According to a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth report, corporate blogging appears to be on the decline. Of the companies they surveyed, only 37 percent were blogging in 2011. That’s down from 50 percent in 2010. If you look only at Fortune 500 companies, the percentage drops to 23 percent (via www.marketingpilgrim.com).
But do these numbers tell a different story? Are corporate blogs falling out of favor, or are weak marketers simply abandoning poorly planned blogging efforts for other poorly executed marketing schemes?
As a ghost blogger for a half dozen corporate blog sites, I suggest another way to look at these numbers is that while the second-tier, ad-hoc marketers jump from one "flavor of the day" marketing tactic to another, savvy, successful corporations have found a way (using professional writers) to maintain their blogs and leverage their SEO power (see Reasons Why B2B Companies Should Blog). These companies have given themselves a significant advantage over their rivals who don't follow through on marketing efforts, not the least of which are their blogs. Those companies that start and stop a blog project--after quickly running out of post ideas as the survey suggests--have effectively wasted the resources they put toward that effort.
The same type of thing happened in the 90s when corporate billboard Web sites were being built, at great cost, without much forethought. These sites were later abandoned as hopeless and rebuilt using a more sustainable model with the rise of Web 2.0.
In 2012, I've seen a dramatic uptick in the number of companies committing significant resources toward what I call "the brand as publisher" communications model. Their blogs stand foursquare at the center of this strategy.
The interplay between technology and education will be a major theme in the blog project I've recently embarked upon for one of the world's largest computer makers.
I'm engaged as a ghost blogger for this relatively new topical blog site that shares quality information about technological advances in computer hardware and software to the benefit of K12 education.
My role as a ghost blogger continues to expand--this is the fourth major corporate blog project that I've taken the lead role as a ghost blogger.
The old-fashioned "push" approach to media relations, whereby press releases are distributed via PRNewswire, PRWeb, or some other wire services, worked well under the traditional, old-fashioned media paradigm that is dying a slow but certain death.
The future is something I call Inbound Media Relations that utilizes the brand as publisher model, whereby the blog, as your sole "broadcast" platform, moves the needle in this direction by forcing the media to come to your blog, subscribe to it, or register their email to get breaking news.
"News only happens once," was something my first boss told me; so, if that's true, you can't distribute the news and then place it on the blog and expect that to do the trick. All you've accomplished under that scenario is having the blog serve as another outlet for the release, not the source of the release, which is the point of inbound media relations.
I realize this takes some guts!
But, if a company can train the media to follow its blog for company news, that's a true breakthrough, and the key step toward making Inbound Media Relations work to your advantage. Otherwise, you're just doing the same old, same old.
In 2010, when Google made a major announcement not by press release but by blog post, we reached what seemed like a milestone....This shift in medium and message represents a new era in corporate communications. News now needs to be conveyed in an empathetic tone and delivered in a user-friendly format.
via mashable.com
But does this shift translate to the more staid world of B2B?
Yes.
Here's why:
There are many compelling reasons why B2Bs--especially those who are now aggressively developing blogs of their own--need to to follow Google's lead. First, it brings gravitas to the corporate blog itself. The readership of the blog needs to know that breaking news about the company will appear there first, which will incentivize readers, especially those in media who follow the company, to subscribe to the blog's feed. Second, it presents another opportunity for fresh, high-quality content to appear on the blog, which accrues positively to the blog's Google ranking. Finally, if this is the era of the brand as publisher (and I think it is), then it follows that the corporate blog should be the medium of distribution for important corporate news.
Since the beginning of 2012, I have received calls from at least a half dozen large B2B technology companies that are in the process of launching blogs. Without exception, they are doing so with the hope of increasing traffic to their corporate Web sites. The B2Bs have seen the wisdom of social networking. And so, we are entering the era of "brand as publisher." There are many compelling reasons for companies to proceed down this path, but they must do so with caution.
Brand as Publisher
Magazines are well aware of the need for engaging, compelling content, but very few companies have the skills in house to create such content on an ongoing basis. And, even if they do, that talent is busy creating other marketing materials (when not stuck in a series of endless meetings). Even in the face of these facts, I see a lot of companies enlist their staff as blog writers without doing some basic checks to ensure that their people have the skill set or the time to generate quality content.
Protecting the Brand
Company blogs reflect on brand image. Unless you have the right structure, training, and staff time, the effort is destined to go horribly wrong.
The answer is to engage with a ghostblogger who has a journalism background and the editing skills to ensure that the posts are completed in a timely, professional manner. Importantly, however, the person you select must also deeply understand your technology and the trends within your market in order to create content that your customers and prospects will be eager to read.
Do Men and Women Sleep Differently?
via www.sri.com
This show is one of the best podcasts I've recorded for SRI International. After approximately 50 shows, we have hit our stride. It's a great example of the power of podcasting and corporate journalism. Click the link to listen to the brilliant Fiona Baker.
I wrote a fair amount of content for the recently published Packager's Playbook Series from the Summit Media Group. The playbooks are being offered free by the publisher via packworld.com.
The playbooks are packed with strategies for success, best practices, and useful tips from industry experts. It was an honor to write content for these very handy and informative packaging industry guide books.
Compelling Reasons for a B2B Company Blog:
I write for several B2B company blogs. One of the biggest challenges my clients currently face is how to use the popular virtual pinboard, Pinterest, as a marketing channel when the majority of their posts lack visual content.
The Infographic Solution
Infographics are the rage right now. And they are doing very well on Pinterest. Lately, I've been recommending that my clients turn industry data into easily visualized infographics and place them in relevant blog posts. And to do so before competitors beat them to it.
Excel with Data Charts
I'm also recommending that my clients build simple data charts in Excel for use in blog posts.
Pinners (the person who does the sharing on Pinterest) can pin these charts to their pinboards on Pinterest. The key to success with charts is making sure they contain a clear headline in the image to help facilitate the pinning process.
Printerest Interest
As B2B companies make the move to business blogging, it is critical that they understand how to leverage emerging, visual-based social networking platforms such as Pinterest if they are going to get the most from their blogging efforts.
Google's pre-announed policy to level the playing field between sites that overplay SEO and those that simply provide excellent content is a boon to the B2B companies that hire me as a ghost blogger. Here's why: Google plans to reward my client's high-quality content by adjusting their GoogleBot functionality (what I've dubbed the "Level Playing Field" policy).
Google's Matt Cutts explains:
Normally we don't pre-announce changes, but there is something we’ve been working in the last few months and hopefully in the coming weeks we hope to release it. The idea is basically to try to level the playing ground a little bit. So all those people who have been doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly doing their SEO – compared to the people who are just making great content and trying to make a fantastic site, we are trying to level the playing field a bit. We try to make the GoogleBot smarter, try to make our relevance more adaptive, so that if people don’t so SEO we handle that. And we are also looking at the people who abuse it, who put too many keywords on a page, exchange way too many links, or whatever else they are doing to go beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.
This is great news for my corporate clients who are interested in educating their customers and prospects (rather than trying to monitize traffic). Instead of focusing obsessively on the number of page views, they can now shift their attention to "bounce rate." As in golf, the lower the bounce rate, the better the score. Bounce rate is one of the key indicators of the value (stickyness) of a site's content.
I've been preaching quality content to my clients for nearly a decade. Those sites that have been overplaying SEO trickery to boost traffic in an effort to monitize are finally going to get their comeuppance. I applaud Google's Level Playing Field policy.