Checking Reality: Business Blog Validity

Liz Fuller, who writes Business and Blogging, recently pulled together a list of Fortune 500 blogs. In sum, she found 8 percent of Fortune 500 companies had some level of corporate blogs. Two of the top ten — GM and GE — have blogs.

The GM Fastlane Blog, of course, has been sourced as a best practice staple for some time. It appeared in my first presentation on business blogs in 2005, cited for its human approach, industry insights, product updates, press rebuttals, industry passion, and responsiveness.

While Fuller meant her post to be a precursor to evaluating 41 corporate blogs — the good, the bad, and the ugly — in the weeks ahead, longtime recruiting blogger and recently named “Best Recruiting Blogosphere Personality” Recruiting Animal flipped the headline to conclude Business Blogging Flops, adding in a reference to The Guardian article that notes the one percent rule is an emerging trend.

The One Percent Rule

The one percent rule is that if you have a group of 100 people, one will create content, 10 will interact, and 89 percent will just view it. That’s about right, unless you nurture engagement.

For example, our BlogStraightTalk group has 200 members with slightly better numbers, with 10 percent helping to create content, 30 percent offering comment, 50 percent viewing it, and 20 percent never dropping by again. However, although I have been focused on other projects, encouraging engagement is by design.

Honestly, this isn’t all that much different from face-to-face organizations. Without encouraging engagement, members of any organization, regardless of where it forms, will likely follow similar behavioral patterns: 1-10 percent lead, 10-20 percent manage, 30-80 quietly participate, and the balance forgets why it joined in the first place.

There is no difference, leaving The Guardian’s information interesting, but its conclusion is invalid because it fails to draw a comparison to real life.

Business Blogs Flop?

This knowledge brings us back to the headline flip. It seems to me that blogs and other social media/new media applications are sometimes too easily dismissed as viable because the expectation is an 80-100 percent adoption rate.

This isn’t realistic. In fact, with the possible exception of business cards, I don’t believe any communication tactic —brochures, newsletters, radio, television, Web sites, etc. — has an 80 percent adoption rate. So why have we set the expectation higher for the newest communication tool on the block?

Exactly. It doesn’t make sense.

The Truth About New Media

I can no longer open any communication-related publication without reading about the application of social media. Even Communication World (CW), which is a magazine for communication management, promoted “Social Media: Extend Your Reach” on the cover of its Jan.-Feb. issue.

Given the organization that publishes CW tends to be more conservative and representative of corporate communicators than advertising agencies and maybe public relations firms, it seems to me they present an accurate picture of where business communication is headed. Much of it will be online.

Will that mean every company will have a blog? Probably not. But not every company buys a television spot either. There are virtually hundreds of ways that companies can become engaged in social media on some level. And there are dozens of ways to employ a blog to fit the specific strategic communication needs of a company.

As I’ve pointed out several times, a company might not have a formal social media program in place, but they are most certainly engaged in it whether they know it or not.

For example, Bank of America might not have a blog, but I have more than 500 network connections (the maximum number returned) to existing and former Bank of America employees and associates in my Linkedin network alone. Even more telling, a quick Google blog search on “Bank of America” reveals more than 2.7 million hits on blogs. (That’s just blogs.) Similar results turn up on the other eight companies that round out the Fortune 500 list.

Simply put, most companies are engaged in new media. Whether or not they monitor or manage their message or support a corporate blog is a different question. Because the truth is, whether they do or not, it seems painfully obvious that their customers, vendors, and employees do.

Engaging Students: AAF and Heineken

In communication, especially advertising, there is no substitute for practical, hands-on experience. It’s something that underscores any class I teach.

I’m not alone in this belief, of course. There are several opportunities for college students to find experience across the country, including the American Advertising Federation (AAF).

Every year, the AAF hosts the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC), which provides a candid, real world situation faced by a major account. More than more than 150 colleges and universities participate in the challenge. This year’s competition is being sponsored by AOL. (Good luck with that.)

While not as publicized as the NSAC, the AFF also hosts a Public Service Advertising Competition with Heineken USA (and this year, the Ad Council), which I wanted to lend some attention to today.

National Public Service Advertising Competition

Participants, which must be age 21 or older and members of an AAF college chapter, can submit their intent to participate by Jan. 15. The intent to participate form here.

Unlike the NSAC, the Heineken USA/AAF Public Service Advertising Competition allows students to enter as individuals or teams of up to three, providing even more flexibility. As participants, the students will produce print, radio and new media (demonstrating just how deep new media is taking hold).

Winners of the competition will receive $3,000 and a chance to pitch Heineken USA executives in White Plains, N.Y. (The second-place, third-place and up to five honorable mention campaigns also receive cash awards.) The winners will be announced in April, during Alcohol Awareness Month.

Why Experience Is Important For Students

As a student, it’s not always whether you win or lose (though winning can be pretty fun), but what you can take away. Despite already working in the field, one of my most memorable real life lessons came out of an advertising competition hosted at the University of Nevada, Reno (which now participates in NSAC).

Our class was randomly divided into two teams and asked to develop an advertising campaign for the Reno Philharmonic. It was fun, challenging, and provided some surprising true-to-life experiences that could never be duplicated in a regular class setting.

As “co-creative director” on the team, I learned that popularity sometimes influences what campaign is produced. Since my co-creative director lobbied the team for his spirited campaign, it became the one everyone wanted to produce.

I wasn’t so sure the campaign was right for the demographic, but had to admit that daring the maestro to conduct an orchestra from an Indy car or roller coaster was pretty creative. The judges thought so too. Our team won for creative prowess based on their scores.

Unfortunately, we lost the account based on the maestro’s comfort level with the campaign and the budget. As went the client, so went the competition.

Right on. It’s not always about being clever. Sometimes it's about connecting to the audience and, well, the account. That's something you don’t always learn in the classroom.

Missing Customers: Verizon Tries Distress

While most cellular phone customers are savvy to text messaging, some are becoming all too familiar with distress messaging. Specifically, anyone who makes up the 27 percent of the smart phone market captured by the Apple iPhone, especially if they were a Verizon customer.

These folks, like me, are probably receiving distress message mailers. The latest from Verizon, sent about two weeks after I become an AT&T iPhone windfall customer and about a week after Verizon’s letter that claimed “I made a mistake,” tells the real story:

We miss you already.

• Free BlackBerry Pearl with GPS Navigation
• $100 off any phone of your choice
• Free activation

Call today!

While I’m not privy to the response rate, my best guess is that it’s flat. It might also be causing some brand damage to what once was the network of choice among 1 million subscribers, at least those who recently made a switch.

Messages such as take $100 off, come back and save, and come back to the network you trust are emblazoned on almost every panel of an 8-panel direct mail piece. Most of them, if not all of them, are misdirected, clearly reinforcing that Verizon has no idea why it has to send a “miss me” mailer anyway.

It’s not the network, it’s the phone. But now, looking back, maybe there is something questionable about the service strategy at Verizon anyway. As a former customer, why did I have to quit in order to get offered the best package perks ever?

For all these efforts, they were four months too late. That was the beginning of the end. Four months ago, my second-to-last Verizon phone was damaged during my ”never fly US Airways unless I absolutely have to again” flight.

Naturally, once I returned home, the first order of business was replacing my broken phone. The choices were slim without a contract. So, my company made a Band-Aid LG phone buy. It was the worst phone I’ve ever owned.

Contrary to the mailer’s claim “Your phone is only as good as the network it’s on,” $5 more per month for an iPhone opened my eyes up to what I was missing, starting with unlimited data, something Verizon never wanted to talk about until now, assuming you’re a lapsed customer (ie. unlimited data is now available on select phones, for new and returning customers, with one- and two-year contracts, for about $5 more than AT&T offers with the iPhone). They don’t get it.

“The best time to start missing a customer is before they stop being your customer.”

Sure, no one can say that Verizon is dead, but it’s very telling when a once perceived market leader does more following than leading. While they did pretty well launching the LG Voyager concept copy, a phone that Today’s Paul Hochman called the only viable competitor for the iPhone (I’m less convinced). However, the plan still lacks where AT&T came through. Customers don’t want 2-year contracts because technology is changing too fast to commit.

More to the point, Verizon would be better served by revisiting its marketing strategy from the ground up. They need to invest more on existing customers, recognizing that the recapture rate seems thin if you wait until after a lost customer already signs another contract or are unlikely to use their iPhone as a paperweight. Besides, it costs more to recapture a lost customer than attract new customers. Why? Lost customers already made up their mind once.

Here are a few quick tips for the Verizon marketing department:

• Improve your marketing to existing customers before their contract ends
• Re-engage customers who fulfill their contract with new customer perks
• Keep existing customers engaged, offering opt-ins on new customer perks
• Stop playing games with location rates; a national price plan is long overdue
• Verizon is a prime new media candidate; a presence last year would have went a long way, especially if you could have hinted at Voyage 9 before people bought iPhones

But above all, fix your messages. Touch gets more stylish? Come on. Honestly, the best thing Verizon has going is the geeky phone guy. He’s become a great icon on television but everything with text falls flat. It doesn’t connect to the smart phone market, which by all accounts, is the new market. Even Citigroup knows that. And they’re not even in the phone business.

Defusing Perception: Naked Communication

It might seem odd to some people to draw a comparison between Lifetime’s new makeover show, “How To Look Good Naked” with Carson Kressley, and business communication. But the analogy might be compelling for some.

Most business owners and/or executives have a perception about their companies that will never match marketplace realities. Many market themselves based upon what works for competitors, resulting in some disastrous advertising and marketing campaigns, because one size does not fit all.

“We want to do this,” they say. “Because it works for our competitors.”

On the premiere episode of “How To Look Good Naked,” available as a free download at iTunes, Kressley asks his guest, Layla, to identify where she “thinks” she fits in a lineup of women with hip sizes ranging from 40 to 50 inches. She places herself between 47 and 48 inches. In reality, her hips measure 43 inches — the complete opposite end the lineup.

Imagine how this impacted her life. For 20 years, she had been making fashion decisions based on her perception that her hips were 6 inches larger than they were. The result: she looked heavier in clothes she chose than she ever looked naked.

Companies often do the same thing. They apply erroneous perceptions to their communication strategy. Early last year, we were contracted by a water purification company to script three :30 radio station-produced spots because the owner wanted to mimic the market leader’s buy. He had already ordered a 32-spot buy based on the urging of the station’s account representative.

Never mind that the market leader was already running 240 :60 second spots a week on the same station, compete with exclusive endorsements from the most listened to talk show hosts on the station. We did everything we could to convince the company to rethink its decision. But sometimes, people have already made up their minds when they call us.

“You’ll never look good in a size 6 when you’re a size 12 company.”

It’s something you learn working with the best of the best, let alone covering the fashion beat in Las Vegas for several years. Yep, even I know that size 6 women don’t always look good in size 6 outfits. So much depends on the designer, cut, and pattern. (Not to mention how important underwear can be.)

Sure, we did everything we could to convince the company to rethink the decision. But in this case, their minds were made up. Despite being station-produced, one of the spots even won an award. But in terms of results, all they really did was reinforce the need for water purification, prompting listeners to call the competitor whose brand dominated the station.

Sometimes perception is like that. You think your company looks one way, even reinforced by misapplying SWOT. But in reality, it really looks like something else in the marketplace.

Much like Layla, they attempt to mimic the identity of their perceived competition by wearing several sizes too small (because they refuse to wear a size bigger) or settling for cheaper, baggier clothing to hide perception rather than embracing their best qualities in reality.

In terms of Kressley’s show, no doubt some people will have mixed feelings about convincing women to parade around naked for a photography shoot. But if you can get past that little bit of Lifetime novelty, I suspect it stands a good chance of delivering on the promise of a perception revolution for women looking for a self-esteem boost. You can look successful and beautiful at any size.

Of course, the same thing can be said for companies, which brings me to the takeaway. Communication plans don’t work unless you know what you look like naked. And most companies have no idea what they look like because they rely too heavily on looking in the mirror. Don’t they know? Mirrors only show you want you want to see, and almost never what is reality.

Partnering With Consumers: Brand Evangelists

According to PQ Media's word-of-mouth marketing forecast and reported by Adweek, consumer marketing is expected to top $1 billion in 2007, up from $980 million in 2006. It is expected to expand by $4 billion by 2011.

“Technology has leveled the marketing playing field for brands. In the new world of marketing, customer evangelists are the key influence on what consumers buy." — Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, Creating Customer Evangelists (cited by Adweek).

Izea in one of several companies that seems to be moving right in step with the trend. Their newest social media marketing program, Social Spark, hopes to bridge the gap between blogger networks and brand advocates. You can catch a platform preview video here. The presentation is interesting enough that we've added Social Spark to our watch list.

Combined, all of this is adding up to an increased emphasis on integrated marketing and public relations. Companies are looking to support traditional advertising with aggressive website strategies and early ad pre-releases on the Internet in order to boost conversations and buzz about their message and brand.

For example, Nielsen BuzzMetrics applied a Brand Association Map (BAM), which plots how consumers naturally think and talk about brands across billions of unaided conversations online, last October. They found that over 33 million messages were posted to 457 automotive CGM sites from January 1 through September 10, 2007. These conversations revealed:

• Shoppers actively discuss current automotive dealer and manufacturer incentive programs available.
• Full-size trucks were referenced most often in relation to incentives during this period, fueled by the introduction of the Toyota Tundra.
• Consumers frequently reference Edmunds.com when seeking vehicle pricing and incentives, reflecting shared dealer experiences among peers.

A few days ago, I mentioned that companies are engaged in social media whether they realize it our not. In the Vehicle Transaction Price study release, Bill Stephenson, VP and Practice Lead, Automotive, for Nielsen BuzzMetrics, a service of the Nielsen Company, punctuated this point:

“Shoppers are going online to learn what other buyers have paid for the car they are interested in. This trend is driving transparency among automakers and dealers because now, all of a sudden, shoppers are privy to the best deals that others received.”

This isn’t exclusive to the automotive industry. Consumers are seeking online information to influence their decisions on just about everything, including the President of the United States.

Remember last year when I mentioned the number of voters who consider the Internet their number one source for election coverage would double? It did. And then some.

Taking Action: Bloggers Unite

If you ever wondered whether there is any truth to the idiom “actions speak louder than words,” you might find some proof perusing more than a thousand stories shared by bloggers on Dec. 17.

These bloggers, hundreds of them, performed various acts of kindness — small and large, simple and complex, personal and public — and then posted about it.

They didn’t do it to be pretentious as the “LoneRanger” from Voice of America suggested on a Digg comment, but rather to support each other in reponse to Tony Berkman and the BlogCatalog team.

The challenge? Perform an act of kindness and share it in a post, photo, or video on the same day. Many went above and beyond, sharing stories that will touch your heart, ranging from a daughter’s love for her mother and a group of fans saving a family pet to cleaning up a neighborhood (donating the proceeds to a non-profit organization) and thanking a reggae street performer in Rome.

Together, the results demonstrate how one blogger, joined by many bloggers, can make a tangible difference, online and off.

Three Highlighted Acts Of Kindness

First Place — Bojak, Listening..Learning..Living

Second Place — Iriegal, Mental Stimulation

Third Place — Blair Corbett, Keep It Simple Solutions

In addition to the prizes and recognition listed on the BlogCatalog mini-site, I’m honored to be profiling these three bloggers in the weeks ahead, along with three others from the Top 20 posts selected by six judges who took the time to read every post submitted (and then some).

Seventeen More Stories Of Compassion

Guiding Vision, JerichoMonster, Jessica In Rome, Katalusis, LifePrints, Live From Waterloo, Local Biz Bits, My Den, Original Me, Ruthie’s Reason, Sharani – Girl On A Road,
Sinigang for the Soul., Sushi for Lunch!, and Wahm Café.

Thank you all for taking the time to do something kind. And thank you all for sharing your stories. While some might say that good deeds are best kept secret, I personally think such acts of kindness need to be shared more often. You see, pebbles cast on still waters tends to make ripples.

Thank you all for inspiring others and the inspiration. All my best.