Business and social media: building a case

July 25, 2006
John Koetsier
news

I’m working on a social media (blogs, podcasts, and wikis) presentation for a business. While I’m still in the initial stages, here are some links, quotes, and perspectives that have been helpful so far.

Let me know if there’s something else I should be looking at as well …

Research
A Cymfony study on business blogging:

  • The majority of companies surveyed (76 percent) indicated that they have noticed an increase in media attention and/or website traffic as a result of their blog(s)
  • 75 percent of respondents reported that the initial goals of their blogs have been met
  • Three-fifths of corporations have guidelines in place which outline the company’s responsibility for posting and maintaining their blogs, yet nearly two-thirds do not review content prior to posting
  • 42 percent of respondents said that specific blog posts have affected the company or a brand and in the vast majority of cases it has had a positive affect

And a Forrester study:

  • companies must abandon top-down management and communication tactics, weave communities into their products and services, use employees and partners as marketers, and become part of a living fabric of brand loyalists
  • Individuals increasingly take cues from one another rather than from institutional sources like corporations, media outlets, religions, and political bodies

Quotable quotes

  • Entrepreneur (on blogs)
    – they also can be used as a unique, informal way to establish a company or individual’s reputation or brand
    – They improve branding by presenting a more authentic and distinctive voice for a business than canned PR or MarCom messaging.
    – “for many companies, blogs have become a business staple”

  • CNN
    – “A blog is the perfect platform for someone who really is trying to establish themselves as a thought leader,” said Web analyst Rick Bruner.
    – “The blog provides a very human side to the corporate face beyond press releases, or a Web page or a corporate brochure,” said Tom Murphy of CapeClear Software.

  • Inc.
    – “Blogs are a way for you to tell your story over and over again, and do it in a personable way. If you are blogging and your competitor down the street is not, then it can be a competitive advantage,”
    – they can be an excellent tool to build relationships and create brand equity as more Internet users see them as viable sources of information.

  • BusinessWeek
    – Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message. Now they’re losing control of it.
    – Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later

  • Also BusinessWeek
    – Customers can be your best evangelists
    – Viewers, listeners, and readers are smart— often smarter than your own employees—so let them improve your products and services.

  • And BusinessWeek again, this time on Nike
    – A strong relationship is created when someone joins a Nike community or invites Nike into their community.” Which is the point of brand marketing, isn’t it?
    – Last fall, Nike started feeding video clips that spotlight Nike-sponsored soccer players onto popular video sharing sites, including YouTube and Google. It created JogaTV, a virtual soccer TV station, where it releases a new video clip every few days and fans can upload their own clips.

  • eMarketer
    – “A year ago eMarketer looked at the business of blogging and said that blogs were a one-to-few medium, and they were not practical for most businesses,” says James Belcher, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, The Business of Blogging: A Review. “But over the past year many things have changed, including our opinion.”

  • Web Ink Now (on something you can put on your blog: e-books)
    E-books directly contribute to an organization’s positive reputation by showing thought leadership in the marketplace of ideas. This form of content brands a company, a consultant, or a non-profit as an expert and as a trusted resource to turn to again and again.

Corporate bloggers, sites I check frequently

Business blogs

There’s more, but that’s all I have time for tonight …

(And yes, the presentation is all about trying to persuade this company that social media is a very, very good thing to invest in – right now. After all, marketing is about ideas, and there has never been a more powerful way to spread ideas than the internet, and the most powerful idea-spreading forces on the internet right now are social media.)

[tags] womma, TED, business, social media, blogging, podcasts, guy kawasaki, seth godin, tara hunt, Hugh Macleod, john koetsier [/tags]
                     

5 CommentsLeave a comment

  • John —

    Good luck with the presentation! Here are two other good stats that you may want to incorporate that help argue the case for social media:

    * Nearly half (43%) of marketers plan to use a WOM strategy in 2006. (eMarketer)

    * Two-thirds of all US economic activity is influenced by shared opinions about products, brands, or services. (McKinsey)

    If you’re interested, a whole plethora of stats and data can be found in a presentation given at the WOMMA WOMBAT 2 conference. It was authored by some of the foremost experts in WOM research: Ann Green of Millward Brown, Ed Keller of Keller Fay Group, and Greg Wester of VoodooVox. It’s available for free download at:
    http://www.womma.org/research/studies/latest_wom_stat.htm

  • Good notes here. Two minutiae – one, I think it’s Forrester instead of Forester; two, if you want a longer list of great business blogs, let me know – I’m obsessed with the things.