Blogging: what’s it all about?

Ged Carroll: director, digital strategies

In this presentation

• What is a blog• Why should I care?• Things to think

about in a blog• Writing for blogs• Commercial

opportunity

• Measurement • Issues

management• Blogging & ethics• Blogging & UK law

What is a blog anyway?

A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. (Wikipedia)

Picture by laverrue

Why blogging?

• It is one of the easiest ways to publish content on the ’net

• 77% read blogs (Universal McCann)

• 346 million worldwide read blogs

• Easily republished and publicised

• Attracts inbound links - cost-effective SEO

Picture by foxypar4

Why blogging? Global marketers viewpoint

TNS media intelligence/Cymfony polled 70+ marketers around the globe about their experiences incorporating all types of social media tools in their marketing strategies. Represented countries include the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France.

Which of the following most closely matches your personal point of view on the potential impact that social media will have in business?

Things to remember about blogging: listen

Active listening• Utilise Google blog search

and follow relevant blogs using an RSS reader

• Is there an existing community?

• What are they saying?• What are their community

norms?• What can you bring to the

table within those community norms?

Picture by pasukaru76

Listening to engagement • Respond on a reactive basis

to debate• Proactive engagement• What do we want to

achieve? (macro -> micro)• What value do we bring to

the community discussion?• Why should the community

interact or listen to you?• Who should be the

spokespeople?• Aggregate and showcase

advocate community content to aid discovery Picture by JoF

Being a blogger

• Think about your audience

• Always think three moves ahead – Steve Davis

• Write in your own tone of voice

Picture by Daquella_manera

Blogging etiquette

• Do link out generously

• Do read and comment on other people’s blogs

• Don’t delete comments that you disagree with

• Do stick with itPicture by casey.marshall

Blogging tips & tricks

•Great content comes from everyday things•Keep an inspiration book•Use picturesHow can you continue a dialogue?•Don’t finish your posts•Ask your readers for their opinion

Picture by Jóinn

Writing for blogs

Standing on the shoulders of giants (beat generation, the new journalism)• Tone-of-voice• Formality• PoV• Involvement: scene

setting rather than historical narrative

• Humanity• Record everyday events• Transparency• Speed

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs division, Van Vechten Collection

Running a client blog

The right reasons:• We have something to say• We would like to be able to have a dialogue with our

customers• We’re passionate about our industry and have something to

say (and folks are likely to listen)• We’d like to share some of our know-how with the wider

community

The wrong reasons:• The board says that we need a blog• Someone down the golf/squash club thought that it would be

a good idea• PR Week said that blog is the word of 2006• We want to tell people about our latest XXX (insert client

product details here)• Its something I can get you guys to do

The why

Running a corporate blog

Put their house in order• Provide guidance for

employees personal social media

• Start thinking about editorial: not only the first few posts but longer term planning

• Get them to think about ongoing resources for writing posts and responding to comments and indirect feedback - Is training required?

• What is the blog(s) designed to achieve?

• How will that success be measured?

• How will employees be incentivised to participate?

• Do the management team realise the long-term commitment that a blog requires?

• How doe the blog fit into the organisations overall web strategy?

• Is there a willingness to change based on the feedback received?

Specification | design

• Brand guidelines– Guidelines are not tramlines– URL – Working Families for Wal-Mart

• Think reader: – Make sure your code works– Make sure it works for different sizes– Test for browser compatibility

• MS IE 7 & 8• Mozilla 3 & 3.5• Safari 3.2 & 4.o• Opera 9.6

– If you discuss mobile, allow it to be read via a mobile browser like Opera Mini and webkit-based browsers for Symbian an iPhones

16Specification | design

• SEM

– Submit your site to Google, Yahoo! | Bing, Ask

• USABILITY - KISS

– Don’t go with a fixed-width– One column if you can– Flash is mostly evil, AJAX can be good– Think navigation – archives, categories/tag

clouds– Make it easy to subscribe– Easy to search via Rollyo or Google Co-op to

name just two options

04/12/2023

17Specification|design

• Choose your platform to run the blog on carefully

– Moveable Type– WordPress– MSN Spaces– Blogger– Microsoft Community Server

• Think about the posts, now and in the future

– Measurement, bookmarking, video enclosures, dynamic content – support for JavaScript, AJAX, RSS feeds, audio files, images, documents, blogroll, contributor pages for transparency

Tools

• Open source – published by Six Apart• Application and ISP hosted service• Spam protection• Comment and community

management• Access to hundreds of plug-ins• Fully configurable permissions system• Native support for multiple blogs• Static pages and archiving• Optional paid professional support• Automatic RSS feed generation

• Open source – more information at wordpress.org

• Application, ISP and wordpress.com hosted service

• Spam protection• Comment and community management• Access to hundreds of plug-ins and

themes• Password protection on blog and

individual posts• Doesn’t need to rebuild after every

posting• Large support eco-system of free and

paid expertise

• Easy RSS feed generation

CLICK TO EDIT MASTER TITLE STYLE

Measurement & monitoring

Measurement: silver bullet (or not)

• Cision

• Attentio

• Market Sentinel

• BuzzMetrix

• Cymfony

• Biz360

• Factiva

• Brandimensions

Social media discovery

Baseline Search B2B B2C

Global Google Yahoo! Site ExplorerGoogle search-based keyword tool Google keyword tool

Google Blog SearchQuarkbaseIcerocketGoogle video search

Facebook searchQuarkbaseTwitter searchIcerocketFlickr search

UK Google Yahoo! Site ExplorerGoogle search-based keyword tool Google keyword tool

BritishblogsQuarkbaseGoogle Blog SearchGoogle video search

BritishblogsQuarkbaseGoogle Blog SearchFacebook searchTwitter searchGoogle video searchFlickr search

Europe Google Yahoo! Site ExplorerGoogle search-based keyword tool Google keyword tool

TwinglyQuarkbaseGoogle Blog SearchGoogle video search

Twingly Microblog searchQuarkbaseGoogle blog searchGoogle video searchFlickr search

Increasing complexity and granularity

MonitoringMeasurement tools often don’t have the speed of near real-time updates and you have to go back to basics–Google alerts:

• Ongoing monitoring–Google news alerts–Google blog search

–Technorati:• RSS-fed buzz with authority meter

–Yahoo! Site Explorer:• Inbound links

–Website analytics–Radian6 – commercial offering that many major brands like

Pull this all together with RSS

Social media monitoring

•Many of the search tools looked at earlier will provide an RSS feed for future finds•This can convert our snapshot into a moving picture – monitoring•Using Yahoo! Pipes we can machine translate foreign articles and merge RSS feeds to provide a monitoring stream. Creating a ‘pipe’ is as easy as creating a flow chart in PowerPoint

Blogging ethics and legal niceties

UK legislation

• From end of May 2008: Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008– No astro-turfing– No sock puppetry– Up to 6 months jail time

• What can you do legally?– Notify the service provider if

content violates their terms of service, there is usually a feedback email in their help section, or content will have a flag button by it

– For blogs, where there is content that you could take legal action to remove:• Notify the legal department of their

hosting company

Ethics

From WOMMA• Consumer protection & respect are paramount• The honesty ROI: honesty of

– Relationship– Opinion– Identity

• Respect the rules of the venue• Manage relationships with minors responsibly• Promote honest downstream communications• Protect privacy and permission

Case study

Namaste & thank you for listening

http://ruderfinn.co.uk | @r_c