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).

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.