The Positive Effects of Corporate Media Blogging
March 11, 2010
Corporate blogging is a technique and marketing tool that is slowly but most assuredly catching on in the corporate mainstream. Corporations are starting to see the inherent value of a solid blog that speaks directly to their audience. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of corporate blogs that address everything from media relations to social responsibility. This is a very good thing, and a sign that corporations are making concerted efforts to decentralize and universalize their communications target markets.
Social Media Contact
Corporations that give attention to the merits of social media are undoubtedly paying off. One such example is the case of the Jet Blue Airlines from a few years ago. With the help of seasoned writer and blogger, Debbie Weil, something that could have been potentially harmful for the company worked out very well.
Debbie’s book on professional blogging and social media outreach offered insight to the company about the need for them to make a corporate statement and the need for them to take advantage of social media.
By doing so, the company accomplished several things:
- A new presence in the world of social media and blogging. Debbie’s book was a welcomed tool for the company and they used her suggested practices right away, resulting in positive desired effects.
- Being proactive in offsetting any potential ill-feelings that consumers would have had about their service. This went a long way in ensuring repeat business from some of those same customers.
- Understanding the importance of establishing themselves in the online social world. Once they recognized the impact that social networking had on their business, they began to utilize the service more to their advantage.
- Implementing a dedicated department to handle social media issues. This is important when social networking is at the crux of any business. In order for that phase of the business to thrive, it needs dedicated manpower to ensure that the resource is being fully implemented.
Implementing Campaign Strategies
Corporations are starting to embrace the valuable merits of social media and networking. They see it as an alliance to the marketing efforts that are already in place, and are using it to its maximum capacity to work productively for their company. What are some things that your corporation can do to enhance its corporate media relations campaign? Here are a few suggestions:
- Realize the importance of interacting with readers. Almost everything written on blogs is done in real time, therefore readers are updated almost instantly on news, developments and changes within a corporate structure.
- Dedicate the time that is necessary to make the campaign productive. Invest both time, money and manpower to ensure that the campaign has what it needs to operate effectively.
- Be realistic in your expectations. Your corporate blog may not attract readers right away, nor will it appear as if it is even being read. But take heart; be diligent in growing the blog by being consistent, factual and interacting with the readers at every available opportunity.
Corporate blogging and social media efforts definitely have their place in the corporate structure. With a well-devised strategy plan and a commitment to watching it grow, corporations can become just as involved as social media individuals and garner the attention they seek for their online business.
Image Source: sxc.hu
Transparency and the Sustainability Agenda | FTSE 100 Website Reviews
March 10, 2010
General Industrials is one of those catch all phrases within the London Stock Exchange. It’s not quite an “and everything else” hold all, but neither is it particularly specific about what the companies do. They just do industry.. generally.
There are only two General Industrial companies within the FTSE 100: Smiths Group, and Rexam.
Smiths focuses upon threat & contraband detection, medical devices, energy, communications and engineered components, while Rexam is the world’s second largest consumer packaging group and a leading global beverage can maker.
There’s no particular reason for them to be in competition with each other, other than the fact they both fit into this “other” category. Read more
What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 12: Remember the Debt Side of the Balance Sheet
March 9, 2010
Most company investor relations web sites are entirely equity oriented and ignore the company’s debt. I’m not quite sure why this is, as many companies have a significant part of their funding that is derived from the credit markets. Perhaps it comes from the fact that most corporate debt is held by institutional investors who have access to proprietary trading screens, or perhaps it derives from the fact that the banking and treasury department is often separate from investor relations, but you can look long and hard before you find much information on most companies’ web sites that relates to their debt.
By failing to more publicly disclose this aspect of their financial structure companies are doing a disservice, certainly to retail holders of their bonds, but also to holders of their equity. Debt burden, that is, the total amount of debt your company has, is important information. As is your debt maturity schedule, which will tell investors when your debt comes due, cash flow requirements and how much immediate refunding risk you may have. Rating agency debt ratings are handy shorthand guides to a company’s overall credit quality and also merit attention. In short, there are many important items of information regarding a company’s debt that go into an investment decision, regardless of whether an investor is a debt or equity holder. Usually this information is spread out between the balance sheet, cash flow statement and regulatory filings, or sometimes, in the case of Debt Ratings, not disclosed by the company at all. It doesn’t make sense for a company to force investors to hunt for the information when the company has it readily at hand. Therefore, a well thought out section informing investors of a company’s debt profile should be included in effective investor relations web sites.
One company that does a pretty good job with their debt information is ENI, the Italian energy company. The screen shot that I have included shows a main debt page discussing their debt policy and overall debt levels. Other pages, which can be seen listed on the left of the page, debt rating, maturity (and currency) profile and the schedule of maturing debt. More companies should do this.
"New" Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: Part 1
March 8, 2010
The February 28th edition of CBS’s popular Sunday Morning show led with a profile of SAS, the top shop in this year’s Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For. But the title of the story wasn’t “Workers in Paradise”—it was: “The Great American Paycheck Squeeze.”
Fortune explains the choice for first place:
SAS boasts a laundry list of benefits — high-quality [onsite] child care at $410 a month, 90% coverage of the health insurance premium, unlimited sick days, a medical center staffed by four physicians and 10 nurse practitioners (at no cost to employees), a free 66,000-square-foot fitness center and natatorium, a lending library, and a summer camp for children.
There’s more about the culture (based on “trust between our employees and the company”), the continuity of leadership, the profitability of the company, and so on. But the big deal is obviously the Edenic workplace, which also boasts 40 miles of running trails, a hair salon, three subsidized cafeterias, an onsite massage therapist (of course), and an artist-in-residence program.
So what could possibly be wrong with this picture?
As the Sunday Morning story observes: “The reality is, for more and more Americans in these recessionary times, SAS might as well be Disney World.”
There’s an inherent discontinuity in the list between what we might call the “campus” companies, where life is made easy for employees (Intel, Intuit, Genentech, Qualcomm, the list goes on) and the “shirt sleeve” companies, where employees are offered emotional reward in lieu of creature comforts. Stew Leonard’s, Build-a-Bear Workshop, Umpqua Bank and a few others compete mainly on charm—fun at work, family feeling, respect for and from management—plus health care benefits, with few other tangible perks.
There’s also a discontinuity between companies where many people might work and those where few need apply. SAS actually did grow jobs last year, by a modest 2%. But the people they hire are for the most part already selected out of the general population by high skill levels. And many of the more applicant-accessible companies on the list had negative job growth, ranging from -2% to more than -20%. Across the board, from FedEx to Zappos, CarMax to Men’s Wearhouse, the job news for non-geniuses was not good.
So who grew? Biggest increases were at the Scooter Store (up 51%) and Smucker’s (up 44%). The “why” at Scooter Store seems obvious, given the aging population and the general decline in fitness. As for Smucker’s . . . well, sales have increased 58% since their acquisition of Folger’s in 2008, so effectively they bought a bunch of new jobs. And coffee has turned out to be a great space for expansion, since decreases in disposable income have driven coffee drinkers to brew at home. On the flip side, job growth at Starbucks was -27%.
More analysis, and some lessons from the list, in Part 2.
Vocus Report Maps the “Traditional Media” Landscape
March 5, 2010
Social media seems to dominate the conversation about corporate messaging these days—and every week brings a new story about the demise of traditional media. But it’s important not to oversimplify this equation. People still read newspapers (you can watch them do it at Starbucks or on the bus), listen to the radio in their cars, borrow books from the library, watch television daily, and flip through magazines at the doctor’s office. And businesses still have to use all these media formats strategically.
So 2010 State of the Media: An Analysis of the Changing Media Landscape by the Vocus Research Team is well worth a download. The report, which analyzes the status of conventional media and identifies developing trends, was discussed in a webinar recently—and here are some highlights I took away from the presentation:
The magazine sector will shrink, with some titles folding (especially in areas where there are close competitors, such as Self vs. Shape) and other titles publishing less frequently. There will be an increase in special editions on the print side, with digital distribution and on-demand content growing on the non-print side. New online magazines will continue to appear, especially in niche areas. Takeaway: Think beyond print when including magazines in PR strategy.
Newspapers are closing fast (especially weeklies) and launching infrequently. Staffs and coverage are shrinking. If there is good news in this sector, it’s not clear yet—but the trend is obviously toward more integration between paper and online delivery. Takeaway: Everyone is overworked at papers today, so maximize the chance of getting attention by targeting pitches carefully. Send exactly the right story angle to exactly the right person.
Cost-cutting in television may not be evident to the viewer, but it’s definitely going on. And the main casualty is news. There’s less coverage for soft news and in-depth stories, and in some areas talk shows are replacing newscasts. Staffers may have to manage online content as well as on-air reporting. Takeaway: Broaden pitches to go beyond the traditional newscast. Make the reporter’s job easier by offering extra content (fact and images) and high-quality b-roll for online use.
Radio has lost stations, jobs, revenue, and programming—but there is still a lot of strength in this sector. Although listening alternatives (satellite radio, MP3s, etc.) continue to increase, the majority of adults still get the majority of their audio from broadcast radio. Takeaway: Keep in mind that most radio stations now have websites and podcasts, so there’s a need for rich content. Think beyond sound bytes!
The webinar concludes with some good general advice: Remember that traditional media still matters, continue to maintain relationships, provide substantive content, and stick to the tried-and-true PR principles of accuracy, timeliness and relevance.
Vocus, by the way, is “a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management,” offering a web-based software suite that not only facilitates media relations, news distribution and news monitoring, but also provides cool reporting functionality. They will actually reward you for taking a tour of the product—and it’s a fun trip, so why not?
(The technology magazine Radio News was started in 1919 by Hugo Gernsback, who became one of the most influential figures in science fiction publishing.)
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