Should My Company Create a Blog?

This is one of the most common questions we're getting these days, and I've no doubt this is a big reason why our blog webinars are so over-subscribed. At Intelliseek, we believe blogs have enormous potential as external communication, or even marketing, tools. We've helped many companies initiate blog strategies, and then carefully measured the results of their blog campaigns across the internet. That said, we do urge caution. At their heart, blogs involved dialogue, and adept listening. Managing the blog "feedback loop" is critical to enable the type of virality or "buzz" your are looking for. Historically, as the chart in this entry suggests, most Fortune 500 brands have not been very good at listening, and the group that typically manages customer interactions -- the call center, or "consumer affairs" -- usually sits on an island completely independent of marketing. Of the hundreds of folks who have signed up for Intelliseek "blog" webinars, precious few are from the group -- consumer affairs -- that manage customer interactions. Before plunging into blogs, my advice is this: get the key functional groups aligned and excited, then take the plunge. Things will go wrong, and you don't want "I told you so" factions within your organization -- especially the lawyers -- beating you up when things don't go according to plan. Stay tuned for more advice in future entries.

Comments

[Christopher Hart]

Pertaining to the question, "Should My Company Create a Blog?" Based on the senior public-affairs people I know, the problem with them not being as involved with CGM as its importance warrants could be the result of (a) already feeling overloaded--these people get a lot stuff thrown at them from every conceivable source, and even if they have a decent understanding of CGM, their general perception would be that it is a massive "iceberg" that they lack the resources to handle. Or (b) they simply don't understand CGM and, hence, lack a strategy for it. Whatever the cause, the CGM waves are rolling in and this group needs at least to understand how the landscape of their world (and their companies' worlds) is changing.

[Andy Ferrigno]

Many of the big research houses, such as ACNielsen and IRI, are missing this critical CGM piece of the puzzle in their quest to provide "consumer-360" insights. Before I came to Intelliseek, my position at Spectra was deeply involved in creating core-target lifestyle profiles across a variety of CPG categories. While the Spectra methodology worked well in leveraging syndicated and custom data (and still remains a superb tool for aggregating disparate data sources), it lacked the ability to understand the loyalist's motivations and sphere of influence via an associated CGM digital record. Without a deliberate process for interacting with, analyzing, and understanding a Brand's online community, marketers will be left with only a behavioral trail of clues off of which to make assumptions about the motivations and brand-building potential of their most valued customers. Whether one agrees with me or not, in terms of understanding what motivates the true core consumers, I'd take a page of consumer CGM versus a page of scanner statistics, any day.

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