A Marketer Speaks Out On Corporate Blogging; Interview With PR Communications’ John Cass (Part 2 of 2)
(www.businessandblogging.com) Yesterday, we posted part 1 of an interview with John Cass. John blogs at PR Communications. John is also the author of Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging
Yesterday, John covered the following topics:
- Why many companies don’t blog
- Advice for a business owner who wants to start a blog
- The Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki
- The biggest mistake a corporate blogger could make
Today, John talks about:
- The future of business blogging
- The importance of social media
- Current projects
- General comments about blogging
Without any further ado, let’s see what John has to say.
Where do you see business blogging going in the next year? In the next five years?
I think in the technology markets you will see even greater adoption of blogging, as the pace of adoption increases because we are really moving into the mainstream with technology companies. I think the pace of change and adoption with other markets will continue to be slow as we are still in
the early adopter stage. I think more companies will use technology monitoring and online customer engagement process tools. Companies like Nielson, Buzzlogic and Visible Technologies will increasingly help companies to monitor conversation and manage the process of engagement. Those tools will help propel greater adoption levels.
In five years time, blogging will be reaching the mainstream for a wider spread of industries; we might be up to 20-30% of the Fortune 500 with a blog, based on the rate of adoption in the last three years.
How important is social media going to become for the business blogger?
Blogging is part of social media, but blogs are unique among social media technologies because of their importance to search engines. Most people use search engines to find information, brands and products, therefore it is important to get a high ranking on search engines. Blogs more so than any
other social media technologies help a company to get a high ranking because of the method by with people communicate between blogs. Bloggers link back and forth between blogs when discussing issues. This method of linking between blogs is one of the important factors for ranking by a search
engine. Other social media technologies are also important because of volume of content, but because sites like Flicker and YouTube have member’s conversations within the website, they don’t benefit in the same way that blogs do from conversations between websites where links are created.
Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are very important, as they provide easy ways for people to communicate with their friends and colleagues. Bloggers can use these other social media technologies to republish content and continue conversations within those other social
networking technologies. Book marking tools are also important, when running a corporate blog a company should not forget the use of other social media technologies. Lastly, I think we will see more podcasting, both audio and video.
Tell us a little bit about your current project, if you don’t mind.
I am in the middle of working on a few projects, the community project for the Fortune 500 blogging wiki. As I explained earlier I’d like to see more bloggers sign up for reviews of the Fortune 500 companies with corporate blogs.
Plus just starting the Nuance study for SNCR - This is a project to review the relationship between customer service, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty in relation to the use of social media. We are using a survey of customers to determine the relationship between customer service experiences and brand perception. I will also be working a case study for the project.
And finishing off the new influencer study for SNCR - The new influencer study is reviewing the differences between social media campaigns and public relations campaigns, how companies are identifying new influencers in social media. I am working on a case study about the American
Red Cross that I believe will be very interesting to all people interested in the use of social media by organizations. The Red Cross started off monitoring social media, and are now actively engaging people on issues related to the Red Cross.
Is there anything else about business blogging that you’d like to tell the
readers of Business and Blogging?
Blogging is a tool and technique, underlying blogging is the possibility of using a real marketing strategy to listen to customers for market research purposes, yet in the process of gaining feedback and acknowledging ideas, companies can turn ordinary customers into evangelists. The companies that use social media tools best understand that the strategy is more important than the tools. Companies like Macromedia, and Dell have used marketing strategy to listen to customers, make products that people want, that are also profitable and as a result of interactions in social media, gain ideas, higher brand loyalty, direct sales and higher search engines rankings. I think my early study in 2005 the Backbone Media Corporate blogging study really demonstrated the value of blogging, but also how companies can gain the most value from blogging by using marketing strategy and listening to gain customer feedback.
And in my joint study on business blogging success factors with Dr. Walter Carl at Northeastern University we interviewed 20 corporate bloggers, who related 19 different success factors for blogging. Those 19 were narrowed down to five, and again provide a roadmap for how companies can build a successful blog, they were:
- Culture
- Transparency
- Time
- Dialogue
- Entertaining writing style and personalization
Thanks again to John for sharing this information with the readers of Business and Blogging.
Join the conversation by leaving a comment about some of John’s information, or just join me in thanking him for taking the time to visit with us.
Image Source: John Cass
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