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

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?

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