Blog Service

If You Aren't Transparent, You Don't Have Clarity about Corporate Blogging

Posted Thursday, January 8, 2009 by PJ Hinton

Mark Hannah has a great essay on transparency posted over at PBS's MediaShift website.

Starting off by contrasting the public relations rules of the past with today's reality, Hannah discusses how search engines have created an environment where it's not enough to just watch what you say to the media. You have to be careful about what you put up on the net because search engines index, and in some cases cache, that information.

Those who are skeptical of your business not only can see what you're saying but also get a picture of what you have said and done in the past. Those who are dissatisfied with your products and services can post bad reviews on third party websites.

In short, your reputation is controlled by a marketplace where your message competes with that of those who don't agree with your message.

Hannah rightly takes companies to task for treating transparency as just another marketing gimmick to help shape and sell the brand. He says you have to do more than just have transparency. You need to be transparent. You do that by changing the way your business operates, ultimately ceasing to do the things that you wouldn't want to be publicized on the web.

Hannah's message is also relevant to your corporate blog. Blogs will help you get your message out, but if the message doesn't reflect the reality of the way you conduct business, it will do you more harm than good.

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Testing out our new text editor

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by mikey mioduski

Our team of engineers deserve a lot of credit for their hard work making this new text editor interface more awesome than ever. They are always busy making our business blogging platform more powerful and easier to use.

I am using this post as a test to see if they actually did anything or if they're just saying they did, because nobody really knows what goes on back in that room. They sometimes grow beards and some of them don't wear shoes, so I don't know if I fully trust what they say. But here I go.

I will now attempt to upload a picture.

Hey, that was pretty easy. I really enjoyed doing that.

As I type my thoughts onto this editor, I am noticing how fast it is. I mean, it's a lot faster than I remember.

What about linkage? I will now place a link to a client blog, Christy Sports, because I just noticed they're a client, and I have rented skis and boots and boards from them since I was a tyke.

Wow, that was also really easy.

The work of our Dev team reminds me of a song by postitive rock legend Stan Bush. In his words, "Never surrender, never say die. You got the will to survive."

I will now attempt to embed a Youtube video into our newly enhanced text editor, and if it works, I shall dedicate the video to our Dev Team.

Gosh dang that was easy!

Well after some serious testing, I would like to give props, whatever those are, to the dev team on this one. The new features look really slick, plus they make adding content to our corporate blog much much easier. It's also noticably faster. The awesomeness is beyond words.

I think I just fell back in love with blogging. Thank you dev team for helping me rekindle this flame.

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Fancy Schmancy User Interface

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Jenni Edwards

I have always love learning and reading about web usability - it's amazing how certain ecommerce sites have increased their sales dramatically by adding a button or changing the number of screens to check out; so I am naturally stoked to be using a brand spanking new UI for Compendium today...and not to mention, it motivated me to post! :)

Why does the User Interface matter you ask? Well, first back to the ecommerce example, the easier we can make things on our business blogging clients - the more they will blog. So what changes did we make? Mainly, basics - aligned icons more with Microsoft Word standards and some HTML clean up, to even further search engine optimize the blogs. It's one of the beautiful parts of a Saas solution, like Compendium -- always improving our product!

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With a New Release, a New Editor

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by PJ Hinton

The latest release of Compendium Blogware that went live today included a big change that will benefit our content authors -- a new editing environment.

For the past year or so, we've been using the rich text editor supplied by the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) library. It's pretty powerful, but it had enough weaknesses to motivate us to look for a replacement.

Last fall we looked at a short list of potential candidates and decided that the best match for our needs was an open source editor created by a team of developers led by Frederico Caldeira Knabben. The editor's name bears the initials of Mr. Knabben -- FCKeditor.

For the most part content authors should find the interface very similar. Most of the styling features are still there, but some of the toolbar buttons have changed icons. Our support team has prepared some introductory material to ease the transition for existing customers.

Some of the things that users will find as welcome additions:

cleaner HTML created by the editor
availability of Undo and Redo operations
support for keyboard shortcuts, making the editor feel more like a word processor than an HTML form

Some of the things we have improved with respect to our own editor customizations:

oversize images are re-sized on the server upon upload so that they fit within the typical width of a blog column, making page load times much faster
a keyword strength meter that doesn't slow down the editor on older systems and browsers

One thing that may jar long some time users is the change in the keyword strength meter itself. Although the red-to-green gradient remains, no longer does the editor sport a numerical score.

It was our experience that some users became too fixated on the score getting "stuck" at a certain value. The meter's algorithm was designed to balance the desire to include keywords against the need to ensure that they weren't used excessively in a post. When you blog for SEO, you have to keep these opposing goals in mind, lest your content look spammy in the eyes of search engines.

Rather than shooting for a "perfect score", an author should treat the meter as qualitative barometer of whether he or she is performing this balancing act well on a corporate blog. Moving from a number to a qualitative measure should help emphasize that.

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Business Blogging makes SEO a LOT easier than doing your taxes

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Chris Baggott

For those marketers involved in search marketing, we know that search is the one bright spot in the marketing landscape. As you can see from the eMarketer forecast, search will continue to accelerate against other online advertising…and of course we all know that traditional non-online advertising is in a long and protracted decline.

Why is search winning? Because it is the only mass marketing tool in history where you are responding to a prospects intent. No longer do we have to analyze data and hope that certain segments might be interested in our offer.

With Search, our prospects simply tell us when they have a need or problem they could use our help with. Condo, Austin?   Variable Printing Services? Chrome 4 slice toaster? New Tires, Buffalo? All of these and millions more indicate the needs and desires of the searcher.   Do you sell tires in Buffalo?

80% of all web interactions begin with searches.

So why, in a recent Microsoft adCenter survey, did 73% of the small business owners say they would rather DO THEIR TAXES than start a paid search marketing campaign.

It’s not a lack of desire or a lack of intelligence, what most web folks fail to recognize about small business marketing is that they are constrained by both time and money.   This is what makes and internet business blog such a compelling option.

With a business blogging solution designed for business, they get two things. The first is a managed solution. One of the beauties of SaaS is help. Unlike “free” blogging tools where you are completely on your own, hosted business blogging tools have actual people that work to make their clients successful.

At the end of the day, all the business needs to do is tell stories…as Sienfield’s Kramer says…talk about your day. The more they talk, the more search traffic they drive.   Easy to use blogging software makes search marketing a LOT easier than doing taxes…. Blog for SEO...and win.

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Product Releases!

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Abby Rivera

We are proud to announce a successful lauch of a couple of new pieces to Compendium Software and Compendium Product Support today!

Our first item is and most exciting piece is the launching of an updated and enhanced text editor. Thank you to our engineering team for all of their hard work and dedication to the product. As a part of the Product Support Team at Compendium we strive to hear and communicate with Product Planning what our clients are wanting, what sort of dfficulties they are having and move to enhance those pieces of the software. This new text editor, is exactly that. Our clients asked and we listened!

Our second item we are excited to announce, is the self service portion of the help page. In the past, clients have had the abiltiy to submit support requests via email - help@compendiumblogware.com, phone - (317)777-6255, or by completing the webform. Product Support quickly responded to all requests.

But as we grow and expand this Support functionality to our business blogging software, we want to make getting support for our clients as easy as possible. Our solution, we introduced a self service portal to the help page. Clients can now

search answers for Frequently Asked Questions
find out how to accomplish different items with in the software
Ask question and look for support easily on their own

We still love feedback, so if there is anything we can do, let us know!

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New Year .... Fresh Start .... Happy 2009!

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Krystal Featherston

Happy 2009!! Wow it's hard to believe that is actually already 2009 - I can't seem to figure out where 2008 went! Oh well, what can you do. Every year I make a some kind of silly resolution that by the end of January I've usually given up on - well this year is different.I've decided to actually make commitments that I know I can keep - both professionally at Compendium and in my personal life.

At Compendium ...
I've been a complete blogging slacker - writing a blog post has not been a very high priority. Well this year I've I have made it my goal to write at least 2 blog posts per week.

Being a Support Manager here at Compendium - we get a lot of blogging software questions that I could easily write a post on - because chances are more than 1 person has the same question.

Personally
I've have signed myself up for a mini marathon (which if you know me I'm not really a runner), but this is something I've always wanted to do. So I made the commitment to do it.

So what is your "New Year" commitment (not resolution)? Make one that your have to be accountable for ...

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Measuring the Impact of Blogging

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Ali Sales

I blogged on this topic a few weeks ago and couldn't resist expanding on measurement...

"How do you know whether or not your corporate blogging program is working?"

We get this question all the time. The answer is simple:

Business blogging can be measured the same way that all other marketing is measured.

The top line measurements are: Total traffic, quality of traffic, and clicks on your call-to-action.

Yes, that means that your blog template MUST incorporate something for your visitors to do. They need something to click on. That's no different than how you treat your website and email marketing campaigns (and if you're not treating them this way, now is the time to start).

The bottom line metrics are: Leads and dollars. That could be dollars generated or dollars saved.

My next few posts are going to feature Compendium's own blogging program and I'll also feature metrics/stats from some customers.

I'll also cover the key aspects of success in order to get the top line and bottom line metrics headed in the direction you want.

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Seth Godin on Business and Social Media

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Douglas Karr

On measuring your business strategy's success with social media...

It's so refreshing that there's one marketing guru out there with the guts to go against the social media stream and challenge businesses to measure their success and do what matters! Every corporate social media strategy should start with a business blog.

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Gone Fishing?

Posted Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Douglas Karr

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about advertising versus marketing - and how it related to fishing. Advertising is an event, but Marketing is a strategy and process.

Business Blogging is fishing.

The fish are users of search engines who are looking for the products and services that you have to offer. If you put up a website, it's a lot like leaving your pole stuck in the sand and hoping to get a bite.

Using search engine optimization is a lot like chartering a boat and a captain who can bring you to where the fish are. In our case, Compendium is your captain. We figure out the fish you're looking for, we find them, and we put you on a ship heading directly for them.

But you still do the fishing!

If you've ever been fishing, sometimes it takes time. You get to know the water, the time of day, the temperature, what bait the fish are biting on, how to cast your hook and how to wrestle the fish in. That's what blog posts are!

Blog posts are your lines in the water, each of them with a different characteristic. Perhaps it's an introduction to your company, a testimonial from your clients, a new product introduction, a story about the client who strikes terror in the office, the latest news, the latest offering... you name it.

The great thing about fishing with a Blog, though, is that you can drop as many lines in the water as you'd like. In fact, you can pretty much build a net the size of the trophy lake you've decided to fish in. You simply have to blog.

Every blog post is another line in the water. Go fishing. Now.

They're biting!

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CP+B shred school melts faces. Prove content is king.

Posted Tuesday, January 6, 2009 by mikey mioduski

face melting riffs, creative hombres, cpb shred school

CP+B's shred school is rad. Ney. CPB Shred School is way rad. These pushers of interactivity have done it again with the launch of this b.a. new website.

What it is.

A gathering of easy to play songs on guitar, from soft and sweet serenades to mind numbing punch dancing ballods.

I might even call cpb Shred School a "compendium" of guitar how-to videos.

Why it is rad.

The site is really simple, which is great from a usability aspect. You can search through tons and tons of guitar lesson videos.You can search through all the videos, and sort a few different ways.

Remember, these are the people that did Subservient Chicken. They know how to get people, a LOT of people, to interact with a website. Right up top there is a simple "upload" button that allows users to upload lessons of their own.

While YouTube has tons and tons of "how to play _______" videos, CP+B has brought them together in an awesome way. The good sites and the good blogs have something to offer the user or the reader. This is what keeps us interacting, because we see value in it. There is a benefit to watching and digging.

Look, a lot of things make this site rad. Mostly, it's really helpful, and it's really easy. Plus, the agency vidoes are really funny. The only thing that I could see improving the site is to get RZA, GZA and Bill Murray back together to teach an exclusive new accoustic version of, say, Triumph. But I guess I'm just a dreamer.

This one below is by far the best. While this Andrew Keller fellow may appear soft on the outside, his ability to blast tasty riffs right through the back of your skull is something that nobody saw coming. I think it's computer generated.

How does this relate to me, a creative designer for blog software company? Well, CPB school is telling evidence that content that is funny, entertaining, valuable, easy, sharable, and just awesome in general will get people to your site and keep them there. The better it is, and the easier it is to stay involved, the lower your bounce rate, and the more time you have to say something about your company.

Apply directly to your business blog.

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Employee Bloggers and Trust: A Ski Vacation Story

Posted Tuesday, January 6, 2009 by Chris Baggott

There has been a lot of talk about the Forrester report highlighting the horrific lack of trust in Corporate blogs. To me, the key strategy for success outlined by the author Josh Bernoff was the use of employee bloggers....and lot's of them.

My case today focuses on an experience just two days ago skiing with the family in Colorado. This was a spontaneous road trip based on access to a free house and the fact that Jimmo's (with beard) son and daughter were out there this winter. (I am actually blogging as we drive home through Kansas)

The weather was great and the snow was perfect. Sunny and around 28 during the day. But what made the difference between this being a really good trip and a fantastic experience was Alex.

Alex here is a friend of Jimmo's son and happens to work as a Host at one of the big resorts. Talk about your dream job...ski around all day and make sure everyone is safe and most importantly having a good time.   There are maybe hundreds of these folks in Summit County.   And this is just one position. Vail by itself employees over 3500 people.

Through our hookup, we were able to ski all day with Alex on his day off.   Alex is smart, he's 24 and a graduate of a good school. He's doing this because he loves it.   He loves the customers and he loves the resort. He was able to show us places that were appropriate for the skill variances of our entire group...nooks and cranny's we never would have found on our own...He even took my 8 year old off for a while. Why? Because I TRUSTED him.

Vail blogs just like any other Corporation (at least Heavenly does)....self promoting PR.   Why not offer up the opportunity for all 3500 employees to get on multi user blog software and tell their stories?

That's how Corporate Blogging will gain trust...telling real stories from real people who love what they do.

There are over 10,000,000 monthly searches this time of year that Vail would want to rank highly on. Post a couple hundred times a week with a variety of relevant stories and watch how many of those start coming their way...

And don't tell me Vail is different than your plumbing supply business or whatever. Most all company employees are smart, they like their jobs and care about the customer.   Let them help you build trust.

P.S. While you're at it, Vail has a great database. They have my email and know exactly when and where I skiied.   What's stopping them from triggering an email to me next week asking me to tell them about my trip....maybe submit a picture or two...wouldn't that be trusted content? You bet it would. Vail skiis about 25,000 people a day.   That's 175,000 emails a week that could be triggered telling your customer you appreciate them...Does anyone doubt that Vail would get at least a couple of hundred usable stories a week to fill their blogs? Imagine the benefit.

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Do You Trust your Blogging Platform?

Posted Monday, January 5, 2009 by Douglas Karr

Two events of late that should serve as a warning to businesses looking to just start a business blog utilizing free services:

1. Journalspace is dead, and so is their content

Journalspace is no more. Countless bloggers have lost all of their content because the folks behind Journalspace were convinced that RAID drives were an appropriate backup methodology. Ouch. The only recommendation on the site is to try to get back content via Google Cache. Double-ouch.

2. Google Feedburner has significant latency issues

Feedburner is having severe caching issues where feeds are not updating for 30 minutes to several hours. For retailers and businesses with initiatives that are time-dependent, this is unacceptable!

The architecture of Compendium Blogware is built for a business. We have backups, off-site backups, redundant databases and even an off-site replicated system in the event of disaster recovery. Our amazing development and architecture teams have even implemented Amazon Web Services and Amazon EC2 Cloudbursting in the event that our client gets an unprecedented bump in traffic.

When they host their blog on a freebie site, businesses assume that these kinds of things are taken care of. Typically, they are not.

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Misadventures in Bad Corporate Blogging

Posted Sunday, January 4, 2009 by PJ Hinton

The financial situation of domestic car manufacturers has generated a lot of headlines the past month or so. This past week, both GM and Chrysler got bridge loans from the U.S. government. Both made posts on their corporate blogs to mark the events.

Blogger Jeff Nolan at Enterprise Irregulars points out the stark contrast in the tone of comments on each post and hits the nail right on the head.

... Fastlane is much more respected in the automotive world as a blog about cars on GM’s site, whereas the Chrysler blog is simply a marketing exercise. The distinction is subtle because technically both are marketing tools but the Fastlane blog has substance that is conspicuously lacking in the Chrysler blog.

This brings up an important point: blogs are a long-term investment in the real. Proponents of good corporate blogging strategy drive home the principle that a blogging initiative will fail if your content is nothing more than a dumping ground for press releases.

Over time, content expressed in a real voice will be viewed as credible by the blog's readership. If it is nothing but a conveyer belt for marketing messages, you won't be taken seriously. That's why Chrysler's thank you note got crumpled up and thrown back in it's face, metaphorically speaking.

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Blogging and Customer Service

Posted Saturday, January 3, 2009 by Brian McKay

Customer service and customer support of your company is vital to thrive in our economy. Blogging to earn customers makes a lot of sense in this vein. Here's a story to best illustrate what I'm talking about.

I needed an oil change, and I had my 7 month old daughter in tow. I thought running the car over to Jiffy Lube would be fine. When I lived in Muncie, the Jiffy Lube delivered consistent service and the staff was friendly. So, I pulled into Jiffy Lube and waited in line with my car. Then I waited, then I waited, and then a car pulled out and I watched for 5 minutes while the staff appeared to just hang out before pulling the next car in. (deep sigh) I was irritated. There was no communication, and an obvious lack of urgency to be "Jiffy" at all. So I pulled out in search of at least mediocre service for my car.

I ran a few more errands and remembered another Jiffy Lube closer to my home. Here comes your second chance Jiffy. I pulled up right away, the staff was friendly attentive and informative with the service they were going to provide me. They smiled at me, said hello to my little daughter, and got to work quickly. They were very "Jiffy," and that is what I wanted to pay for. I waited for mere moments and I was ready to go.

One franchise with two locations, and two entirely different experiences. If Jiffy Lube had a Blog to talk about customer dissatisfaction and satisfaction they would have a voice in the conversation I'm going to have with at least 20 people in my network about my experience. Let alone the thousands that read my Blog here. As it stands, they do not have a voice in this conversation. I'm going to speak the praises of the one location, and tell of the frustration experienced at the other. My voice is going to be far more powerful than any corporate speak they can drum up, because my voice is authentic.

Corporate Blogging is an answer to a customer like me. It provides a forum for the good and the bad to be discussed when it comes to your business. Don't be afraid of the negative feedback Jiffy Lube, embrace it. You'll become more human, and be able to vision cast for the future of the company with candid feedback from the very customers you are looking to serve month after month.

Your feedback forum does not address search, and provides me, the customer, with none of the feedback from fellow customers. A Blog will share the dialogue, and can provide real SEO value to your brand.

If your business prides itself on customer service, and works to respond appropriately to upset customers, make the decision to Blog for SEO, and Blog to earn customers in 2009.

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Get Found in Google Local Searches for FREE

Posted Friday, January 2, 2009 by Douglas Karr

It amazes me how many companies have a local presence, but don't do anything to ensure they're being found locally. Local search engine optimization is a great reason to start a business blog. Mentioning streets, cities, zip codes, townships, counties... all of these things help index your company and your content locally!

Local search is on the rise, 76% year over year, according to comScore data:

Before you even begin blogging, though, there's actually something you can do that's FREE and will provide you with some of the best local search engine placement you can find. Simply register your business locations with Google Local Business Center.

Registering with Google Business Center will put your business on the map! Be sure to register and do it today. It will put your business directly below all of those high-paid links!

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The Truth exists whether you believe it or not

Posted Friday, January 2, 2009 by Brian McKay

The title above carries a lot of weight in marketing circles. It is the essence of both successful marketing initiatives, and ones that have failed. The truth rests in the measurable results gained from a campaign. Those results are the ultimate truth detector for your campaign.

So.... How did you fair last year? Was it a success based upon your bottom line goals, a middle of the road effort, or an abject failure?

All of us in marketing and sales are measured everyday. It makes sense to invest in vehicles for your message that are proven to generate qualified leads, paying customers, and offer a lower cost per customer acquired. Earning customers through Blogging and Blogging for business is the truth when it comes to those metrics. It challenges your core points of difference by elevating your business on the search engines to deliver your message. When someone finds you, and clicks on your Blog site, what do they do next?

The answer rests in how relevant your business was to the keywords you've chosen to target, as well as the strength of the competitive advantages that you promote.

There is our marketing truth serum. Is your message, your true point of difference, strong enough to fully take advantage of a first page result on Google? Only a few ways to find out, and Blogging is one of them.

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Seth's New Year's Advice....

Posted Thursday, January 1, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Why am I so weak that it takes me 300 words to attempt to say what Seth says in one sentence:

"While the rest of your world huddles and holds back, here's a golden chance to use cheap media, available attention and great talent to make something that matters."

Multi User Blog Software is affordable (cheap), targeted search is how you get in front of available attention when they want to hear from you and your employees are the great talent that both Richard Edelman and Josh Bernoff of Forrester are telling business to leverage to create trusted content.

What could be simpler? Embrace a Corporate Blogging Strategy as one of your primary 2009 resolutions.

Thanks for pointing out this quote Debbie Weil.

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2009 Corporate Blogging Strategy

Posted Thursday, January 1, 2009 by Chris Baggott

In the early December SES meeting in Park City there was a lot of talk about 2009 being the year of getting back to "Blocking and Tackling" for online marketers. Dayna Moon, product

sales director at Platform A. "As search marketers, we will be asked to improve efficiencies and maximize ROI,"

Dayna hits it right on the head. Nothing new here....Vince Lombardi said this:

"Some people try to find things in this game that don't exist but football is only two things - blocking and tackling".

During this conference there was still some beating the drum for integrating video into display ads and mobile, but to the Vince-lovers this was more akin to a Terrell Owens strategy.

Blocking and tackling is just what Dayna said, efficiencies and ROI. In other words, how easy and how effective.

this is why there is so much momentum for investment in a Corporate Blogging Strategy. Both B2B as well as Retail Marketers are learning that it's content that drives search results and prospect engagement. Whoever has more content thats both recent and frequently updated wins.

Blocking and Tackling simply means empowering your employees to talk about what they are doing...the products, the customers, the service....as Cramer said: "You talk about your day".

Business blogging passes both of Dayna's blocking and tackling tests; It's highly efficient because the blog content is frequent and free. The ROI is easily measurable when compared to pay per click or any of your other traffic generating strategies.

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Spice Up Your Blog - Review of Doug's Talk

Posted Wednesday, December 31, 2008 by Jess Wehner

I'm a little late on adding this to my blog (it's been a busy month!) but I did want to highlight some of the great things Doug spoke about in his webinar a couple weeks ago. We had a client-only webinar where Doug Karr, VP of Blogging Evangilism, spoke about how to "Spice Up Your Blog".

Here are some of the highlights from the webinar, use these to ensure you are moving forward witha a succesful corporate blogging strategy:

Use a variety of posts (this is great for your readers, providing something for everyone, AND this is great for your bloggers- now they'll never run out of content ideas! Just write a post on each of the below six topics then lather, rinse, and repeat):