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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.

Quiz Question: “Super Size Me” - Movie or Blog?

Is the film “Super Size Me” a movie or a blog? Some will disagree, but I would argue that the film "Super Size Me" is first and foremost a blog -- a blog narrative that ultimately became a movie. What's important to understand is that blogs are basically consumer narratives. Consumers are capturing, recording, and sharing their experiences in ways we never imagined before. The guy who produced "Super Size Me" is not unlike the millions of teenagers and tweens who capture every offline experience on photo or video and then upload it to their digital diary, or blog. "Super Size Me," of course, is a super-size ahead of most blogs in terms of drama or engagingness, but you get the idea. What companies and brands need to think about is the implication of a million blog-enabled Michael Moores running around with "surveillance" devices monitoring YOU -- your product performance, your ad claims, your customer service, your employee behavior and more. Are you listening?

KEY LESSON: Consumer narratives are finding expression across all venues. Blogs are becoming the online equivalent of "Reality TV," enabling everday drama to be captured for consumption by others.

Quiz Question: What if Bloggers Trash the Olympic Athlete

You plan to spend $5MM for an Olympic athlete endorsement contract, and bloggers are bad mouthing this person. Should you pay full price?

The vast majority of you who zipped instant messages our way concluded "no," and that is the correct answer. Marketing sponsorships and endorsements are usually a tad fuzzy on the ROI or "how much should I pay" front. Ad or PR agencies will often concede that they have few assessment tools in place to determine (A) how much to pay, and (2) whether the sponsorship programs work. Now, if you believe bloggers are true "leading indicators" -- a point we keep hearing from prominent blog-influenced journalists and media writers -- the positive or negative sentiment of bloggers about a specific personality can provide invaluable guidance about "how much to pay." This is just another form of "due-diligence." So, for instance, if highly-viral bloggers suddenly "buzz" about less-than-savory behavior on an Olympic athlete who seems destined for the Wheaties box, there's a good chance the problem will get worse. If the blog buzz is accompanied with photographs or video clips -- very common these days, thanks to all the camera-phone advertising -- the problem could get really bad. While the negative buzz may not warrant the marketer bailing on the sponsorship opportunity, neatly organizing, packaging, and presenting the buzz -- this is what we do for clients here at Intelliseek -- might help you knock upwards of 25% of the "asking price."

KEY LESSON: The web can serve as a powerful "auditing tool" to assess the effectiveness or "future value" of marketing programs. Listening to consumer-generated media (CGM) from outspoken, leading-indicator consumers can help you save a lot of money on initiatives that rarely get put to the "torture test" of accountability. It always pays to listen!