Advanced Business Blogging is easy. Usually where it slows down is in the process of content creation. Too many people worry about content for business blogs instead of focusing on the real human stories that happen every day. Business bloggers often have a tendency to overthink every word to a point of infrequency.
Frequency is the most important component in Corporate Blogging. Blogs aren't the place for articles or whitepapers.
Short, sweet authentic anecdotes about things that are happening in your business, with your customers, success, missteps...all this is what makes great corporate blog content.
Thanks to Scott for the clips!
Posted Thursday, May 29, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
There are a lot of parallels to compare Corporate Blogging today to where Email Marketing was 5 or 6 years ago. Back then, Email Marketing was free. All you had to do was download a ListServ application, configure a server or two, find and manipulate some plug-in applications for registration or bounces or unsubscribes or de-duplication or throttling or opens & clickthrough tracking or analytics.....and the list goes on.
In the end, some geeks might have loved all this tinkering, but from a business or marketing standpoint it was a nightmare. The solution was all encompassing SaaS tools from companies like ExactTarget, Constant Contact or Responsys...
Superior tools designed for marketers, not IT folks. In the end, both parties were happier.
The same discussion happens in Corporate Blogging Software. "WordPress is free...why pay you?" For the most part we hear this when IT folks are involved. Natuarally as they understand the Compendium Blogware offering they start to see the feature differences, but the don't really understand that Free isn't Free.
That is why I was so happy to see this post today from a big Technology focused Blog talking about how overly hard WordPress is:
When you think about what your goals are with advanced business blogging the focus should be on engagement and traffic through SEO....not constantly tweaking software, messing with plug-ins or installing more powerful servers. Let the Vendor manage that stuff....
In the end, some geeks might have loved all this tinkering, but from a business or marketing standpoint it was a nightmare. The solution was all encompassing SaaS tools from companies like ExactTarget, Constant Contact or Responsys...
Superior tools designed for marketers, not IT folks. In the end, both parties were happier.
The same discussion happens in Corporate Blogging Software. "WordPress is free...why pay you?" For the most part we hear this when IT folks are involved. Natuarally as they understand the Compendium Blogware offering they start to see the feature differences, but the don't really understand that Free isn't Free.
That is why I was so happy to see this post today from a big Technology focused Blog talking about how overly hard WordPress is:
"Recently I have started chatting to an engineer at Automattic, the mob which employs most of the lead programmers on Wordpress. They also run the Wordpress.com service, which is a big job — millions of blogs, tens of millions of monthly visits."
"I complained to him that one of my annoyances in life is how complex Wordpress actually is. Why? Because you don’t just have to configure Wordpress to get anywhere. To get it to perform acceptably you can either throw powerful hardware at the problem (which is how Club Troppo has done it since our donation drive last year) or you can implement a whole rogue’s gallery of tweaks and adaptations."
When you think about what your goals are with advanced business blogging the focus should be on engagement and traffic through SEO....not constantly tweaking software, messing with plug-ins or installing more powerful servers. Let the Vendor manage that stuff....
Posted Wednesday, May 28, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I am going to spend some more cycles understanding this aversion to leveraging Corporate Blogging or any other social media to drive business.
People often ask me what size businesses use Compendium as their Corporate Blogging platform. Well...we are growing quickly and like all SaaS applications our software is used as a blogging platform in large enterprise organization as well as the smallest of small business. They all have the same objective....drive engagement....I should say, drive measureable engagement.
Our smallest client is Lizann Brand of tiny Greenfield Liquors. Here is a story told to me by one of our Account Managers yesterday:
This is a three employee shop. They use their blogs to win searches on various products with a local qualifier (she's in a suburb of Indianapolis...hence the 500)
She reads the Wine Speculator and posts on the products featured there...knowing that locally others are reading the same thing and then searching to find that specific product. They also use the blogs for building up their email list and to solicit drink recipes & other content from their visitors. They put very little time or effort into this. From a pure ROI standpoint, Compendium Blogware is the most productive tool in her marketing arsenal.
People often ask me what size businesses use Compendium as their Corporate Blogging platform. Well...we are growing quickly and like all SaaS applications our software is used as a blogging platform in large enterprise organization as well as the smallest of small business. They all have the same objective....drive engagement....I should say, drive measureable engagement.
Our smallest client is Lizann Brand of tiny Greenfield Liquors. Here is a story told to me by one of our Account Managers yesterday:
"Lizan from Greenfield Liquors called this morning and she shared a great story with me. This past weekend she had a customer from out of town stop by the store. He was from Toledo OH and was in town for the 500. He specifically wanted Absinthe – he found out that Lizan had the product at Greenfield Liquors because of her last blog post. Her blog post: http://greenfieldliquors.compendiumblog.com/blog/owners-corner/0/0/lucid-absinthe-is-at-greenfield-liquors I believe she said that it is $60 a bottle and he wanted 3 of them. Unfortunately she only had one in stock. I think next time she will stock up on a product before she writes a post about it!"
This is a three employee shop. They use their blogs to win searches on various products with a local qualifier (she's in a suburb of Indianapolis...hence the 500)
She reads the Wine Speculator and posts on the products featured there...knowing that locally others are reading the same thing and then searching to find that specific product. They also use the blogs for building up their email list and to solicit drink recipes & other content from their visitors. They put very little time or effort into this. From a pure ROI standpoint, Compendium Blogware is the most productive tool in her marketing arsenal.
Posted Tuesday, May 27, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
So don’t tell my family, but a big part of my limited brain capacity was spent this 
weekend
thinking about Stephen Baker (pictured) & Heather Green of
Business Week regarding his latest cover story: Beyond Blogs (sub
context…social media will change your business), a follow up to his
fantastic 2005 article; Blogging Will Change Your Business.
Let me start by saying this 2005 article had a huge influence on me. Additionally, Steve’s cover story of Janury 2006: Why Math Will Rock Your World is the reason I subscribe to the paper version of Business Week…the only paper subscription I have.
Let me be clear from the start that I'm a fan of Steve's, love his work and he is one of the few Print Journalists I feed to my homepage....I just think this story misses the mark.
This
weekend I also read “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. I’m sure
most of you have heard by now about this book highlighting a final CMU
lecture by a dying college professor. Here is the video….
Randy has some great lessons here, but one that kept coming back to me was to “focus on the fundamentals.”
This is what kept nagging me about Stephen & Heather’s updated Business Blogging article…they really seemed to ignore the fundamentals.
There are basically two big problems with reporting on Social Media that it seems all journalists fall into...(wait! I just thought of a third…)
By no means do I want to minimize the power or potential of these new tools. Internal Wiki’s are perhaps the greatest thing to happen to internal organization communications and collaboration since the telephone…or at least the Outlook Calendar. Both BT and Best Buy have great cases to make. But the reality is that every CEO on the planet wakes up with one thought first and foremost….sales.
What’s missing from the conversation about Social Media is how any of this affects the actual numbers. It’s almost like it would be ‘dirty’ for anyone to talk about how a business should use social media to drive sales.
Sales happen when there is a need and a solution that comes together for mutually agreed value. (I value that flat screen more than I value my $1,000 in cash)
What’s been lost from traditional marketing since the advent of TV has been a fundamental premise we all learned from Zig Ziglar. People buy from People. Marketers have been corrupted by “Brand” and “Consumer” for so long that they forgot about the people on both sides.
The greatest gift of Social Media is the ability to reintroduce people to the mix. Email, Search & Employee Blogging all are social media….and all drive better relationships, higher engagement and more business. That’s what the entire Social Media phenomenon is telling us. We trust people more than we trust institutions.
weekend
thinking about Stephen Baker (pictured) & Heather Green of
Business Week regarding his latest cover story: Beyond Blogs (sub
context…social media will change your business), a follow up to his
fantastic 2005 article; Blogging Will Change Your Business.Let me start by saying this 2005 article had a huge influence on me. Additionally, Steve’s cover story of Janury 2006: Why Math Will Rock Your World is the reason I subscribe to the paper version of Business Week…the only paper subscription I have.
Let me be clear from the start that I'm a fan of Steve's, love his work and he is one of the few Print Journalists I feed to my homepage....I just think this story misses the mark.
This
weekend I also read “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. I’m sure
most of you have heard by now about this book highlighting a final CMU
lecture by a dying college professor. Here is the video….Randy has some great lessons here, but one that kept coming back to me was to “focus on the fundamentals.”
This is what kept nagging me about Stephen & Heather’s updated Business Blogging article…they really seemed to ignore the fundamentals.
There are basically two big problems with reporting on Social Media that it seems all journalists fall into...(wait! I just thought of a third…)
1. Chasing the newest thing. There is a lot changing in social media. But the big story for business isn’t Twitter or Facebook, it’s new and more effective ways to use the basics: Email and Corporate Blogging. Randy talks about his early youth football days. How a coach made them practice with no balls because, like Vince Lombardi says, this game is about fundamentals. In Randy’s talk a kid asks why they have no footballs. Coach answers: “how many people on the field don’t have the ball?” Answer: “21”. Right says the coach: “We are going to focus on what those 21 people are doing.”
What happens with getting hung up on the newest widget or Twitter is it distracts from what the vast majority of people are doing online…..email and Search. There are amazing strides being made in data driven email dialog and blogging is revolutionizing Search Engine Optimization and engagement.According to the Pew Interent and American Life research, (see graph) this is where the people are. This is where business needs to be focused. Yes, keep an eye on new things, but focus energy on perfecting what is working today. Search and Email are the biggest parts of the Social Media mix and present the largest opportunities for business.
2. Celebrity. So many journalist covering Social Media focus on Celebrities and celebrity bloggers. There are 20,000,000 businesses in the United States…and this doesn’t count non-profits. Hearing stories about Jimmy Wales, Michael Arrington, Kerry Miller or Jonathan Schwartz is great if you’re People Magazine, but this is Business Week. Tell me about real businesses using these tools. The story at Sun Microsystems isn’t the story of a CEO/Celebrity blogger (Jonathan's Blog), the story is the thousands of normal everyday Sun employees that blog. Who are they? What are the benefits to the organization? (hint…it’s not touchy-feely....the ROI is found in winning searches and converting those visitors to prospects….)
There was a great quote from Richard Edelman in the Dallas Morning News the other day:
“It’s clear that when it comes to traditional authority figures – whether they’re chief executives or heads of state – people trust them less,” says Mr. Edelman. “Employees are the new credible source of information. We have data that shows an employee blog is five times more credible than a CEO blog – and I say this as a CEO blogger.”
This is the big story in Social Media as it relates to Business.
Fundamentals are about focusing most of your effort on the things that are most important…with Social Media as it relates to business, that is the amazing strides being made with Email driving engagement through data and Search made through widespread employee blogging.
3. Journalism. Journalists can be forgiven for sticking close to home when considering Blogging and Social Media. A quote like this is typical:“According to a recent study by Forrester Research, only a quarter of the U.S. adult population even bothers to read a blog once a month."
Journalists think in terms of circulation…. of a fan base that is going to be loyal to a given author. This doesn’t work in business. More importantly it’s shouldn’t even remotely be a measure of success for business. Again, this makes people like Kerry Miller or Arianna Huffington interesting to Journalists but not really relevant to the other 19.9M organizations that are not involved in publishing.
Businesses measure success based on metrics like traffic, engagement, conversion, leads, sales…that sort of thing. How is social media being successfully executed against those metrics…..now that’s a story.
By no means do I want to minimize the power or potential of these new tools. Internal Wiki’s are perhaps the greatest thing to happen to internal organization communications and collaboration since the telephone…or at least the Outlook Calendar. Both BT and Best Buy have great cases to make. But the reality is that every CEO on the planet wakes up with one thought first and foremost….sales.
What’s missing from the conversation about Social Media is how any of this affects the actual numbers. It’s almost like it would be ‘dirty’ for anyone to talk about how a business should use social media to drive sales.
Sales happen when there is a need and a solution that comes together for mutually agreed value. (I value that flat screen more than I value my $1,000 in cash)
What’s been lost from traditional marketing since the advent of TV has been a fundamental premise we all learned from Zig Ziglar. People buy from People. Marketers have been corrupted by “Brand” and “Consumer” for so long that they forgot about the people on both sides.
The greatest gift of Social Media is the ability to reintroduce people to the mix. Email, Search & Employee Blogging all are social media….and all drive better relationships, higher engagement and more business. That’s what the entire Social Media phenomenon is telling us. We trust people more than we trust institutions.
Posted Thursday, May 22, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
In a great post today from ReadWriteWeb called "The URL Is Dead...Long Live Search." My favorite quote:
Basically it talks about a big brand (SpecialK) that ran a TV commercial and asked the viewers to search rather than remember a URL. It's a great point, but I still think misguided execution.
The strategy was a big high production TV commercial that I'm sure drove a huge spike in sight visits to download a diet plan. I don't know the exact number of visitors, or how many people actually downloaded the plan.
What I do know, is there are Thousand of keywords associated with diet and weight loss and millions of searches....and those searches happen every day. It's frustrating to me that an old media 'campaign' like this gets so lauded when if SpecialK or any big brand would simply invest a fraction of the resources that goes into one commercial into a corporate blogging strategy designed for SEO they would be able to accomplish a couple of significant goals:
If you would like more Blog Information From Compendium, visit our site.
".....it would seem that long, unwieldy URLs will become even more cumbersome on devices with limited screen size. That makes search even more important, and driving consumers to your product via search seems like a safe bet."
Basically it talks about a big brand (SpecialK) that ran a TV commercial and asked the viewers to search rather than remember a URL. It's a great point, but I still think misguided execution.
The strategy was a big high production TV commercial that I'm sure drove a huge spike in sight visits to download a diet plan. I don't know the exact number of visitors, or how many people actually downloaded the plan.
What I do know, is there are Thousand of keywords associated with diet and weight loss and millions of searches....and those searches happen every day. It's frustrating to me that an old media 'campaign' like this gets so lauded when if SpecialK or any big brand would simply invest a fraction of the resources that goes into one commercial into a corporate blogging strategy designed for SEO they would be able to accomplish a couple of significant goals:
- A blog program designed for Search Optimization will throw a very wide net out and attract lots of qualified traffic over a wide range of keywords. Enterprise blogging is one of the best ways to drive SEO.
- Real Engagement. The Edelman Trust Barometer for 2008 tells us that the most trusted sources for information are "people like me". What corporate blogging does is allow organizations to create a lot of content written by real human beings....when a searcher finds you, they find 'someone like them' and the result is significantly higher conversion.
If you would like more Blog Information From Compendium, visit our site.
Posted Monday, May 12, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I wanted to share some good Corporate Blogging press with you. I know it probably seems self-serving...but hey...it's my business :-)This first one is from a city business journal here in Indianapolis and talks about our growth. The article may not have the complete business concept down, but the bottom line is we are growing quickly because there is a tremendous need for easy to use blogging software designed specifically for business, corporations, enterpirses or any other type organization.
From a small business blog standpoint, Direct Magazine had a great feature about a dental practice that is using Compendium Blogware to help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Blogging for Search is a great use of Compendium and as the Dr. in this article says, it's very measurable and converts into paying customers at a very high rate. I'll leave it to you to read the article to see just how high a rate he is talking about :-)
Posted Wednesday, May 7, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I just finished a webinar on small business blogging with Logoworks. In that I referenced an Edelman Trust Study. I'll put that up in a couple of days, but if you are just coming from the webinar, please just email me: Chris@compendiumblogware.com and I'll get it to you directly.
Posted Tuesday, May 6, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
So you took the previous posts to heart and have your employees actively participating in your Corporate Blogging Efforts. But…you still would like to have your actual customers contribute too.
You can have success here, but you have to work for it. The idea that you put up a social network and suddenly a “community” springs up around your company is pathetic.
Getting participation in your business blog strategy takes effort….not a lot of effort, just smart effort.
I always suggest starting with email. As Ben Stein says: “the number one way to get people to do something is…..to ask them.” I often suggest to our clients they send regular follow up emails to people who have had an experience with the company or non-profit and overtly solicit feedback.
Tell them you have a blog and you wondered if they would like to share an experience they've had with your company. Not everyone will submit a blog post extolling the virtues of your company, but my experience shows that about 10% will. Depending on your business, ask for pictures or even video….shake the tree and you will find a few creative types who will go all out for their 15 seconds of fame ☺ Email is a super-easy and effective way to solicit UGC for your Corporate or Organizations Blog.
You can have success here, but you have to work for it. The idea that you put up a social network and suddenly a “community” springs up around your company is pathetic.
Getting participation in your business blog strategy takes effort….not a lot of effort, just smart effort.
I always suggest starting with email. As Ben Stein says: “the number one way to get people to do something is…..to ask them.” I often suggest to our clients they send regular follow up emails to people who have had an experience with the company or non-profit and overtly solicit feedback.
Tell them you have a blog and you wondered if they would like to share an experience they've had with your company. Not everyone will submit a blog post extolling the virtues of your company, but my experience shows that about 10% will. Depending on your business, ask for pictures or even video….shake the tree and you will find a few creative types who will go all out for their 15 seconds of fame ☺ Email is a super-easy and effective way to solicit UGC for your Corporate or Organizations Blog.
Posted Friday, May 2, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
Email Marketing is all about two way dialog. You want your recipients to engage. Well one great way to get them to participate is to invite them to write about their experience with you for your blog. This is a blogging best practice that will work for any kind of business blogging. The example below is a travel company that runs tours in Italy...it's not the prettiest email in the world but trust me...It's really effective.
Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
We talk a lot about humanizing your business through blogging. I've not seen a much better example of that than the story I found in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about cookie-maker Katherine Novotny. The story is simple and powerful. Katherine had a blog and wrote about her business. One day she wrote a blog post about how she was running out of operating capital because of rising costs and on the verge of going out of business. As a human being, she appealed that if she didn't get some extra cash NOW she would have to close.
The net result of this honesty and the fact that she was nice (and had a good product) was an outpouring of word of mouth among her readers...with the story being emailed all over...one customer even went so far as to print flyers and pass them out. Obviously, the happy ending is that business has never been better, the cash crisis is over and many more organizations understand the blogging benefits of acting like a human being.
That's a blogging best practice. With affordable blogging software like Compendium Blogware all companies will find that Blogs will change your business....just ask Katherine.
The net result of this honesty and the fact that she was nice (and had a good product) was an outpouring of word of mouth among her readers...with the story being emailed all over...one customer even went so far as to print flyers and pass them out. Obviously, the happy ending is that business has never been better, the cash crisis is over and many more organizations understand the blogging benefits of acting like a human being.
That's a blogging best practice. With affordable blogging software like Compendium Blogware all companies will find that Blogs will change your business....just ask Katherine.
Posted Tuesday, April 22, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
Wow, great article the other day by Cheryl Hall of the Dallas Morning news. In a story that references Richard Edelman she discusses Corporate Blogging and Trust. As we discussed, AdAge reported that 20% of the Fortune 500 have blogs. Almost every one of those blogs are the traditional C-level, Thought Leadership kind of blather.Guess what? The people don't trust the C-level. A Company blog strategy needs to include the employees:
"It's clear that when it comes to traditional authority figures – whether they're chief executives or heads of state – people trust them less," says Mr. Edelman. "Employees are the new credible source of information. We have data that shows an employee blog is five times more credible than a CEO blog – and I say this as a CEO blogger."
Great insight Richard!
If you are evaluating blog software for your business or enterprise you need to consider how to incorporate your employees as a whole into the effort. That is a blogging best practice. Blog information can't come from the top down, but rather the bottom up.
Compendium Blogware is a great enterprise blog software to on the one hand empower employee blogging and also put in controls and workflow so Corporations can manage blog posts without squeezing the life out of the content.
Posted Thursday, April 17, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
So I saw this post in AdAge about companies and having someone to hold the title of "Chief Blogger"
Below is my comment:
Below is my comment:
Ugggh! The very idea of a 'chief blogger' undercuts the very potential of corporate blogging as a fantastic social media.
Blogging is about real people...guess what? Your company is made up of lots of real people. People who are smart, who like their jobs, who think they are doing important work, who care about the customer.
These are the people who should be blogging in an organization...everyone.
The idea of a chief blogger is akin to the celebrity concept of TV isn't it? It's not any more real than having Justin Timberlake singing your jingle.
Posted Thursday, April 17, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
What do people mean by “user generated content” and why do you want it?
The allure of user-generated content (ugc) is two-fold: Web 2.0 marketing is about content volume and content authenticity. The benefits are that with greater content volume you have a significantly better chance to be found by the major search engines (aka: SEO benefit) in addition to the social networking benefit of having a real live human being that is creating all this content.
These humans have the appeal of actually being familiar with the product or service they are generating content on, as well as a passion and freshness that will differentiate this kind of content from the traditional brand or corporate-as-faceless-institution-speak. Additionally, real people appear more accessible than an info@ email address.
There is a big myth here however. First of all, the truth is that your business will see significant benefits on both SEO and conversion by implementing more human generated content for the reasons stated above. They myth is that your customers and prospects will be the ones generating this content. It ain’t gonna happen…
To get these benefits you are going to have to look to another group of human beings. People who share the customers knowledge of the products or services, who also have a passion for the brand and the company…..I’m talking about the people who work for the company. Stop thinking about Blogging as a top-down, CEO thought leadership thing, and stop thinking that you are going to implement a “Social Network” and all your fans will come out of the woodwork to post their praises.
Instead look right around you…..all those people who will add real value through Corporate Blogging….That’s your low hanging fruit when it comes to User Generated Content.
The allure of user-generated content (ugc) is two-fold: Web 2.0 marketing is about content volume and content authenticity. The benefits are that with greater content volume you have a significantly better chance to be found by the major search engines (aka: SEO benefit) in addition to the social networking benefit of having a real live human being that is creating all this content.
These humans have the appeal of actually being familiar with the product or service they are generating content on, as well as a passion and freshness that will differentiate this kind of content from the traditional brand or corporate-as-faceless-institution-speak. Additionally, real people appear more accessible than an info@ email address.
There is a big myth here however. First of all, the truth is that your business will see significant benefits on both SEO and conversion by implementing more human generated content for the reasons stated above. They myth is that your customers and prospects will be the ones generating this content. It ain’t gonna happen…
To get these benefits you are going to have to look to another group of human beings. People who share the customers knowledge of the products or services, who also have a passion for the brand and the company…..I’m talking about the people who work for the company. Stop thinking about Blogging as a top-down, CEO thought leadership thing, and stop thinking that you are going to implement a “Social Network” and all your fans will come out of the woodwork to post their praises.
Instead look right around you…..all those people who will add real value through Corporate Blogging….That’s your low hanging fruit when it comes to User Generated Content.
Posted Tuesday, April 15, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I’m on my way to AdTech in San Francisco. Nothing like a long cross country flight to catch up on my reading and bang together a few Corporate Blog posts on Compendium Blogware.
Good news today in the Wall Street Journal (4/15/08): Most Employees Really Like Their Jobs!
I have been saying for some time now that generally, you hire smart people, who care about the company they work for, like the customers and the products or services you offer. You employees also think they are doing important work and according to Professor Barry Straw of Berkley: “View work as a means for demonstrating some sort of responsibility and achievement.”
What this is telling us is that people want to feel valued in the workplace. They want to feel like their contributions matter. This is why engaging employees in your corporate blogging strategies is so valuable.
For one, the employees want to do it and will for the most part do a great job.
The second reason to engage your employees in your business blog strategy is because that is what your customers and prospects want to see. When people search, they want to find sources that have both knowledge and passion. Let your people blog and the searchers will find both….and convert at a much higher level.
Imagine: Happy prospects and happy employees….what a concept.
Good news today in the Wall Street Journal (4/15/08): Most Employees Really Like Their Jobs!
I have been saying for some time now that generally, you hire smart people, who care about the company they work for, like the customers and the products or services you offer. You employees also think they are doing important work and according to Professor Barry Straw of Berkley: “View work as a means for demonstrating some sort of responsibility and achievement.”
What this is telling us is that people want to feel valued in the workplace. They want to feel like their contributions matter. This is why engaging employees in your corporate blogging strategies is so valuable.
For one, the employees want to do it and will for the most part do a great job.
The second reason to engage your employees in your business blog strategy is because that is what your customers and prospects want to see. When people search, they want to find sources that have both knowledge and passion. Let your people blog and the searchers will find both….and convert at a much higher level.
Imagine: Happy prospects and happy employees….what a concept.
Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I came across a blog called Voice out of the UK this morning that had a discussion about Business Blogging. Typical of some of the comments that focused on adoption was this one:
I posted the following reply:
Do people still see blogs are a indivudual activity instead of a ‘corporate business’ tool? Is that why business are slow to adopt?
I posted the following reply:
As the CEO of a software company that focuses only on the Corporate and Business Blogging market. I’d like to take a shot at addressing some of the above comments with regard to adoption.
One of the big reasons that business has not adopted blogging is that the tools are inadequate. The typical blogging software is designed for the individual “citizen journalist”, not actual businesses.
Some examples include control and compliance. Corporations have a responsibility and liability to control every syllable of content that appears to be associated with them. We see clients that want to have lot’s of employee and customer involvement but the solutions mentioned offer no method to manage approvals, edits, etc… Forrester cites ‘Fear’ (which means lack of control) as one of the main reasons corporations don’t blog.
Another huge reason has to do with ROI. If it can’t be measured many organizations find it difficult to justify investment in either time or financial resources.
Our clients measure ROI on Search Engine Optimization. As a business software, Compendium includes an analytics package and integrates with other commercially available tools, so that the ROI of blogging becomes clear.
Additionally, most blogging software organizes content around Authors. This works for journalism, but not for SEO and not for Topic driven business need. Content needs to be organized around keywords based on what people are searching for to be a truly effective business asset.
Thanks for the post,
Chris Baggott
CEO/Co-founder
Compendium Blogware
http://www.compendiumblogware.com
Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
So the other day we talked about the Google threshold of being "good for the web". I think we all agree that Corporate Blogging is good....but what about Compending?The idea of Compendium Blogware is to present a Corporte Blog Authoring Tool that isn't Author-Centric. Most blogging is about thought leadership within companies or industries which at the end of the day has very little value. If you buy off on the concept that you empower your employees and constituents to blog, and blog with SEO as a goal, the whole idea of blogs organized around individuals kind of goes out the window.
What the searchers and visitors actually care about are the topics these people are blogging about...so by definition that content needs to be organized differently.
The idea of a compendium is a "collection of similar content". Compendium Blogware empowers business and non-profit bloggers to automatically organize blog posts around topics or specific keywords.
The net result is a happier searcher. They find a page that is spot-on to the topic they were searching for...all in one place. Happy searchers lead to good customers.
Posted Tuesday, April 8, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
Ok...I was looking to make a point about keywords and conversion through Corporate Blogging. Kaila pointed me to this. Chuck can tell you a lot better than I can LOL
Posted Monday, April 7, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
Generally speaking, the Google guys get a lot of grief about the whole "Do No Evil" thing. What's less known is a question they ask for every new development that comes along: "Is it good for the Web?"At Compendium Blogware, we are challenged by this surprisingly often. Is Business Blogging good for the web?
Here is my argument for the affirmative: Good for the web means that the people who use the web (searchers) are happy when they have a Corporate blog show up in a search result. Do they click? What do they find? Do they Bounce or stay? Do they click through? There is no ambiguity...the data tell the story.
Generally speaking we find that Corporate Blogs have very high engagement. I'm reminded of the Newsweek story I blogged on a month or so ago. People are looking for experts. When researching they want authority and a simple path to the answer. Good corporate blogs that leverage real employees are often the best source. Just be honest. There is nothing wrong with enthusiasm and passion. You are allowed to love your product, service...your job...that's what blogging is all about. Just tell the truth.
Posted Wednesday, April 2, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
Should you blog...or do any business related activity on vacation? Hmmm...I guess it depends on who you ask. My little kids might say no. My wife understands where the money comes from so she's pretty tolerant. My father-in-law (pictured) is one of those "time is passing quickly" kind of guys so I won't even ask him.But, here's the thing. Since I'm blogging for search, almost any content that I create has a lot of value to our overall business blogging efforts from Compendium Blogware.
a blogging best practice is to keep posting frequently. When you blog for your business it becomes kind of fun and challanging and best of all it's really easy to simply log on from anywhere and blog a few random thoughts.....
Or maybe I'm just suffering from too much sunshine....
Posted Thursday, March 27, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
If you have a moment, I'd appreciate your help. Compendium is growing very fast and we need to add several new business development managers to our team. We are looking for vibrant, confident, passionate individuals to join our growing sales team. Please take a look and forward this job on to anyone you think would be interested in the position, or anyone else who could help me find a great candidate.
Thanks for your help! Please contact:
Daren Tomey
VP of Sales
Compendium Blogware
www.compendiumblogware.com
(317)777-6106 Office
Company: Compendium Blogware
Job Title: Business Development Manager
Description: A Business Development Manager identifies, manages, and closes new business opportunities for Compendium Software.
A Business Development Manager must be articulate, persuasive, and able to develop and close a large pipeline of business within a short period of time. In addition, the Business Development Manager must be a self-starter who can roll up his or her sleeves and wear several different hats, think and act at multiple levels of abstraction, and identify and implement key selling initiatives.
Responsibilities include:
-Develop an agreed business development plan which will include lead generation activities such as tradeshows, cold-calling, networking, and more.
-Manage sales planning, forecasting, and analysis activities within our internal CRM system
-Manage sales opportunities throughout the sales cycle, with online demos, phone calls, email communications, and more.
-Qualify all leads and sales opportunities.
-Maintain high activity level with prospects.
-Generate additional business opportunities through dedicated prospecting and cold-calling.
-Meet and exceed all quarterly and annual sales goals.
Thanks for your help! Please contact:
Daren Tomey
VP of Sales
Compendium Blogware
www.compendiumblogware.com
(317)777-6106 Office
Company: Compendium Blogware
Job Title: Business Development Manager
Description: A Business Development Manager identifies, manages, and closes new business opportunities for Compendium Software.
A Business Development Manager must be articulate, persuasive, and able to develop and close a large pipeline of business within a short period of time. In addition, the Business Development Manager must be a self-starter who can roll up his or her sleeves and wear several different hats, think and act at multiple levels of abstraction, and identify and implement key selling initiatives.
Responsibilities include:
-Develop an agreed business development plan which will include lead generation activities such as tradeshows, cold-calling, networking, and more.
-Manage sales planning, forecasting, and analysis activities within our internal CRM system
-Manage sales opportunities throughout the sales cycle, with online demos, phone calls, email communications, and more.
-Qualify all leads and sales opportunities.
-Maintain high activity level with prospects.
-Generate additional business opportunities through dedicated prospecting and cold-calling.
-Meet and exceed all quarterly and annual sales goals.
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