In short, our updated software – release 0.4 - allows for more variables in the chart builder, trendwatches (e.g., 2010 with 2011) and more clearly illuminates where to improve what.

My.ComMetrics.com is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application, which means you do not need to install anything on your end. We host and operate the application over the Internet for your use. This allows you to access our software virtually as and when you need it to track your blog’s performance.

This is the tool that prominent bloggers have made the talk of the town.

Article source – My.ComMetrics.com update: Release 0.4

We have been diligently working on improving our blog benchmarking software, so we can now provide you with additional useful features, such as:

- trends (now also across years),
- language, paragraphs, writing style, and
- resonance (links, conversation, etc.).

Before we continue, enter your email below and join our 2,300 subscribers who get updates about ComMetrics software direct to their inbox.

Below is one of the many charts that our updated program offers - as soon as you are logged in you are shown the impact page.

If you have not yet signed up, do so now to compare your competitors’ blog performance, watch the trends and improve performance with My.ComMetrics.com. We at CyTRAP Labs can help you improve your social media efforts.

Signing up for My.ComMetrics.com is the safe choice, because it’s free to try as a freemium user. Why not take us for a test drive?

- 3 minutes to sign up with My.ComMetrics,
- 4 minutes to claim and track your blog,
- 5 minutes to track your competition, and
- Read our free article, Corporate blog definition: 4 essentials

We created a short (1:45) video to show you how the new features can help you in the minimum amount of your valuable time (German version further below) (you can watch and share the video on Facebook).

Click here to view the embedded video.

German version - watch and share the video on Facebook

Click here to view the embedded video.

The above illustrates what makes My.ComMetrics.com invaluable, because it tells you where to start looking, allowing you to decide what to change first to improve performance the quickest.

Not only do you get your scores for each metric reported (Page Weight – 21, and Page Proximity – 84, above), but you also get a comparative score for the Fortune 100. This is perfect because it enables you to get your executives to take action. No one wants to look bad in comparison!

You can view and share the slides on LinkedIn or view them right here and click on the additional resources links within the presentation:

My.ComMetrics is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application, which means you do not need to install anything on your end. We host and operate the application over the Internet for your use, so you can access our software virtually as and when you need it to track your blog’s performance.

It’s a blog-eat-blog world; start using the same benchmarking tool several prominent blogging websites do to generate targeted traffic that helps customer relationship management.

Thanks for signing up and preparing to benchmark your blog against the competition.

This short video will have you tracking your competitors’ blog(s)’ performance in no time.

Article source: Take 5 minutes to track your competition

Signing up for My.ComMetrics is the safe choice, because it’s free to try as a freemium user and see how much you’ll love it. Why not take us for a test drive?

Benefit from our tool as some of your competitors have already done.

1. A short instructional video on tracking your competitors’ blog(s) is available here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you prefer, you can read more about tracing competing blogs here.

And just to make sure you get the next blog post first in your inbox, enter your email address below; you’ll be glad you did:

2. View the slides with the links to guide you through the registration process step-by-step, and visit resources mentioned in the video:

There is no perfect method for ranking social media except trial and error, along with an understanding that perfection is impossible and ‘good enough’ is the best we can possibly expect in the real world.

You might also be interested in:

- Video – 4 minutes to claim your blog – 2010-12-30
- Video – 5 minutes to sign up with My.ComMetrics
- More information about the sign-up process
- What our clients think
- Step 3: Begin benchmarking and improvements
- Step 4: Customise to attain better insights

What is your take, how is it working for you? Please share your thoughts with a comment below!

My.ComMetrics is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application, which means you do not need to install anything on your end. We host and operate the application over the Internet for your use, so you can access our software virtually as and when you need it to track your blog’s performance.

It’s a blog-eat-blog world; start using the same benchmarking tool several prominent blogging websites do to generate targeted traffic that helps customer relationship management.

Thanks for signing up and preparing to benchmark your blog against the competition.

This short video will have you claiming your and measuring the baseline to start benchmarking in no time.

Article source: 4 minutes to claim and track your blog

Signing up for My.ComMetrics is the safe choice, because it’s free to try as a freemium user and see how much you’ll love it. Why not take us for a test drive?

Benefit from our tool as some of your competitors have already done.

1. A short instructional video on how claiming your blog works on our site here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you prefer, you can read more about claiming your blog here.

And just to make sure you get the next blog post first in your inbox, enter your email address below; you’ll be glad you did:

2. View the slides with the links to guide you through the blog-claiming process step-by-step, and visit resources mentioned in the video:

You might also be interested in:

- 3 minutes to sign up with My.ComMetrics
- Video – take 5  minutes for tracking your competition – 2011-01-07
- More information about the sign-up process
- What our clients think
- Step 3: Begin benchmarking and improvements
- Step 4: Customise to attain better insights

What is your take, how is it working for you? Please share your thoughts with a comment below!

You may also download a short eBook explaining this process further.

Our My.ComMetrics application is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application, which means you do not need to install anything on your end. We host and operate the application over the Internet for your use, so you can access our software virtually as and when you need it to track your blog’s performance.

It’s a blog-eat-blog world; start using the same benchmarking tool several prominent blogging websites do to generate targeted traffic that helps customer relationship management. Sign up now and start benchmarking your blog against the competition.

Just watch this short video and you will have yourself signed up in no time.

Article source: 3 minutes to sign up with My.ComMetrics

Signing up for My.ComMetrics is the safe choice, because it’s free to try as a freemium user and see how you like it. So, take us for a test drive.

Benefit from our tool as some of your competitors have already done.

1. A short instructional video on the sign-up process is available here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you prefer, you can read about the sign-up process here.

And just to make sure you get the next blog post first in your inbox, enter your email address below; you’ll be glad you did:

2. View the slides with the links to guide you through the registration process step-by-step, and to visit resources mentioned in the video above:

You might also be interested in:

- video – 4 minutes to claim your blog – 2010-12-30
- video – 5 minutes for tracking your competition – 2011-01-09
- more information about the sign-up process
- what our clients think
- Step 3: Begin benchmarking and improvements
- Step 4: Customise to attain better insights

What is your take, how is it working for you? Please share your thoughts with a comment below!

Almost three weeks ago we launched our ComMetrics blog checklist from CyTRAP Labs GmbH with

1. Social media definition: 3 essentials

You can still look forward to

9. 8 guidelines for fostering social media engagement (2010-10-27)
10. 5 corporate blogging trends for 2011 (2010-11-03)

A while back I wrote, Launching a blog – ropes to skip #1: Reputation management, which contained the following five tips:

1. Know your target group.
2. Long haul – it is all about serving a need.
3. Long or short-haul – it is all about branding.
4. Usability is the key – keep it simple, stupid (KISS).
5. Post whenever you want.

But since then, I have learned a few things, so here comes an update.

1. Reputation is key to managing image and brand

In short, reputation is how people talk about you when you are not in the room. No matter what a brand campaign tries to bring across, it will not succeed if your reputation is bad.

More specifically, reputation is often a consequence of a triggering event. Examples include someone’s experience with your customer service, and other visible actions and mistakes regarding environmental damage (e.g., Nestlé – KitKat vs. Greenpeace fiasco or BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster) or human rights violations.

Reputation is based on judgments made by the company’s clients, sharholders and bystanders (see also Barnett, M. L., Jermier, J. M., & Lafferty, B. A. (2006). Corporate reputation: The definitional landscape. Corporate Reputation Review, Vol. 9(1), p. 26-38).

2. People don’t know what they want until they see it

If you manage to make the experience feel different, customers do not use prices at Ryanair or Swiss as a comparison to Virgin’s offerings. Instead, we are open to the new anchor that Virgin Atlantic prepared for us – being cool and cheeky (see commercial below).

Based on the image an airline has, consumers may be willing to pay more for being cool – a better experience. To illustrate this further, a customer may go to Starbucks for an overpriced Latte because of the experience, thereby failing to rationally compare this offering to another store’s cheaper and better coffee.

Starbucks’ or Apple’s respective reputations have little if anything to do with the price of the product, but primarily with ‘the different user experience’ these companies have managed to communicate to consumers.

3. Be clear that image can influence reputation

Image is what comes to mind when one hears the name or sees the logo of a particular company (e.g., Coca-Cola: Real thing or myth). These are the impressions one has about the company and the firm may play on this image, as illustrated by Virgin Atlantic’s latest advertisement.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The commercial plays on the catchphrase, ”Your airline’s either got it or it hasn’t.”  With the help of Virgin’s long-legged flight attendants, the commercial sells Virgin as a cheeky airline, more glamorous than EasyJet and more fun than Lufthansa. There is no plot and the sign-off gag is cute, if not hilarious.

However, the image of being cool can change and be replaced by something less positive the next time customers experience lost luggage thanks to Virgin Atlantic.

4. Failure-elimination helps improve reputation

I have a coffee machine from a company that uses Roger Federer as its brand ambassador, playing on Federer’s image as a sports star and family man with two kids.

But my opinion of the Jura brand has been formed primarily through its customer relationship management, not its image or the brand it promotes with the help of Roger Federer. To illustrate, I recently had trouble with our machine and sent a request for help via email. By the next morning somebody from the company’s customer service help line had called to walk me through some procedures, step-by-step. And yes, that fixed the problem.

I have had this experience with Jura’s customer service more than once. It always saves me time and hassle – a simple 10-minute phone call with a knowledgeable and friendly customer service representative does much good for a company’s reputation with a client. But if we have a bad experience with a product, the supplier’s reputation suffers, and we are unlikely to purchase again from the same supplier.

5. It takes years to build a reputation, but only a few weeks to destroy it

Starbucks can define and communicate its corporate brand and image. Nevertheless, its image and even more its reputation are the result of how clients and shareholders perceive them based on experience, so the company painstakingly builds its quality image over the years.

For instance, Toyota’s image for quality cars positively affected the resale value of used Toyotas for several decades in some markets like the US. Using maintenance and repair costs from thousands of users, Consumer Reports (an independent US publication) has published annual cost of car ownership figures in which Toyotas have done remarkably well for more than a decade. This and its stellar quality record helped Toyota build its ‘quality’ image and the value of its brand.

But that all changed drastically when in November 2009, Toyota acknowledged potential dangers from out-of-position floor mats on some models. In February 2010, Toyota recalled another 1.5 million vehicles in the US, Asia and Europe – including some of its priciest models (e.g., Lexus IS and GS) after discovering flaws in their brakes and fuel injection systems.

The way Toyota handled this recall crisis illustrates that one can manage a brand, but once customer experiences negatively affect the company’s reputation, including a large recall as in Toyota’s case, the damage to the company’s bottom line is substantial.

It will take Toyota and BP years to rebuild their respective brands and fully regain customer trust.

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

Article source: 5 critical steps for reputation management

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.

A free webinar for corporate bloggers on March 11, 2010.

Learn the newest techniques to attract and engage your readers, customers and leads. Get ideas, see examples and gain valuable insights on how social media benchmarking and actionable metrics can deliver highly qualified leads to your sales department.

In this webinar you will learn the newest techniques for effective blogging and nurturing engagement with both clients and casual readers. You will hear ideas, see examples and get valuable insight into how a benchmarking program can deliver highly qualified content to increase your customer engagement levels.

On March 11, 2010 at 10:30 CET (07:30 Rio de Janeiro / 09:30 London / 11:30 Cairo / 12:30 Moscow / 17:30 Singapore) ends 12:00 CET, you are invited to see how successful corporate bloggers attract, nurture and foster better engagement. Social media expert and speaker Urs E. Gattiker will show you how easy it is to improve your blogging and communication strategies, processes and practices by using the newest blogging and benchmarking techniques to increase your company’s impact on the web.

No matter what size your company, or your industry, this webinar will teach you important and highly effective blogging and social media marketing techniques and will inspire you to create a number of new social media strategies.

Blogging, Facebook, and Twitter are about capturing social media analytics and interpreting them wisely and in context. This webinar reveals the latest trends to gain valuable insight.

Attend this webinar to:
- understand benchmarking and why actionable metrics are important to improving performance
- learn how to develop an analytics program that delivers insight, not hindsight
- learn what you should effectively measure to make strategic decisions
- see how you can effectively leverage ‘push’ and ‘pull’ marketing with your blog
- know which analytics to measure and which ones to put aside
- learn from mini cases of blogs included in the FT ComMetrics Blog Index
- understand why social media and corporate blogging are effective and necessary
- learn how to get started and avoid common beginner’s mistakes

Speaker:
Urs E. Gattiker, Ph.D., is a highly experienced social media enthusiast, author and blogger. He is both a founder and Chief Executive Officer of CyTRAP Labs GmbH. CyTRAP Labs provides corporate governance and social media services to organizations worldwide and its ComMetrics division is a trail blazer in social media analytics (e.g., developing the FT ComMetrics Blog Index – the industry standard for ranking corporate blogs of FT Global 500 and Fortune 500 companies).

To get your free access to this webinar, please register now:
==>  FREE webinar registration: Benchmark your blog – improve performance => March 11, 2010 at 10:30 CET

Download this document: http://commetrics.com/download/19/

Your advantage
You will receive a benchmarking guide (out of the ComMetrics eBook Series) that will help you develop actionable metrics for your corporate blog and, as importantly, empower you to successfully communicate results based on five Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your blog.

Your bonus
Free subscription to the My.ComMetrics.com Benchmarking Tool – measure and compare blog performance against competitors.

P.S. - Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

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)
3) Lessons 8 – 11: Whatever domain, home you choose – beware (2009-07-08)
4) Lessons 12 – 13: Getting the basic SEO issues right (2009-07-08)

Today we release the last two installments of these tips and lessons. The sixth, and last, post can be read here:
6) Lessons 18 – 20: Improving blogging effectiveness

In this fifth post, the focus is on commitment, authenticity and managing cultural differences carefully.

Lesson 14: Commit to regularly posting during mid-week
Having several writers makes it easier, but a politician is better off writing their own posts to assure an authentic voice (see Lesson 16 below).

Case study 2: Blogging politicians – how do they measure up?

The saying “out of sight, out of mind,” applies here. Hence, irregular posting makes it more difficult for your readers to remember that a blog provides good information. In the fast-changing blogosphere, an irregular posting schedule like Aviva’s does not seem a good strategy.

Finally, more people are on the Internet during the week than on weekends, so posting regularly during the week (e.g., Tue – Th) is most effective for reaching business and potential subscribers.

Lesson 15: Depth and breadth vs. crowdsourcing
Outsourcing is en vogue – some say it helps bring down the head count, looks good on the books and saves money. To succeed with outsourcing blogging means that you must secure the services of  ‘experts’ and ‘volunteers’ that understand your business, as this example illustrates:

Case study: eBookers or how to skip the ropes

But will these experts be as motivated as your staff, providing value for money to your current and potential customers? Can one assure consistent quality as well as making the company more personable? Will you trust others to be your voice on the web and if you do, is this a viable strategy?

Surely outsourcing blogging content fails to give the company an authentic voice (see Lesson 16 below). As importantly, to assure depth and breadth means checking up and making sure that those posts not meeting these criteria are either improved or simply not published – a time-consuming and, therefore, costly option. In today’s competitive environment, learning from and relating to customers is an opportunity that cannot be missed.

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 16: Authentic voice makes a big difference
An effective blog represents corporate policy, strategy and viewpoints. Hence, people need to be authentic.

Therefore, while having text vetted by the legal crew as well as the PR folks makes it all a bit more sanitized, it also removes much of what may raise interest readers. This does not mean that legal issues do not matter but it needs to be personable to get and keep people interested.

Of course, unless your CEO has the passion, desire, time and dedication to commit to frequently blogging and curate the comments, this should be avoided at all costs. That being said, there are countless examples of brilliant CEO blogs from people who love to write and share their insights. A great example is Jonathan Schwartz’s – CEO of Sun, now Oracle – blog. But either do it right or don’t go there.

Lesson 17: Culture, language and medium – editors should apply
Whatever the language of a blog, many of its readers will have a different first language. In turn, one should consider this when writing for a global social media audience.

P.S. – Not every CEO will come across successfully on video => CEO webcasts on YouTube – will it turn them into megalomaniacs?.

Takeaways

Authentic voice is key – outsourcing blog posting is not an option.
Commitment matters – regular AND relevant posts and response to comments keeps your readers interested.
Slang or humor are out – people whose first language is not the one used on a corporate blog will otherwise be lost.
Act locally, think globally – while you are on vacation many of your faraway readers are working, so assure posting during holidays. It is worth the effort.

I will keep it brief, love to dialogue more in the comments. What is your take? Please share.

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).

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

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