Chris Baggott's Guide to Blogging

Is Corporate Blogging For Real?

My name is Chris Baggott & I'm CEO of Compendium Blogware.
Marketing is about relationships. Relationships happen between people, not brands & not institutions. In this blog we will discuss facets of corporate blogging trends and best practices to help organizations understand and succeed with this medium by giving searchers what they are looking for and putting human beings back into marketing.

Another Data Point In Why Search Leads Online Marketing

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Chris Baggott

People don't click on online display ads

Seth's Blog pointed me to some great data out this week from Jack Loechner of MediaPost. Read the story, but here is the punchline in the very first paragraph:

"The results of an update to the comScore highly publicized "Natural Born Clickers" research, conducted two years ago with Starcom USA and Tacoda, indicate that the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32% of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009, with an even smaller core of people (representing 8% of the Internet user base) accounting for 85% of all clicks."

What does this have to do with blogging for search? Everything really. Online display ads are not that much different than offline display ads. Most of their value comes from branding, not from direct action. Search marketing on the other hand is almost entirely about intent. Searchers want to solve problems. You are in business to solve those problems. When you show up, everyone wins.

Blog software allows you to go directly to your audience. Display advertising online or off depends on some intermediary to deliver your message right? Typically that adds a cost and layer of friction that doesn't exist when you can simply get in front people who are expressing a need for your products or services.

How to use your Corporate Blog for inbound links

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Corporate Blogging is all about credibility and search marketing. By organizing relevant content that is frequently updated you are essentially building targeted organic landing pages. Content drives this strategy, but don't forget ever that inbound links are really valuable too. Generally I fall into the camp that if your company bloggers create great content and that content targeting search, then you will dramatically increase the reach of your blogs and links will come naturally.

Sometimes however you might need to 'Prime the Pump' and engage in some strategies to legitimately go out and get some links.

This particular tactic is not my original idea but one I've been working on after a post by Rand Fishkin. The idea is sort of back to the Zig Ziglar quote that has been around forever:

"You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."

There is really nothing new conceptually with Social Media. The ideas are the same as they were before brand corruption, now we just have the tools to actually execute.

Rand's idea is to target people you know and write a testimonial about them. The key is not to put this testimonial on your blog, but offer it up for them to put on their own blog.

Another spin on this is the offer to be a guest blogger. I use Google alerts to keep track of who's blogging in my industry, that gives me a steady stream of fellow advocates to reach out to.

Corporate Blogging drives search better than social networking

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by Chris Baggott

HOORAY!!!! The truth is finally starting to come out! Last month we talked a lot about the most recent Gartner study talking about social media darlings like micro-blogging plunging down the trough of disillusionment. Corporate Blogging is rapidly moving up the slope of enlightenment. Why?

Simple ROI. Corporate blogging is a search marketing strategy that leverages social media...not a social media strategy for the sake of being "in" social media.

Today eMarketer gave me a huge gift with reporting on a fantastic study by the firm Chitika that is highlighted in the graph above, and more importantly in the following statement:

.....Still, social media sites are only sending a tiny fraction of traffic. An earlier Chitika Study concluded that “the overwhelming dominance of search engines is facing little, if any, threat from social networks.”

The company looked at the top sites sending traffic to the publishers in its network and found that Google alone accounted for 76.13% of referrals.

Taken together, search engines made almost 98% of all referrals, while social networking sites made up just 0.55%.

What else can I add? Most Corporate blogging traffic doesn't come from repeat 'readers' it comes from first time visitors. And most of those first time visitors come from search.

Why should your business blog? To target searchers and solve their problems.

You Don't Peak In High School

Monday, October 19, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Seth had a great post the other day talking about the goal of High School being basically to draw as much attention to yourself as possible.

The point being that most of the time this attention getting is short lived and without any real long term goal. As my wife says to our kids all the time: "You don't want to peak in High School!"

We see this a lot with the business people we talk to who are enamored with social networks without having any real goals. Like high school, the goal is to be popular with no other objective. This was perfectly manifested in the eMarketer story we talked about the other day. Their survey said that marketers had a goal of being Thought Leaders?

Seth's brilliance is that we have all seen this in our own lives. Popularity for the sake of popularity..."If I'm popular lots of good things will happen". Now some people are naturally going to be popular while most are going find themselves doing lots of compromising activity in a desperate attempt to be popular.....as you remember I'm sure, that popularity didn't last long and the memory is probably pretty bitter for all associated.

Then you have your ten or twenty year reunion and you find out who is really successful in life. Almost always, it's not the people who peaked in high school. The successful people are the ones who focused on the fundamentals and had a vision of the future.

How does this tie to Corporate Blogging? Widespread employee blogging is an investment in the future. The goal isn't popularity, followers or fans. The goal is to lay a foundation of stories about the problems you solve. That content will target search traffic. SEO is better for everyone...it's scalable, sustainable and puts you in front of people (prospects) who have problems you can solve. Corporate Blogging is real life, not high school.

Marketers to focus on New Customer Acquisition in 2010. Hallelujah!

Friday, October 16, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Marketers Goal - New Customer Acquisition! Hallelujah!

eMarketer reported a couple of weeks ago the results by Unisfair asking marketers to rank their top priorities in 2010.   You can see the results for yourself.   The number one goal is new customer acquisition.

A couple of other things caught my eye however.   For example "thought leadership"?

Now I've not seen the questions but my guess is that they must have been multiple choice.   Thought leadership is a tactic, not a goal.   Why does a marketer want to be a thought leader? Only as a means to drive one or all of the other goals.   As a company that promotes Corporate Blogging Software, we often get caught in these conversations with marketers.

We see companies all the time that want to imitate a blogging solution because they think it will help them become a thought leader (which is can). What these marketers often don't think through is WHY they want to be a thought leader?

The only reason can be to drive customer acquisition first and hopefully influence retention.    On the acquisition side, I am pretty sure we all agree that search is the greatest acquisition tool of all time. After all, you have a prospect that doesn't know you but is still willing to tell you their problem.   All you have to do is show up in the search results and look credible.

This is really why in this same study, social media and search engine optimization were the one and two tactics listed:

eMarketer top marketing tactics for 2010

Keep in mind what we have been talking about all along here. Blogging for Search is what this is all about. Targeted blogs rank highly for search. The humanity of the media is what converts that searcher into a prospect. It's about target marketing and credibility. That is what makes corporate blogging one of the fastest adopting tools in the marketing arsenal.

Colleges use Corporate Blogging Tools For Recruiting High School Students

Monday, October 5, 2009 by Chris Baggott

New York Times Oct 1 article on Student Blogging at MIT

The New York Times (which I pay to read on my Kindle) had a great article on how MIT and other colleges are using Powerful Blogging Software to leverage their own students in the recruiting effort.

As Seth Godin says: "Websites are for fact & figures, blogs are for stories".   Who better to tell the stories about what your school is really like, than the students who attend?   The present state of marketing consists of two unavoidable elements. The first is that institutions don't control the media, people do. This is a profound shift and the primary driver of organizations leveraging blog software that is designed for Search Engine Optimization.

People (yes, students are people too) are sliding into smaller and smaller niches. To find them, or more importantly, have them find you you have to really focus on creating and distributing lots and lots of relevant content.   Most schools do a great job of talking up their Football team, but what happens when a valedictorian types in "best chess club" or is interested in the environmental work students might be doing.

These kids are searching, they are telling the search engines exactly what they are looking for and if you are not freeing your students to blog you are missing an amazing search marketing opportunity.   The more student bloggers, the more great content showing the total range of what your institution can offer the diverse interests of today's students.

Why are educational institutions turning to Corporate Blogging Software instead of the home grown variety?   A couple of simple reasons.   One is to have a little control. This may come as a surprise to some, but although smart some college students can still make bad decisions. This doesn't make them bad people, but it requires that organizations use tools that permit approval before content gets live.   This isn't designed to stifle creativity or crush the soul of the program.   Monitoring is all about preventing content that can damage both the student and the institution.

The second reason Colleges choose Business Blog Software is because these tools are designed specifically as SEO Tools.    Telling lots of stories that no one ever sees doesn't help anyone.   The Goal is to target specific content to specific individuals by targeting their search terms.

WordPress is not Corporate Blogging Software

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Here is what your vendor is telling us about recent security vulnerabilitys that affected some of the worlds most experienced Bloggers like Robert Scoble:

"I’m talking about this not to scare you, but to highlight that this is something that has happened before, and that will more than likely happen again."

That quote is straight from WordPress and perfectly acceptable in a world where your blog is not mission critical..where a bug or virus getting into your system isn't that big of a deal...a world where people actually like having to worry about plug-in's and frequent upgrades and software tweaking....

Here are some direct comment quotes from Techcrunch on the subject:

"This causes a false sense of security. especially with the bulk of WP users who really don’t understand anything past the WP dashboard."

"My sites were victims of such attacks, as mentioned in this TC article. There were unknown users signing up on my blog, although i’m not accepting signups."

"The fact that a CMS needs “virus/malware” software of its own is frightening. WordPress is the BIND/Sendmail of the blogging world."

"I had a “viagra” pharmacy (or their affiliate) injecting a re-direct in my wordpress installation and it’s incredible tough to figure out where they’ve placed it."

"This absolutely destroyed my blog, which has been “down” for a very long time now."

"This is a nasty hack that essentially turned control of my site over to others."

"WordPress has and will continue to be vulnerable to attacks. The sad fact is that the code base is very poor and it’s truly astonishing that it is so widely used. Yes, WordPress works and is great software, but the core could be MUCH better."

"...you look at the codebase for projects like this and it’s like WTF? But so many people use it…"

"Wait on second look, I did have an unauthorized admin user! He just wasn’t showing up on the list. It was funny… when I looked at my users, it said there were 5 admins. But only four on the list, and I know all four. When I queried the database outside wordpress, the fifth showed up. sneaky."

This is just not acceptable in the business world! Business Blog Software needs to be secure and engergy needs to be spent in online marketing and not on constant monitoring and upgrading your software code. Remember plug-in fixes come only after there have been problems.

This is why Software as a Service offerings are gaining such momentum. As organizations of all sizes begin to recognize the value of these tools for Online Marketing instead of tech toys....there is going to be a lot less tolerance for having to babysit code and more demands on Return on Investment.

Gartner talked about this in their recent Technology Wave Report when they highlighted Corporate Blogging and mentioned second and third generation software as one reason for it's acceleration. WP is a 1st generation tool. Fun for hobbyists but probably not a business tool.

ComScore is telling us that the web is moving away from "Sites"

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 by Chris Baggott

ComScore just announced the most recent search numbers. They show Google continues to rule the search universe with 68% market share. The most important number in the report should finally be a wake up call to all marketers….There were 113.86 Billion global web searches last month, up 41% from the same period a year ago.

Represented in this graph which show that the average searches per person is increasing dramatically year over year.

Marketers....Search Marketing is still the biggest opportunity to impact your business.

For all the talk about competition from the likes of Twitter and Facebook, people are searching

more than ever.

More then a threat to the social networks however, this should be worrisome to traditional web

site marketing. The site is quickly becoming an obsolete notion in the age where most of

your traffic is coming from searchers.

(just thought of my next blog post) My general point is that the web is becoming On-Demand.

The Searcher expects instant gratification. It's a world where they tell you what they want in any

of thousands of different ways and you only have to show up. No domain, no URL to remember,

little branding....

This is why Blog Marketing is growing so rapidly. As the web moves beyond the 'site' it's moving

towards specifically targeted pages....full of human relevant content to satisfy the searchers and

build real relationships.

Rand Fishkin and the how's & why's of Unique Content for SEO

Monday, August 31, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Please start today by watching this video:

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Generating Unique Content from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Not let's dissect what Rand Fishkin is saying here and how it relates to Search Marketing via Business Blog Software...

The Need For Unique Content....the search engines want new content because that makes the searchers happier. At the end of the day, the more fresh content, the better.

I love how he talks about the search engines desire for fairness.   He says with linking there is a problem of "only the rich get richer" and you need to counter that by showing a lot of "diversity in the results." This is exactly why every organization should be doing what Gartner advised and starting a widespread Corporate Blogging program.

Let's start with what Rand calls Editorial Content.   Seth Godin calls these stories.   At Compendium Blogware, we advocate freeing all of your employees to blog.   Let them tell the stories of the company, the customers, the problems they solve and the people they help.   Even developers or guys on the loading dock can be potentially valuable content providers.    The video talks about how Editorial Content is hard to scale, but don't overlook your fellow employees.

He talks about Machine Generated Content as well. Of course any content can feed into your blogs and should, so I'm not going to talk too much about that here.

Finally, Rand discusses User Generated Content. What he misses is how easy it is to get UGC if you only ask.   Rand talks about building community etc... but the simplest and most reliable way to get User Generated Content is to use your email program to simply ask.

I've seen many successful programs that trigger an email after an experience (a sale) "Hey how do you like your new xxxxxx?"   "We have this blog and would love to feature your story...visit this link and tell us all about it.." (see example here....)

Something that simple can generate literally hundreds if not thousands of user submissions.   You just have to make it easy (something automated email does) Check out this example:

2nd Generation Blog Software makes this all pretty easy. Give it a try and see for yourself.

Chris Brogan's Take on Content Marketing

Thursday, August 27, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Search Is Vital

I came accross a post by Chris Brogan that is about a year old. Still relevant LOL. He's reviewing a book called: Branding only works on Cattle and makes this point:

“Search is a larger, behavioral reality that impacts corporate strategy.”

Baskin rightly points out that marketing strategies that don’t include a heavy element of search won’t work well for us. One of the reasons that I advocate content marketing, such as writing a compelling group blog, is that it’s an opportunity to build search equity. Writing about things that people might search for is a great way to find some new people at your door who might want a look at your product.

Exactly. Although the world has evolved beyond the Group Blog to more widespread employee blogging, Blog Marketing is moving mainstream as a corporate marketing strategy for the simple reason that you can drive very high ROI by winning search and solving problems for your customers.

UGGH! Why are we making Social Media Marketing so &^%$* Hard!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Sorry...I'm taking a deep breath....trying very hard not to rant. As Gary Vee says: "Don't be a hater"

But....ok start by taking a look at the following graph. More truly great insight from eMarketer (never shoot the messenger)

So let's start with the first point. Frankly we solve that one and almost every other argument here goes away.

"We Don't know where to begin"

You begin with a Corporate Blogging Strategy. So simple, the first step and the highest value social media online marketing strategy is to begin telling your stories with a human voice. Who are you? Why are you doing this? Who are your customers and why do they buy from you? What problems do you solve?

Look at Gartner's newest technology wave report. Corporate Blogging is growing in adoption faster than any other technology in marketing. It is the hub of every other social media strategy. Why?   Well that brings us to problem number two:

"There is no established way to measure the effectiveness of Social Media"

You measure the effectiveness of Social Media just like any other online marketing effort.   Effective blog marketing measurement starts with Traffic and for the most part this means search marketing. The vast majority of blog traffic comes from first time visitors and most of that comes from searchers.

This by the way is fantastic. Searchers are people with problems.   You are in the business of solving those problems....so by telling your stories and the stories of your customers, you win more search and begin more relationships. This starts with search traffic which is easily measured and easy to calculate the ROI. Compare your blog traffic to what it would cost on PPC and you have an instant ROI to show the boss.

Next, traffic isn't enough.   Is that traffic happy? That is calculated by looking at your bounce rates.   High bounce rates tell you point blank that you are not making your visitors happy.   Read times help too.

I can't tell you how many discussions I've had with "thought leader" purists that have 89% bounce rates when I can show other blogs that may appear "too commercial" with 30% bounce rates.   Which one is making the visitor happier?   It's not up to you it's the data that tell the truth (ok.....breath....starting to sound like a rant....)

The final measurement is the same one you use for every other marketing effort you engage in. Conversion. So many people in Social Media get wrapped up in Conversation that they forget about Conversion.    Now granted, some people like to talk. However, most of us online are either here to solve a problem for someone or to have a problem solved.    Only conversion rates can tell you if you are being successful.

Summary: Traffic, Bounce Rates, Conversion...that's how you measure Social Media ROI

As for the rest: Funding, Time, Legal.....amazing how they all melt away as objections once you start driving more business.

Third Generation Blogging is Database Marketing

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 by Chris Baggott

We have been talking a bit about the new Gartner Technology Wave report. As we have seen, Corporate Blogging has been enjoying rapid adoption because of the recognition that blog marketing can be a very high ROI activity. The new tools available with the introduction of third generation blog software helps as well.

I was reminded today about a post I made way back in 2005 Quoting the book: Strategic Database Marketing...

"Data doesn't build loyalty. What builds loyalty and profits are creative marketing strategies using customized communications based on that database."

Arthur Hughes wrote these words back in like 1987 and they are even more true today.   Think about this as it relates to Search Marketing and Corporate Blogging.   Search starts with data.

That data are the keywords your customers and prospects use to solve their problems.   The goal of search marketing is to target those terms just like we would target an address in email or even direct mail marketing.

The magic of third generation business blog software is the ability to customize your blog communications based on that database.     Just like you don't want to deliver the exact same offer to different segments of your mail database, you don't want to deliver the exact same content to your search database either.

Organizing your content around topics and keywords achieves the goal Arthur Hughes set out for us.   Customize your communications based on data.

Use PPC tactics in your SEO Blogging efforts

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 by Chris Baggott

I saw this great post by Tom Hallett Campaign Delivery Manager of Vertical Leap. Tom does a great job of explaining how you should be using PPC tactics in your Search Marketing efforts. Business Blog Software of course does all this for you...

Here are 3 strengths of PPC and how you can use them in your organic SEO program:

PPC strength 1: Choose the page that visitors land on

Use in SEO: Don’t try to optimize your home page for all of your keyword variations. Instead, ensure you have a relevant landing page for each of your target keywords so visitors find what they want as soon as they land on your site.

This gets to the core of the Compendium Blogware solution. The very idea of a "Compended Blog" is to create organic landing pages...one for each targeted keywords. A lot of people think of Blog in the singular...this strategy radically pushes that to 'Blogs' (form many to perhaps thousands)

PPC strength 2: Customized targeted link titles and descriptions

Use in SEO: Think of your title tag as your ad link text as that’s what will usually be the link that appears in the search engines. Ensure it’s descriptive enough to encourage users to click on it when it appears in the SERP's. And ensure you have a good meta-description too – this will appear in the search results if the search engine thinks it’s relevant. So use it to convince users to click on the link.

The very definition of an organic landing page starts with the title. Don't name blogs something whimsical, title them with the keywords that you are targeting. Look at the title of this blog as an example.

PPC strength 3: Quick results

Use in SEO: Encourage the search engines to crawl your site more often by adding fresh content like blogs regularly. This, coupled with a good long term SEO strategy, will mean any new pages or products you add to your site will be indexed and ranked by the search engines quickly.

This is the final peice of the puzzle. but instead of 'like blogs' make your organic landing pages actual blogs. What you get from targeting business blogging is a giant boost to your online marketing efforts by following these three steps: A blog for each keyword as a landing page, title your blogs with the targeted keywords and update frequently. Simple advice from accross the pond...Thanks Tom.

Understanding the latest Gartner Hype Cycle & Social Media Adoption

Friday, August 21, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Corporate Blogging on Gartner Hype Cycle

The other day I posted this graph showing the latest of the Gartner Hype Cycle's and the accelerating adoption of Corporate Blogging.

It’s important to know what the stages of the Gartner Hype Cycle mean:

According to Gartner "Each Hype Cycle drills down into the five key phases of a technology’s life cycle."

Technology Trigger: A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.


Peak of Inflated Expectations: Early publicity produces a number of success stories—often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; many do not.


Trough of Disillusionment: Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.


Slope of Enlightenment: More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.


Plateau of Productivity: Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology’s broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off.

How does this play between WordPress and Compendium Blogware? Open Source and blogging began with the Technology Trigger and went up the Peak of Inflated Expectations right?

The past two years blogging for business has waned because there was no ROI and the tools required technology people to run them coupled with the lack of security from the requirement of 'plug-in's' made them inappropriate for achieving meaningful business goals.

Why is Corporate Blogging now screaming up the ‘Slope of Enlightenment’? Because the benefits have begun to crystallize and become widely understood. This is about search and conversion. Engagement means happy customers, not happy “readers”....and Second & Third Generation products appear.... Wordpress is 1st generation. Compendium Blogware is Third Generation.

I'm working on a post based on yesterdays webinar drawing the comparison between the early days of email marketing and blogging and the evolution of data.

Corporate Blogging today is Email Marketing in 2001 (think "Newsletters")

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Social Media marketing is in a similar place to where we were as email marketers back in the turn of the Century. We were doing newsletters! Simple information sharing. No real measurement or ROI expectations....just old fashioned off-line activity put online. Blast out my ‘news’ once a month....

Here at the end of the decade and we are using data, measuring ROI, driving relevant messages to the right people at the right time and selling our products and services to a mostly receptive and appreciative audience.

And think about the email newsletter haters back then.   “Isn’t all commercial email SPAM?” “Junk email” “Evil” “Businesses have no right to email” How many conversations did we have at Cocktail parties that didn’t end in “oh...your a spammer”. (usually followed by a loud guffaw)

Sounds familiar to the conversation we have today about the role of business in Social Media doesn’t it?

So how should business be thinking about Blog Marketing?    First of all, we need to think about the goal, ultimately the people who want to talk to you are searching. Doesn't this make perfect sense?

The vast amount of traffic coming to a corporate blog is driven by first time visitors. These are not 'readers' or 'subscribers' these are people who are looking for specific information in an attempt to solve a problem.

This is what search marketing is all about and what makes it perhaps the greatest marketing tool of all time.   What could be more human than providing content that helps another person solve a problem?   Should this be a concern that perhaps that solution might cost money?   Please read Seth Godin's post from this weekend where he says:

"When two people trade, both win. No one buys a bar a soap unless the money they’re spending for the soap is worth less to them than the soap itself."

The exchange of goods and services is what makes the world function. And Marketing is a significant part of what makes the engine work. As Seth says however:

"Yes, I will give my attention to an ad, but only if it's anticipated, personal and relevant. We still give permission to marketers that earn it, but so few marketers do."

Search is permission marketing as long as we deliver relevance. Blog Marketing is good when the content is organized to be relevant, it's not good when it doesn't help anyone.

How do you know if your Business' Blog Content is helpful? Look at your data. What are your bounce rates? What are your read times? What is your click through rate?

Low bounce rates and high click throughs are the the primary metrics that tell you if your business blogging is providing any value.

Just like old fashioned newsletters, we saw high bounce rates, low opens and pitiful clicks....because what we were sending provided so little value. When we started providing data (intelligence) guess what? Exactly; people responded a lot more positively. Same thing for Corporate Blogging.

Gartner: Corporate Blogging Moving Quickly Up The Adoption Scale

Friday, August 14, 2009 by Chris Baggott

I get a lot of questions about our tools. Is this really an effective online marketing strategy? The real question is: Can a Business actually both participate in social media legitimately and still recognize value to the effort. This is code for ROI.

Gartner just came out with a new report on their Technology Hype Cycle for 2009 which shows that Corporate Blogging is rapidly moving up the slope of enlightenment. What's that actually mean?

Really what this is saying is that Businesses like yours are adopting business blog software more rapidly than just about any other marketing tools.

There are two important factors powering this trend. The first is the simple fact that the world is telling you that to be successful you need to be more human. Simple. Your clients are tired of "branding", Tired of Institutions...what they want is to deal with people. This technology empowers your employees and constituents to tell your story.

This is the greatest acquisition tool of all time. It helps you win search. The more you participate, the more people are able to find you. The more stories you tell, the greater chance to have those stories found....and most importantly, have those stories found by people who have problems that you can solve.

Corporate Blogging is about Attraction and Conversion

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 by Chris Baggott

I read a blog post that made the following statement about Corporate Blogging:

"Social media in general, and blogs in particular are about attraction, not promotion."

Exactly right. Except it overlooks that the vast majority of that attraction comes through search engines. Embracing that reality and you begin to recognize that you really don't have 'readers' you have 'seekers'.   Seeking what? Seeking a solution to whatever they were searching for.

So how does that reality adjust your content strategy? Well it should get corporate bloggers focused on the problems of the customers and the solutions you provide.   Does this sound promotional or helpful?   If I'm asking a vendor for help (what I'm doing when I search) I'm going to be disappointed if they are not talking about their products or services or similar situations where they helped people like me. Does this sound too promotional?   Let the data tell you. Too much of this Social Media conversation is taking place based on opinion not data.

Additionally, I'm going to be disappointed if there is no clear call to action. When someone is trying to solve a problem, they want to get to the solution and move on.   They are not looking to subscribe or become regular readers...this is a myth. Focus on attraction and conversion.   The visitor will be happy and your business will be happy.

Focus on three metrics: first time visitor %, Bounce Rates and Click Through rates.   These are the three things that will tell you if you are a successful business blogger.

10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging: Rebuttal

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 by Chris Baggott

So one quick disclaimer: I like Smashing Magazine...but this is just so wrong I really am kind of stunned.

Here is the opening quote of this article:

"A successful blog has a regular readership that is being constantly reminded of your brand and products. And yes, of course, building up a readership takes time."

From a Corporate Blogging standpoint, subscribers or regular readers is the most debunked myth in the business.   I've posted on this several times with the data to back it up.

Most blog traffic in business comes from first time visitors. That's the metric we should be focusing on.   We work with hundreds of business bloggers and I've been exposed to thousands.   I have yet to see even one that doesn't drive a least 65% of their traffic from first time visitors and most have a number somewhere in the mid-80's.

This is a good thing. The hardest job in marketing is to begin a new relationship. In that, the focus of your blogging efforts absolutely should be about acquisition....of helping new prospects find you when they have a problem. This is what make search so powerful...it's puts marketers in a position to be helpful instead of being interrupters.

Once you have that first contact, there are lots of ways to engage for the long term.   Remember email or catalogs or stores or salespeople or the telephone? Social media? Sure it works too.   But remember, nothing happens until you are found.   The biggest benefit of Corporate Blogging has always been and remains introducing yourself.

What am I doing Toaster Blogging??

Thursday, August 6, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Some of you may have noticed that I have started a blog network to act as an eCommerce site to sell Toasters.   It's called Global Toaster and it launched this week.

I've long held the feeling that what is wrong with the web is the way it all resembles paper in it's design and monitzation.   Think about it a Website is built just like a magazine or catalog: Cover, table of contents, stuff I have to navigate to.   Why are websites like this? Because the first people online started this way as a leap from what they were familiar with.   So we get Homepage, nav bar and click click click to get to what we are really looking for.

What Compendium Blogware does for Online Marketing is leverage the web in the way it really works.   People don't want homepages, they don't want to navigate. What they want is to make a search query and land on exaclty the page they want..right away.

From a marketing standpoint that means best practices is to go horizontal.   Forget the pyramid and focus on a flat line populated with hundreds or thousands of targeted pages (or blogs) focused on specifically what the searcher is telling you they want.

So check out Global Toaster and my blog marketing efforts and follow along as we work this out.