Corporateinklings

A Blog in Search of an Audience

As the newest member of the CI team, this is my first blog post. I’m hoping you find mine informative, thoughtful and maybe even funny. So, here goes.

If you believe the social media junkies, blogs (and other self-generated messages) are the best way to reach your audience. Well, that may be true, but first your blog needs an audience. Which is disappointing news to a lot people out there – who launched a blog and post and post and post, only to the vast space of blog-dom. Nobody is reading. Nobody is posting back.

So here’s my question: How does a blog find an audience?

It’s actually pretty simple. What do the people who you want to read care about? That’s right: not what do you care about. What do they care about?

Here’s the thing:  search engines have made it possible for people to search for the most esoteric of things – a solution to a problem. 

So there’s your answer. Think back to your most recent new business pitch or customer meeting. What were the re-occurring challenges or problems that they were asking you to solve?

That’s what your blog should be about. In 200 words or less, including hyperlinks to relevant sources, tell a story about how you solved a customer problem. I guarantee that there are many more people out there who are facing the exact same challenge, and you just proved that you can help them too. Your blog, your audience, it’s a beautiful thing.

- By John Connolly

Going Blonde

Last week, I changed my face. No nose rings, and didn’t shave my head. (I don’t have that much hair to start with). I went blonde. It used to be brown, more or less. For about 5 decades.

But truthfully, I’d been afraid to go yellow. Or golden. Or platinum.  Not of how I’d look, but about what other people would say. So, I stayed like I was. What a ridiculous way to live – not changing because you’re afraid of what someone ‘might’ think. In truth, most people don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about you, anyway.

Without even realizing it, I did a mini-launch. I pre-announced it to a small group of ‘influencers.’ It was like setting the GA date – it was public, so I couldn’t back out.

Day of:  the haircutter made some mistakes. But I’m definitely blond. New people meet me like this. For the others, well, it’s worth a quick smile, or a laugh. It’s funny to see who doesn’t say anything. Is it like when men grow a beard, and puzzled acquaintances ask, “Did you get glasses?”

When I’m really brave, I’m going for pink. It’s just hair.

 - By Amy Bermar

The Little Voice Inside: Please Listen

This is a very different kind of post. It has nothing to do with companies, or blogs, or work. Two weeks ago, a friend took his life. Three hundred people showed up at the funeral, which doesn’t really mean much, in the end. This was a dear man, searching, like most of us are. He was 24, taught yoga, loved fire dancing, and he had more friends than he knew, or thought. The best way I can understand this decision he made, in solitude, is that he felt terribly, unbearably alone.

And mostly, we are never as alone as we think, especially in our worst moments. Someone, somewhere, wants to listen. You just need to ask someone to talk. If the person you pick doesn’t have the wisdom to listen, please pick someone else. Don’t go silent.

I certainly regret that I didn’t call him the morning I was thinking about him. I need to listen more to that tiny voice, which is so convenient to ignore.

   - Posted by Amy Bermar

The Electronic Village

For an unusual take at building communities and best practices, one can look to M. Night Shyamalan. Remember “The Village?” It may have been designed to scare you, and make a box office impact, but behind the walls of its 18^th century commune are some pretty interesting lessons for online communities.            

      

Whether it’s a cult or a community, the biggest challenges are getting people to join, and keeping them engaged.

Marketers often say they’ve got this all figured out, but they make some pretty lame mistakes, typically putting together something that’s for ‘everyone’ – and focusing more on what the community delivers than on what it makes possible.

The Village’s value prop was pretty compelling: Stay in the community, and stay safe. Leave and you’re on your own. 

So how does this translate to Web 2.0? Here’s how:

• Admiration. People join a community because they admire it. What makes people want to be in your group?
• Be truthful, of course. And keep a little mystery, and excitement. Make them hungry for what happens next.
• Create rank. Web 2.0 may democratize everything, but people still like power. Create a chain of command, rewarding admirable members.  Everyone likes a goal, especially if it’s valued by others.
• Prevent defection. The Village went to extraordinary lengths to keep members from quitting (including physical threats)…
• Word of Mouth: People still rave about Bruce Willis’ revelation at the end of a different Shyamalan movie. Give people insider information, so they want to talk about you.

  - By George Robertson

A Little Goes a Long Way – Especially Now

In these times, it’s really hard to think about charity, and donating. We’re worried about our jobs, what’s left of our 401Ks, and the complete uncertainty that’s not looking any better.

But when we scratch that surface, the next layer is very clear: All of us at this company have a lot to be thankful for, and much more than most people.

At Corporate Ink, we’ve always matched our staff’s charitable donations, to any charity they like. These are not big dollars, at least in philanthropic circles -- $100 a person – but to the charity, it’s free money. This year, we’re raising it to $250.

Sure, some of our clients are cutting back. No, we don’t know what next year will look like. But it feels like the right thing to do.

I know that for anyone trying to make ends meet in one of the country’s most expensive cities, $100 is a lot of money. It’s easy to feel intimidated, too, that $20 or $30 isn’t enough. That’s not true; the important thing is to give in some capacity.

We can certainly talk about whether this country has too many non-profits, and whether most of them would do better to merge or fold, (yes, and yes,) but the truth is that the needs get bigger every year.  This year, we’re raising the stakes – and doubling it again.

And we’ll go one step further – for every one of our team of 14, we’ll match the same number of donations from clients. So, if you work for one of our clients, and you’d like us to match your donation, just email me. We’ll set aside the same amount to match our clients’ donations. It still isn’t much. But it’s more than some folks have.

I hope everyone takes advantage of it.

  - Posted by Amy Bermar

Walk Before You Wiki

Wiki’s are all about building community – fast.  The name comes from the Hawaiian word for quick – and since 1994, when the concept was launched that’s what it’s all about.

As a way to reach and build a community, wikis work. Because readers can interact with each other, building upon other people’s work in near real-time they offer a great way to engage, educate and enlighten – all important efforts in reaching and influencing audiences.

So, it sounds like a great idea, right? But companies looking to enter the wiki-world – especially one outside the four walls need to be aware. Do your research – and be prepared to manage the upkeep – before you jump right in.  Remember, readers have the ability to make instant revisions to a wiki’s hypertext markup.

So is it for you? Here’s an easy way to think of it – If your project requires collaboration, it’s probably a wiki candidate.  If you want the last word, wiki may not be for you.   

Are you wiki-ing? Share your experiences – good and bad – with us.

- Posted by Lesley Cannata

What CMOs Tell Each Other

I was at a conference last month for Chief Marketing Officers. It’s a new take on how peer groups are evolving from behind-the-scenes networks to semi-official, money-making gatherings. (This one began with an online community and quarterly dinners in a half-dozen cities, to a debut conference people and annual membership fees.  The next conference is slated for the fall.)

What’s on their minds: Metrics, in a major way. Video, and how it can drive meaningful traffic for the B2B market – and the importance of those first 2 seconds. (More on both of those later this week, along with some profiling of Chief Marketing Officers and how the most successful ones tend to think.)

And how some companies find opportunities where it’s least expected. PayPal, it seems, has managed to corner some rich new markets, like international payments for college tuition. It turns out this is ideal for students attending schools outside of their home country. Presumably there is a fee, but what really translates here is PayPal’s power to build a trust-centric brand, in part by meeting a genuine need. The bigger business benefit may be longer-term; clearly, PayPal expects to displace credit card companies. Which might not be so hard, given that they’ve been actively undoing customer relationships by suddenly cutting off credit lines, often without bothering to tell their customers.

This move got a lot of attention from the CMOs, who are trying to figure out how to open up their doors – beyond their Web sites – and build communities that get customers coming back.

- Posted by Amy Bermar

Business Lessons Learned from the Political Circus

In my town, we recently went to the polls to decide whether or not to increase our property taxes. In the middle of a highly heated debate, and just two weeks before the election, the mayor chose to “slip” a 28 percent pay hike for himself into the budget (along with 12 percent increases for several department heads) even as supporters banged the drums of job lost, services cut and the loss of the town’s sterling reputation as a good place to live.

The reaction was swift and furious, blogs were abuzz and opponents had exactly what they needed to make the case about the mayor’s fiscal acumen.

To fight back, voices from the state house (read political cronies) spoke out that he deserved the raise for all he’d done. Again, the backlash
was palpable.

A week later, he announced he’d changed his mind about the raise. And announced – six months earlier than planned -- that he wouldn’t seek re-election.

It was too little, too late. The ballot question failed miserably. This kind of arrogance cuts trust from the relationship equation. If the mayor (or his PR team) had spent just a little time thinking about the reaction of the media and the faction opposing the tax increases, odds are very good that -- at the very least -- the timing would have been different.

Business leaders so often make the same mistake – relying too much on the inner circle and not integrating their audiences’ needs into decision making. There are so many options – choose a different path, scale back or adjust the timing. And even when you have to make a choice that runs counter to the needs of those who buy your products, partner with you or advocate on your behalf, it doesn’t take that much more effort to explain why and how you came to the decision.

- By Susan Bassett

The new Google - Everything you want to search for

The dead-tree, TV-media giants are reeling, and they’re not alone.

Even the most digital of tech publishers are scrambling to keep up with how their target buyers consume news, and figure out what these ‘readers’ are willing to pay for.

In the last 15 months, we’ve seen several once-vaunted print brands quietly come back, and some leave again. Now TechWeb, the sprawling B2B publisher of Infoweek, and producer of Interop and VoiceCon, is remaking itself as the tech publishing’s version of Google: Everything you want to search for.

In a launch slated for June 30, here’s the nut: Dissolve the boundaries. Content can be created by staff or sponsored by companies. Where the ‘article’ first appears becomes incidental:  it will show up where you are, as long as you type in the right words.

There are 13 key themes, and 167 key words that will be cross-linked; so even if you start on InfoWeek, you may find yourself routed to bMighty, the SMB site. Presumably, the brands will dissolve into a single destination.

TechWeb is also throwing in ‘free’ content from its conferences, including some that have more restricted access, like BlackHat. That could get some interesting traffic.

And in the spirit of citizen journalism, anyone, anywhere, can upload whitepapers. Vendors, of course, can then pay a CPL cost to get the leads. This is the SaaS model applied to lead-gen, rather than the enterprise-scale (“pay me $20,000 up front and we’ll see what you get” model).

Clearly, TechWeb wants to be the first-stop brand for IT-related content, especially for tech professionals looking to do the deep dive. Who doesn’t? Five years ago, TechTarget put the print world on notice that editorial could be channeled into leads. New battle lines, same issues.

- Posted by Amy Bermar

Welcome to CorporateInklings

Welcome to Inklings – a smattering of (bright) ideas, big questions and fleeting thoughts – looking at how companies are reaching – and building new versions of community.

These are the people who support your business, with word-of-mouth, whether you know about it or not. Customers. Prospects. Employees. Investors.  Almost everyone becomes an influencer, along with the media and analysts who define how the market is perceived.

There’s still tons of mileage in something as simple as jumping on the news and creating buzz. The next move – and one that’s much more interesting – is reaching your communities, wherever they happen to be.

Not that long ago, this was called marketing. PR, always a part of this, is becoming more critical, especially as the old-world media empires crumble around our feet.

It’s a wide open field, and never enough time to cover it all. We hope to discover a few shortcuts, share a few secrets, and a few tools that work better than anyone expects. It should be a good conversation.

- Posted by Amy Bermar