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
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.)
Sara Lee Targets the Mom Audience
March 2, 2010
Corporations have several purposes, one of which is to solve a problem or to address a need. The Sara Lee Corporation aims to satisfy that concern by creating a new, interesting segment to its corporation, appropriately addressed as a “Saga Solver.”
Problem Solver
This new corporate development in their social media campaign efforts was released last week. The program is designed to help busy moms with household decisions in making and preparing meals and selecting healthy food alternatives for her family. Each segment is presented as a ‘problem’ of sorts and offers a panel of field experts who help moms figure out the answers to their family’s concerns, all sprinkled with humor and entertainment. Here is one of the videos from the corporation that they’re using as a social networking tool to reach busy moms:
Saga Solvers: How Do You Stop Being a Short-order Cook?
Niche Target Audience
The Sara Lee Corporation is aiming and targeting moms in its campaign by showing them how some of their problems can be solved with their products, and lending a friendly, professional ear also seems to help the situation.
They’ve made this social networking campaign to be inclusive of all moms; working moms, stay-at-home moms, student moms, etc. They are also heavily utilizing their Facebook page to promote the new segment and entice feedback and responses from their readers. How successful is it so far? As of today, March 2, they have over 23,000 fans on their page and it’s steadily growing!
When corporations target a specific niche audience, they are usually successful because their resources are targeted towards those demographics and marketing specifically to their needs. And, what does every mom need? She needs for her life to be simplified and as hassle-free as possible. Kudos to the executives at the Sara Lee Corporation for recognizing and addressing a need and for offering solid advice with a bit of humor.
What do you think of their new Saga Solver segments? Do you see the immediate benefit of the advice given and where it would be of help to moms?
Social Networking and Client Communications
February 9, 2010
Being in the business of online content production in various platforms can be both rewarding and laborious at the same time. Depending on to whom you speak and in what context you discuss it, being online can be a huge benefit for some but a nuisance for others.
Social networking is the booming choice these days for companies who are trying to reach potential customers in various demographics and buying patterns. No doubt that any company will tell you that they want as many customers they can get. They want to attract long-term clients and build solid business relationships that they can enjoy for years to come. How do they propose to get this business? Will old marketing systems still work just as effectively?
The Importance of Networking
Social client networking is critical and necessary for effective client communications. There isn’t any way that a corporation can be effective in the online community without establishing a presence that anchors them in the business world. Customers don’t only rely on brand names or household names anymore as their sole reason for doing business. They want to know what other customers think. They want to know what others clients’ experiences have been. They want all of the information they can obtain before they make a buying decision, whether that’s to buy a widget or to make a long-term financial investment.
Communication is important in any business. Social networking has flung the door wide open for corporations and small businesses to build their network of loyal customers. There are online communities, discussion groups, Twits and fan pages that all serve to sing the praises of any business who has chosen to work online. In order for the business to be successful in their communication efforts they can implement the methods of several ideas: 1.) Set up a social networking platform, whether that’s a blog, an online newsletter, a Facebook page or a Twitter account. Do something to establish a presence in the online world. 2.) Work and develop your online presence. It’s a great thing to have a Facebook page, but is it being put to use? Interact with other social marketers. Answer and ask questions that pertain to your niche. Become the preferred “go-to” person or corporation when someone is looking for information on your subject of specialty. 3.) Vary your social networking platforms. Don’t be narrow-minded: not everyone is on Facebook and Twitter. They just happen to be popular name brand sites that you hear everyone buzzing about. There are other sites that are just as effective and have many users in your demographic area. Find out what groups fit your company’s mission and become an active part of the community. 4.) Keep a polished presence. This counts for both your blog and website and any other forms of communication that you have established. Be as professional as possible at all times. Make sure your site and blog(s) are clean, easy to read, engaging and offer value. Make sure everything about your online presence is outstanding because your readers may visit your site only once, and first impressions are lasting impressions. Social networking and communicating are both efforts that have to be maintained and tweaked when necessary. They can’t be set on auto-pilot and be expected to work on their own. A few dedicated minutes per day or a couple of hours per week should be sufficient to ensure that your corporate blog is getting the attention it needs and exposure for your body of work. In the long run, the dividends are invaluable and the initial investment of time and skill will have been all worth it. February 3, 2010 Marco Schueller is right to point out that bandwidth is still an issue – though I think this continues to affect desktop-internet to some extent, not just mobile-internet. In many areas here in the UK, at least, broadband is still only up to 2MB max, not the superfast 20MB version available in cities. And in a very few places, broadband is still not available at all. The large file-sizes that he points out (10MB-11.6MB) would indeed take a while to download. Of course, downloading the entire file isn’t always what visitors want to do. Many companies offer indexed versions, so that the desired parts of the document – such as the financial statements – can be selected for download. Some offer the option to add individual sections or pages to a print/download basket, or to be collated into a single PDF; usually this is from within the online annual report. BMW is an example of this service; I was intrigued to notice that BMW suggested additional sections of the report that might be of interest to me, along the lines of Amazon’s well-known cross-marketing software. A few – very few – offer a printer-friendly version of the complete annual report (see Standard Life, for example), which seems like a good idea. After all, we don’t really need the decorative images, although they do help to convey the corporate brand and messaging. One option that Deutsche Post uses is a print-page facility, so without the background and purely decorative graphics, but with the additional option to print with/without images. (Of course, it would take a long time to print the whole report like this, so a print-whole-report facility like this would be great). Does this mean a company should come up with three versions in addition to the online annual report? One for hard-copy glossy print, one lightweight for download and one for individuals to print out on their desktop printers? Or more: large-print, audio, braille… Once the hard work of developing the annual report is done, I think a lightweight version and a printer-friendly version should be relatively straightforward. I’m excluding the online annual report here; I know that’s a significant piece of work. And I can see that versions in alternative formats are also a significant exercise. But I think that providing multiple options for the reports serves the needs of different visitors, such as those who want: And that, surely, is user-friendly.Annual Reports, PDFs and Printing
I was interested to see that Nexxar have been assessing the size of Annual Report PDFs from DAX-30 companies.
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