Corporate Blogging Grown Up

I guest-lectured at a colleague's graduate class at Johns Hopkins where I also teach a class. One of her students - a young man in his twenties studying to enter marketing and/or communications - asked seriously, "Can I just wait out the whole blog-thing, wait till it fades away or do I have to pay attention to what's happening?"

Didn't expect that question from him, a digital native. But I do hear it a lot from business "gray-hairs"  - the digital immigrants. The short answer is that blogging will not fade away like a fad. I certainly believe there will be a "leveling off" of the explosive growth we have seen. But too many people have found a voice and a reward for publishing their POV to expect that to recede  It is part of a movement that will continue to grow and change affecting how we market from this moment forward.

It's Not All About Blogs

My team focuses on the larger realm of social media and the word of mouth marketing it makes possible. We find ourselves constantly telling curious clients, "It's not all about blogs." (nor, is it all about Facebook or running ads on Federated Media). And while the options for a comprehensive social media strategy are broad, it's interesting to see how the tactic of starting a brand blog(s) is maturing, becoming a sensible part of a marcom effort, and being applied by various brands.

I wanted to examine how three contemporary brands are using blogs today. You can get a pretty good list of business blogs here. I wanted to look beyond the stalwart examples: the GM blog(s), the Southwest Airlines blog, even the Direct2Dell blog. Each of these remain great examples and enduring efforts. I wanted to examine some new ones or some of which remain less spotlighted.

Contemporary Corporate Blogs: Lenovo, WellsFargo, Starbucks
They are each very different businesses with very different needs and situations. (Full disclosure: We started Lenovo blogs with David Churbuck. Our company also does work with WellsFargo but I have no connection with that business.)

In the case of Lenovo and Wells Fargo, I talked with some of the folks running those blogs. I did reach out to Starbucks but haven't heard back yet.

For Wells Fargo, I connected with Staci Schiller, Wells Fargo Education Financial Services. Staci runs the Student Loans Blog.

For Lenovo, I reached out to David Churbuck, VP of Global Web Marketing

Here's what I wanted to understand: 

• What are they actually doing on the blog? What are they publishing about?
• Who is writing/producing the blog?
• How shareable, findable and ultimately "social" is the blog? (Things that Rohit coined the term "Social Media Optimization" to describe)
• How are they measuring "performance" or success?

Lenovo

The Skinny (short description of the blog)
A series of blogs from different leaders & managers within Lenovo. Currently the blogs are in English. They are aggregated into a single url and bundled with their Flickr feed, del.cio.us tags and it links through to Lenovo Communities which feature user message boards. 

When asked what surprised him about the blogs, David Churbuck said,

"The quick acceptance and genuine good will throughout the organization was inspiring. The greatest surprise came when a blogger complimented a competitor for a design choice, received some internal criticism for "aiding the enemy" but then turned that negativity to positive feelings when one writer said it made Lenovo blogs more authentic and genuine than the typical company PR blog."

The Bloggers (who is writing or producing the material)
Various personalities within the company from David Hill, who runs their global product design team, to Bill Stephenson, who heads up CSR. They are not all senior leaders but they are people with a POV.

The Purpose (what is the marketing or communications purpose)

• Build a direct relationship with people inside Lenovo and publics
• Improve overall customer service and relationships
• Enhance the brand reputation of the company

David Churbuck: "To provide an interesting experience to the readers worthy of their time and to persuade them that the passion of the company for its products and customers is genuine."

The Measurement (how do they measure success)

David Churbuck: "Metrics are not closely followed in terms of traditional page views, RSS subscriptions, or other quant measures. Primary justification is enthusiasm of readers, customers, press and the bloggers themselves. Success is the ability to publish, with near instantaneous execution, information vital to the business."

David and his team measure overall Web metrics for the blogs but look for those qualitative wins - customer service "fixes", innovative suggestions from customers, their ability to address concerns and communicate what they are doing inside Lenovo. 

The Social Score (how connected are they: 1 to 5)

Lenovo gets a 4.5

Lenovo Blogs is growing in depth and breadth. That means they continue to add bloggs and bloggers. Unlike Wells Fargo, they tend to limit the number of bloggers on a single blog to somewhere between 1 and 4. The breadth part includes adding other social features like the Flickr gallery and del.icio.us feeds. I would guess we will see a YouTube gallery soon, Dopplr and other features.

No appreciable blogrolls anywhere. That seems to be a common issue with "official" corporate blogs. Linking feels like endorsement no doubt and that causes anxiety. Also, corporate blogs don't jockey for popularity the way personal blogs do through link-baiting and eventual link-love. They rely more clearly on search results to connect with readers. Lenovo blogs shows up on the first two pages of Google results for Lenovo (but not ThinkPad).

Wells Fargo

The Skinny (short description of the blog)
Wells Fargo currently runs 4 group blogs with more than 30 bloggers contributing. These include Guided By History which talks about the heritage of the company, The Student LoanDown and a SecondLife-inspired Stagecoach Island (all their names are service marks so don't steal them). The blogs feel collegial and informal enough. We have pictures of all the contributors to bring the personality to life. No multimedia yet.

I asked Staci Schiller, blogger at The Student LoanDown, to summarize their approach to blogging.

Staci Schiller: "The banking industry is heavily regulated, and for good reasons, so we carefully consider how we interact with users and what kinds of topics we discuss. Also, most of our bloggers are team members who have full time jobs, and to add blogging--writing, posting, reading, replying--on top of those jobs takes dedication and discipline. The culture of blogging is unique and we strive to connect with that culture in the way we communicate and interact in the blogosphere."

The Bloggers (who is writing or producing the material)
One thing I noticed is that Wells Fargo seems to have a staff of historians. Charles Riggs, who is featured on the Guided by History blog is a researcher with Wells Fargo Historical Services since 1995.  John Stumpf, President and CEO appears on that blog's masthead. Many of the other bloggers within Guided by History are in some way connected to archives, museum or history business functions. 

The Student LoanDown features more of a marketing/communications staff (approximately 8)as bloggers.

The Commercial Electronic Blog requires log-in and Stagecoach Island positions itself as  a community with 3D graphics that you might associate with a Second Life-type virtual world

The Purpose (what is the marketing or communications purpose)
With this variety, each of the blogs serves a different audience and potentially a different purpose. The Guided By History blog is all about bringing the heritage of teh company to life and therefore to support the corporate brand position.

Student LoanDown is more directly targeting customers.

Staci Schiller: "Our goal is to serve customers when, where and how they want to be served. People get their information in many different ways, and social media offers us a new opportunity to have a dialogue with our customers, learn from them, and provide information and advice on topics that are important to them. We're reaching new audiences in a personal way when our team members share their thoughts and experiences on blogs."

The Measurement (how do they measure success)

Staci Schiller: "Blogging is about engaging in conversations, so we measure success based upon the number of readers we attract, as well as their interaction with us through email feedback, comments, and reader posts on their own blogs or sites about our blogs."

The Social Score (how connected are they)

Wells Fargo gets a 4

Like most corporate blogs, the Wells Fargo blogs don't feature BlogRolls per se. While the bloggers seem to do plenty of crosslinking from with posts, the site itself does not leverage many of the social media tools that others do: bookmark icons, send-this-to-a-friend links, YouTube or Flickr galleries.

They have more bloggers per blog than Lenovo. But fewer blogs. And there is no sign yet that they are implementing any other social media content or features that might expand how people connect with them. Still, their experimentation with formats - the virtual community - demonstrates they are trying different things.

Starbucks

The Skinny (short description of the blog)
Unlike the others, the Starbuck's blog is part of a larger co-creation that has gotten a lot of coverage lately, My Starbuck's Idea. Like Dell's Ideastorm, the overall site solicits Starbuck's product and service ideas from customers on the Web. The blog is called Ideas in Action. It's where they report back on the ideas submitted.

The Bloggers (who is writing or producing the material)
There seem to be quite a few bloggers including Brad Stevens Vice President of Marketing. many are identified with name and picture, some have cryptic user names like Sbx_bean. Makes you wonder who these folks are. There seem to be almost 14 different bloggers with only one or two posting more than once. 

The Purpose (what is the marketing or communications purpose)
The blog is focused on responding to the user ideas submitted in My Starbuck's Idea. It is part of a co-creation activity and meant to build a strong relationship with those folks motivated to post and read this experience. The feedback alone in the core co-creation space is priceless.

The Measurement (how do they guage success)
While I haven't spoken to Starbuck's, the blog's performance is so integrated into the co-creation that beyond Web traffic, they must report number of ideas submitted, votes and comments per idea (the suggestion that the difference between Venti and Grande should me more than more milk received 177 comments to date). They are focused on reaping product and service innovation benefits.

The Social Score (how connected are they)

The whole thing gets a 4.5. (If you just carved off the "blog" element, that would only get a 3 or so)

Yes, the co-creation idea thing has been done. But it's a great social media experience that more brands would benefit from. While the blog proper does not allow for comments, there are plenty of comments in the idea space. Starbuck's lets its fans and regular customers take centerstage and as in many communities, it's the community that comes to the defense of the brand when critical comments are posted.

Summary
Both Lenovo Blogs and Wells Fargo are great examples of blogging growing up into a real communication activity. Still, both organizations are bootstrapping the effort - all of the bloggers have day jobs.

While Lenovo is embracing more of what's available in social media, Wells Fargo seems to have more of the rank and file involved as bloggers. In both cases, they have opted for special interest blogs - from student loan conversations to product design. They are letting those with a voice and POV within the company develop an audience (a community of readers/commenters) around more focused topics.

Comments

[Ed Terpening, VP Social Media Marketing, Wells Fargo]

Hi John,

Thanks for checking our blogs, and your thoughtful review! I agree with your criticisms that we should add more social features. It's more a matter of time/bandwidth then intention to keep things "closed". We did attempt to create a broader blogroll for The Student LoanDown when we launched (almost 2 years now!), but there were (again, at the time), surprisingly few people blogging about financing education. We'll take a second look.

Cheers,
-Ed

[John Bell]

Thanks for your coments, Ed. I actually think you guys are doing a great job. Hope that comes across. I love the fact that you have gotten so many people involved. I am amazed at how much you have gotten done.

The skimpy blog roll is a problem that almost all corporate blogs have. I hear what you are saying about a lack of personal finance blogs. Most feel that linking implies some endorsement and just cannot do it. Not sure I agree but I also don't think blogrolls are that important by themselves. Search engine results - now that matters.

Great job!

[Mark Dykeman]

I'm glad I found your blog - I've been fascinated with this field since the Duncan Watts feature in Fast Company a couple of months ago.

Question: in your opinion, how are Southwest and American Airlines handling their recent plane inspection challenges from a social media point of view? Good, OK, bad?

Unfair question, perhaps: I don't think AA even has a blog.

[Chris Baggott]

Good post, but I'm curious that you seem to think it's a negative that the bloggers have 'day jobs'.

I'm probably misreading this, but the idea of a staff that focuses on blogging is a lot less effective than organizations that encourage their regular employees to post.

Our general message to our Corporate Blogging clients is that; you hire smart people, they like their jobs, they like the customers, they feel they are doing important work....expose them.

as far as Leveling off...I don't think so. AdAge reported this week that only 20% of the Fortune 500 have any kind of blogging strategy at all. The % is a lot lower in the other 20 million businesses in America.

Social media is telling us one thing: People are tired of dealing with faceless institutions...they want to deal with real, live human beings. Employee and Corporate Blogging is the best way to bring an institution alive and you will see it as part of the core marketing strategy for every organization in the not-to-distant future.

Thanks for the post, and for letting me rant :-)

Best,

Chris Baggott
CEO
Compendium Blogware
www.compendiumblogware.com

[John Bell]

mark - great question about Southwest and American - especially in relation to Southwest. They bloogged about Congressional hearings here:
http://www.blogsouthwest.com/2008/04/03/congressional-hearings/#comments
and it became a magnet for 120 or so comments. There is a lot of anger there but I give Southwest lots of credit for letting it unfold on their blog. There are some customers in there coming to their defense.

[John Bell]

Chris - I, like you, am in favor of empowering employees (like myself) to blog. Full time bloggers are just not that interesting or as valuable. If you read anything into my comments it was more about how hard it is to keep up blogging while doing a full time plus gig. More a 'sigh' than a shaking of the head.

The growth of blogs may level off but the gains will never roll back. I believe the voice of the customer got permanenetly much louder.