Company Blogging

Dear Dancing Ann... Indianapolis misses you

Posted Thursday, August 28, 2008 by Eric Romer

Compendium is based in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, overlooking Monument Circle. We love this city. Our CEO Chris Baggott often talks about how he was here for some time, then lived in Chicago and New York... but found his way back to Indianapolis, and he's here to stay. This is his home, and Compendium's home.

As a Software-as-a-Service company, we can service clients all over the world, but it's always great to build strong relationships with our own neighbors. We have several clients here in town that use our blogging software, but I want to highlight one of our newest partners, the Indianapolis Conventions & Visitors Association (ICVA). They are a great group of people, and their blog covers all kinds of things to do around town.

I went to lunch with Karissa and Jeff from the ICVA, and we started to talk about the Public Art Project... particularly "Dancing Ann", who was removed from her brick base on Aug. 20th, apparently to fix one of the LED screens.

Jeff and I debated a little, realizing that Dancing Ann was not the same as Sara Dancing, formerly located at Illinois and Maryland. Both were designed by Julian Opie, a British artist contracted by the Arts Council of Indianapolis. Jeff and Sara had a close relationship, as did Ann and I (I live in the area where she was permanently placed).

So, Dancing Ann, if you are listening... please come back. When I walk to and from work each day, there's a piece of me that feels empty inside without your unique style of dance. Now all that is left is this brick foundation. Luckily there are other great art projects, events and things to do from the ICVA blog that I can take my mind off this tragic loss....

Why Blogging Should Work Retail!

Posted Thursday, August 28, 2008 by Megan Glover

I'm getting ready to shove off for an extended Labor Day vacation to upper Michigan and am entirely frustrated with my search results.

Blogging in Petosky, MI

My husband and I are visiting a quaint town called Petosky in northern Michigan. Neither of us have ever been, but we've heard great things and now it's time to plan our trip tick. We know we want to experience... great meals, visit some art galleries and I'd like to spend some time in the boutiques but I can't find the stores online!

Here I am, a tourist visiting a pretty touristy town, just looking for places to spend my money... and yet, I don't have a single shop on our trip tick I want to visit. If only these retailers were blogging with Compendium. Let's think about this.

In my single blog post, I've identified a dozen or so keywords I assume tourists like me are searching for. My search returns dozens of directories like yellow pages, trip advisor, etc. But, what I'm really looking for are the individual shops to reach out and communicate to me like a real person.

Blogging helps you accomplish this. And, blogging is an amazing tool for Local Search. What is local search? Well, it's the search I just performed... I took a very narrow geographic region and searched within that proximity... which resulted in very "unlocal" results.

For for information about Local Search. Check out our upcoming Webcast, Business Blogging:The Key to Local Search. Sign up here!

Nevertheless... I'm sure our trip will be fabulous just wish I had some fun shops to daydream about in the meantime!

Linking in Posts

Posted Thursday, August 28, 2008 by Sarah Sedberry

When talking to my clients there are always questions about how to get the most out of their blogging efforts. One of the steps that we recommend to all of our corporate bloggers is to use links in their posts ("Linkjuice" if you will), and with Compendium's platform, its very simple to do.

The reason we encourage linking in blogs is because Search Engines LOVE the traffic that is created when sites link to other sites. Therefore improving your search traffic, driving readers to your site, and increasing conversions and ROI.

To read more on this subject check out this article on SEOBook.com that highlights ways to improve your linking, and ideas for linking out to other sites.

Online Software --- That's Us!

Posted Thursday, August 28, 2008 by Jenni Edwards

A great blog post on the WSJ.com BizTech Blog discusses the pros of online software (more commonly known as software as a service) and the post also hits how this quasi-new medium has to be sold. Talk about a more relevant post to our company?

One of our fellow software as a service companies, Success Factors (employee management software), notes re-investing 108% of their revenues into sales and marketing for this year...crazy numbers, but worthwhile if you have a good product, can prove yourself and have an ongoing relationship with an organization (think exponential growth --- renewing clients + new clients + additional services for both).

One thing that CEO Lars Dalgaard hits on is how it is hard to get the "big businesses" to buy from you. I can feel his pain in our business...there are a lot of hoops to jump through and the need for most large organizations to innovate has been relatively low --- as the big dollars and repeat customers traditionally have allowed their marketing efforts to be more or less branding exercises with little ROI attached to these activities (or habits). Things are changing...it's not just the small guys that are needing to innovate to compete, with globalization factors, a rough economic time the ears of even the 'big guys' are perking up when it comes to marketing ROI and lead generation. We are ready to talk to them about corporate blogging and bust through the challenge of selling to big business.

Round 2 of the Blogging Tournament

Posted Wednesday, August 27, 2008 by Kristen Hanschu

We just finished our second round of the Compendium Blogware Content for the Crown. There was an amazing amount of effort put in from so many bloggers! Even though, BabyPlus did not make it to the third round I must commend them on their outstanding 29 blog posts! Great job and keep up the good work.

Who is going to win the gas cards and the fabulous Compendium Trophy? We are down to just 24 finalists. Congratulations to the following companies for making it this far:

To view the standings and see who is battling who in this blogging battle royale click here.

Lucas Oil Stadium - Measuring Success

Posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008 by Eric Romer

Pictured: Eric Romer, about to catch a touchdown pass on a slant route in the end zone? Suit him up, Dungy.... he looks ready.

So, I had the opportunity to tour Lucas Oil stadium last weekend, and it was a pretty amazing sight. As a Colts fan, this is like Christmas. The excitement in Indianapolis has been building ever since Lucas Oil broke ground. Despite some disputes about funding of the project, this beautiful structure has a serious allure to it.

One of the things I kept hearing during the public tour was people referring to the stadium as "The Luke". I must admit, it was pretty catchy, and fans love putting their own nickname to personalize their city's new baby. But as you would imagine, the sponsor is not so happy about the nickname.

I've always been curious how you measure the worth of a stadium sponsorship. Spending $122 million on naming rights for 20 years is no cheap purchase, even for a large manufacturer of oil products. I hear about the ROI of advertising dollars all the time, but this I think stadium sponsorships in general fall into what Corporate Blogging expert Debbie Weil describes as "Return on Influence". It's next to impossible to measure sales that directly result from Lucas Oil Stadium, especially when people refer to it as "The Luke". Forest Lucas was quoted in an IBJ article saying:

"Calling the stadium 'The Luke' doesn’t sell a dime’s worth of products for us. This will be a place we intend to show Lucas Oil to the world, so we’re eager to protect the integrity of the name.”

I get Mr. Lucas's frustration, but there's not a whole lot you can do when something catchy spreads with fans, especially as sports columnist Mark Rosentraub stated in the article, "exposure through the Internet can spread the nickname and entrench it in people’s minds even faster than traditional media."

My suggestion? You can't beat 'em, join 'em. Find a a way to ride the "Luke" wave, and join the conversation. Social media, affordable blogging software and other web-based tools allow you to be present, and help drive those internet trends.

Despite the nickname concern, the sponsorship "engagement" (2008's buzz word) that occurs inside the stadium, interacting with the Lucas Oil brand experience, the dragsters, race-car simulators, etc. is very creative and sets a new precedent in sports marketing.

Top 50 Companies to Watch - Are You Watching Compendium?

Posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008 by Ali Sales

According to the IEDC, Compendium Blogware is one of the top 50 companies to watch within the State of Indiana.

Are you watching us? Well, the reality is probably not. Of course I care a lot about Compendium Blogware, and so does my family because they have to put up with me talking about work all of the time. But do you care about us?

I'm not offended if you don't. With the exception of brands like Apple and Starbucks, nobody is watching companies so to speak. As a society, we are bad at it. We're busy. We have short attention spans. Just about the only thing we watch is Dancing with the Stars.

Instead, we've become really good at looking for something and finding it when we need it. We aren't interested until we have a problem and someone offers a solution. Then we're all ears, but only for a brief period of time.

The funny thing about the list of the top 50 Companies to Watch is that I know that business blogging could help each any every one of the nominees capitalize on this phenomenon of "looking and finding" instead of "watching."

Each company, regardless of industry, faces the same challenges of getting found online by people who have a problem and would welcome some help with it. Maybe I'll have a chance to talk to them about all the benefits of corporate blogging at the event being held tomorrow night at the Indiana Roof Ballroom...

In any event, congratulations to everyone at Compendium for the recognition. It's nice to be appreciated, but even better to be found by those who are looking for something that your organization can help with.

Blogging for Acquisition

Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 by Daren Tomey

Forrester, which is a tremendous research center, recently published a new report which, for a lack of better explanation, paints a very negative picture as to the future of corporate blogging as a viable marketing medium. The one area of their report which continues to strike a cord with me is that they state that corporate blogs are having trouble sustaining a conversation....

You see, their findings are probably correct based on the corporate blogs that they reviewed during the research phase, but those are not an accurate depiction of what business blogging or corporate blogging really looks like today.

It is really interesting, once a prospect goes through one of our webinars, such as the one that Chris Baggott is hosting on Tuesday, August 26th on Demand Generation through Corporate Blogging, or speaks with one of our consultants, those individuals get what corporate blogging is all about. It is not about developing a dialogue, it is about generating highly engaged traffic via organic search which converts quickly into recognizable revenues.

For more on the topics of blogging for business or if you are looking for help to create a corporate blogging strategy, I recommend that you contact a consultant at Compendium or register for an upcoming webinar.

GlaGla is Blogging About Shoes and More!

Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 by Kristen Hanschu

Congratulations to our newest client GlaGla Shoes! They are now blogging and ready to start a new chapter in their companies life. GlaGla shoes are not only some of the coolest shoes on the market, but they are versatile as well.

These shoes come in a variety of fun and fashionable colors. You can even order them with your favorite college teams logo. Are you an Ohio State fan? Maybe you prefer IU, then these are the shoes for you.

GlaGla shoes can be worn when running, biking, hiking, walking, in water, or just for a leisurly stroll throughout the neighborhood. Not only are they comfortable, but they stand the test of time (and exercise). Check out GlaGla's blog to learn more.

Sponsored Blogging Not Your Best Bet

Posted Saturday, August 23, 2008 by PJ Hinton

The Valleywag blog had a great post tonight about the ineffectiveness of sponsoring a celebrity blogger. Citing Seagate's sponsorship of Robert Scoble's blog as an example, post author Owen Thomas notes that the computer storage manufacturer's stock price has decreased significantly since the sponsorship began. The post goes on to cite some interesting statistics.

In April, a study by Canadian research firm Pollara found that word of mouth works — nearly 80 percent said they'd buy products recommended by a friend or family member. But word of mouse? Only 23 percent said they'd buy something touted by a blogger. "This shows that popularity doesn't always equate to credibility," Pollara executive Robert Hutton told MediaPost. "Marketers might have to reconsider who the real influencers are out there."

This is an reinforcement of the case that Compendium CEO Chris Baggott been making both in his presentations and blog posts like one from late May, where he wrote:

2. Celebrity. So many journalists 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….)

The takeaway message for businesses is that you'll get more mileage for your marketing dollars if you invest in a company weblog, continuously stocked with content by plain-spoken employees who believe in what you're doing. Compendium's Multi User Blog Software helps you achieve that goal.

Could TraceMonkey Make JavaScript the New Java?

Posted Saturday, August 23, 2008 by PJ Hinton

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

-- Mark Twain

I was reminded of this quote by Twain today as I read two articles, one at InfoWorld and the other at InformationWeek, about the Mozilla team's plan to give Firefox's JavaScript performance a jolt. Code named "TraceMonkey", the project is introducing support for just-in-time code compilation into its JavaScript engine. This new feature has been included with the alpha version of Firefox 3.1, but it is turned off by default because of it's work-in-progress status.

This project is interesting from our standpoint because an increasing amount of our application relies on client-side JavaScript to provide our customers with a smooth experience in editing and maintaining their blogs. While the rise of AJAX has included many singing the praise of rich internet applications, JavaScript's status as an interpreted language has forced us to keep an eye on performance as our blog authoring software becomes increasingly feature rich.

As ambitious as the project may be, the Mozilla team are thinking wisely here. The narrative being pitched by Adobe and Microsoft is that if you want to create rich web interfaces that have good performance, you need to lock into one of their proprietary technologies, the kind of technologies that require downloading and installing plug-ins. As JavaScript pioneer Brendan Eich astutely points out in the InformationWeek article, "Not everyone wants to get a plug-in."

I was also struck by this passage from that same article:

If Mozilla is successful in its efforts, the rationale for developing rich Internet applications will become increasingly questionable. As Eich sees it, RIAs are already at risk. "Those platforms that are not a browser are an increasingly thin value-add to what the browser can do," he said.

In these remarks I hear an echoes of Marc Andreesen back in the mid-to-late 90s, when he boasted that one day Windows would be reduced to "an unimportant collection of slightly buggy device drivers" with a combination of Netscape's browser and Sun's Java technology. It's even more amusing when you recall that part of this promise was tied to Sun's addition of support for just-in-time compilation for the Java virtual machine.

Will JavaScript succed where Java fell short. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Favorite 80's fad?

Posted Friday, August 22, 2008 by Sarah Sedberry

Since it's Friday, I decided to take a moment while drinking my coffee to write a "Casual Friday" post...

Recently, I had a friend of mine throw an 80's themed party. To my dismay I could not attend as I was out of town at the time. Although, she was kind enough though to replay all of the fun throw backs and happenings that I missed out on.

While recalling this to my colleague Kristen, another Client Success Manager here at Compendium Blogware, during our morning trip to Starbucks - it started us on a rambling of our favorite 80's fads. (Everything from New Kids on the Block, our favorite cassettes, Connect 4 and Operation, to the wonderful fashion trends of neon, knot ties in your shirt, spandex, and air-pump sneakers)

Our conversation continued on into the elevator for the ride back to our offices. In the elevator others jumped in on our conversation and soon we had good banter and had shared several smiles with our building mates.

Since we were having such a great time with this topic, I wanted to share with everyone else, and allow you to get in on the fun.

What was your favorite trend or moment to come out of the 80's?

In Client Success, we often will have discussions with our clients regarding content development and how they struggle to come up with ideas to blog about. Ideas can come from daily conversations, newsletters, frequently asked questions, industry news, other bloggers posts, and anything else that strikes your fancy. For example....the 80's! A corporate blog doesn't have to be dry. Check out this company blog post from our client Circle City Tickets who had fun with her post.

Why Companies Should Have a Blog Post Approval System

Posted Friday, August 22, 2008 by Chris Baggott

I'm the only person in the history of our own blogging program to have to pull a post after it's gone live. Could it have anything to do with the fact that I'm the only person in the Company that doesn't have his posts go through a review process?

I recently wrote a blog post about something I thought I overheard at a recent Indianapolis blog software conference.   Turns out that I heard inaccurately. Ooops!

As you know, from a Business or Corporate blogging standpoint, we here advocate widespread employee blogging.   Employees generate the best content, telling real stories about real people, by real people. Compendium clients see signifcantly higher SEO benefits from this sort of blogging and much higher searcher engagement.

But...as I've proven, it's not without risk.   This is why we have incorporated a workflow system so that all employee posts have to be reviewed by someone else.   It's not that your employees are malicious or that you are trying to squeeze the life out of them and their content.

It's just that blog authors tend to let passion get in the way of judgment & for a business it's just a blogging best practice to keep an eye on your content before it can do you any harm.

I'm not mean, but the most junior member of my team would have looked at this post and said: "Chris....are you sure this is what you are trying to say?"

There are a lot of blogging benefits, and only a couple of risks. Once bad content goes live, you can't get it back...only ask for forgiveness.

When is it appropriate to delete a post?

Posted Friday, August 22, 2008 by Chris Baggott

When you are wrong...The other day I called out a speaker on what I perceived as bad advice. Thanks to the interactive, dialog inducing world of blogging I actually had a comment from the recipient of that advice:

Chris - I was the person who posed the question and you didn't get the story right at all - I asked krista about how to handle a ceo who wants to delete negative comments and she gave what I thought was a great response - try not to delete it unless absolutely necessary and evaluate the pro's/con's of silencing your audience. Maybe you should pay more attention if you're going to trash someone's reputation.

Well said. I over heard this conversation and wasn't a participant and obviously I mis-heard. My apologies to Krista and am removing the post.

Blogging For Better Business

Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 by meghan peters

I am happy to announce that I'm currently going through one of the most stressful times in my life...planning a wedding! I've done a lot of research on venues, churches, florists, bakeries, DJ's and etc. But there is one thing that I have found astonishing...not many people in the wedding industry have blogs! I know that when I do research on something the most important thing to me, like many people, is gathering other opinions.

I have a great example of how blogs would work perfectly for the wedding industry. My fiance and I were going around town touring reception venues and we narrowed our decision between two places. We were very interested in getting a tasting of the food to help us with our decision, but one of the venues wasn't equipped to have a tasting. I was shocked and started to actually consider becoming a wedding crasher to taste the food, when the venue told me they have 100 comment sheets from past weddings that I could look through. So they printed out all the sheets and faxed them to me for my review. This made me think how great a blog would work for them! Not only could they blog about their services, but the past brides could post comments for them. This idea alone would save 10 trees a year and along with saving the environment they could boost their bookings.

There are many aspects as to why business blogging can be beneficial to an organization no matter how they plan to use it.

Blogging Tournament - Round 2

Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 by Sarah Sedberry

Content for the Crown Trophy

As the Olympics in Beijing start to wrap up, fear not as your competition appetite can be feed through the current blogging tournament taking place at Compendium. Where we have pitted our clients up against each other in a March Madness style, winner take all competition.

Results have been posted and you can see check out how the Corporate Blog's fared in the first round of the "Content for the Crown Tournament". Check out the tournament brackets here:

Compendium Blogware Blogging Tournament Brackets

Congratulations to the following clients who have made it out of Round 1 and are now blogging their way through Round 2...

On the line for these Corporate Bloggers is the coveted Content for the Crown trophy, along with a bottle of Champagne and $50 gas cards for the administrator and all bloggers - that in itself gets the competitive nature going when gas is hovering around $4.00 a gallon!

For those that got knocked out in the first round, don't fret as we will have more competitions in the future. Also, don't forget to keep that content going as we are still in the competition for Search Engine Results!

Are you judging my blog right now?

Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 by Megan Glover

Seth Godin has a great blog post today: Who's telling you the truth about your online personal marketing?

His post makes a great point about the the trend in marketing these days which I relate to transparency. He writes that, "people are judging you", and isn't that the truth.

Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instant Message, etc... have all opened the door fainting the line between personal/professional life. So how does a marketer ensure the judgments of his or her employees don't hurt the reputation of the entire company?

Why not embrace and incorporate those mediums into your own marketing? You know your employees, particularly your Gen X'ers, are all tapped in and participating... why not embrace it and make your presence known too!

It's actually one of the reasons Compendium Blogware was founded. Chris (our CoFounder/CEO) noticed while at ExactTarget that many of his employees were blogging. And, blogging about the company - but Chris had was unable to leverage the blog content they were cracking out.

That's why Compendium is built for multiple bloggers and has an administrative layer which allows you manage the blogger's message as you see fit. So, companies and organizations can give their employees platforms to blog on and yet reap the marketing benefits such as SEO. Not only that, but you're providing a real-life voice to speak out on behalf of your organization which ultimately... humanizes your marketing.

Online Behavior --- Continues To Prove The Case For Business Blogging

Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008 by Jenni Edwards

This Forbes Article is great! I think one of the biggest takeaways is this line "...the Internet is still about searching for information. Indeed out of the top five sites most trafficked by U.S. visitors...four are portals (search engines) to other Web sites."

The Internet is about search. That's what people are doing. While email is still the most popular activity, the proof of the importance of search is in the rankings (make sure to check out the slides that compare the Top 20 Sites of 2005 to the Top 20 Sites of 2008 --- so amazing how quick we forget 'cool' destination sites, does anyone even remember Gorilla Nation Media from 2005?).

The one regret I have of the article is the fact that the author never did tie blogs into the search world or the idea to blog for SEO. And the mention of blogging is grouped into social networks and forums. While all of these do create the so called "interaction" the idea that businesses only can utilize blogs to monitor the chatter is an understatement --- what about taking the next step and implementing their own business blogging strategy?

And The Winner Is...

Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2008 by Kristen Hanschu

Week 2 of the Content for the Crown blogging tournament, and we have some winners. This past week brought on some friendly, yet firm competition. Every client gave it their all, and in the end we had 48 teams advance to the second round.

Round 2 started on Monday and already people are battling it out. What are they fighting for? Not only will these teams receive the coveted Compendium trophy, they will also have the pleasure of winning $50 gas cards for the administrator and all bloggers. Now, who would not want that when gas prices are $4.00 a gallon?

Thank you for all teams who participated and we look forward to seeing how this pans out. To view the brackets click here.

Congratulations to the following clients:

Round 2: The Indy Tennis Championship Wins

Posted Wednesday, August 20, 2008 by Kristen Hanschu

Congratulations to The Indianapolis Tennis Championship. They went above and beyond this past week in our blogging tournament and cranked out over 20 posts. They have used our blogging platform for a little over a month and are seeing excellent results. The Indy Tennis group has come up with a fun and exciting idea, "Casual Blog Friday's", a favorite amongst readers.

We are looking forward to helping them gear up for the 2009 season. To view their blog click here.

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