version. If you have subscribed to the ComMetrics blog – e-mail digest you might just get invited directly enabling you to join the small group of knowledgeable users like yourself that have been testing our tool for the last 60 days or so.

At this stage we have gone into private beta. Nevertheless, we should be ready to invite our ComMetrics blog subscribers in a few weeks to start with their test-drives.

In the meantime, we keep you posted here as well as on our ComMetrics blog – stay tuned.

For now, no panic we have started to do a more formal write-up of what we have in store for you that you can look at using these hyperlinks (see also right side – pages – of website – more details about what we are into – real fun and hard work)

• social media monitoring
  • best service is no service
  • monitoring & measuring
    • sign-up
    • how it works
    • demo account
    • FAQ
    • pricing

To learn more contact CyTRAP Labs

not every CEO wants to blog – but some do better than others

My view on most blog rankings is quite simple: I think they’re trying to compare and rank things you cannot really compare and rank.

Many depend on the number of links in Technorati or the number of visitors. There are numerous variations of these and we have tried to outline this here:

Popularity – who is the favorite to win

Unfortunately, this starts on the premise that blogs target the same audience and provide the same type of information. We have pointed out elsewhere that the key is to identify your audience and the niche for your blog or the content you wish to put up on a website.

We can compare apples with apples but should refrain from comparing oranges and apples.

So if we cannot just compare blogs or website since they are not the same, what is the second best thing to do?

Well one can go ahead and compare sports cars with sports cars, pickup trucks with pickup trucks and trying to rank them in order to find out which one might be the best. That still does not address if we are trying to find the most economical, nice looking or greatest workhorse amongst the trucks chosen.

This is one reason why we are trying to rank the CEO blogs according to industry and so on…..

top CEO blogs