Building Relationships

Through Social Media

An IPREX Teleseminar
By Jeff Risley
Monday, June 26, 2006

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 #1: Blogs
•More than 45 million blogs*.

•Nearly 75,000 new blogs each

day: one every second!

•The blogosphere doubles in

size every 6 months.

•Approximately 27 percent of
U.S. Internet users read blogs
(about 40 million people)

*Doesn’t include MySpace

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Corporate blog examples

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Corporate blogs have benefits
1. Empower customers and make them brand
enthusiasts; encourage them to spread
positive word-of-mouth.

3. Establish your company as an industry

thought leader.

5. Amplify your SEO strategy.

7. Help drive traffic and customers to your

site in highly measurable ways.

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And one big (perceived) drawback

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 One last gut check
CAUTION: Do not proceed with development of a corporate blog
unless you can answer “yes” to the following questions*:
 Will you tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth all
the time?
 Will you post on good news and bad?
 Will you use a human voice – your human voice – and not marketing
buzz words?
 Will you have thick skin?
 If you screw up, will you acknowledge it – quickly?
 If you don’t have the answers, will you say so?
 Will you vow to never hide information?
 Will you say nice things about your competitors and link to them,
when it’s relevant or applicable?
 Will you treat everyone in the blogosphere – regardless of size –
with respect?
 Will you commit the time and energy it will take, for the long-term,
to make this blog successful?
*Robert Scoble, The Corporate Weblog Manifesto

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#2: Really Simple Syndication
(RSS)

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#3: Podcasting

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Corporate America is Podcasting
GM FastLane Podcasts focus on car
enthusiasts.

Whirlpool Podcasts focus on

moms/family issues.

IMB Podcasts focus on future of

technology.

Others:
 HP
 Kodak
 Coke
 Deloitte
 NASA
 Purina

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Where are Podcasts found?
iTunes
 1 million Podcast
subscriptions the first week
they were available
Podcast Alley
Podcast.net
Yahoo Podcasts
Podcasting News
Just Google it

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 #4: Forums/Message Boards
More than 20 million active message boards/forums

Includes message boards, forums, bulletin boards, Usenet groups, e-

mail discussion lists, Yahoo! Groups, Google Groups, opinion sites

Narrowly focused (automotive, parenting, health, stocks/finance, etc.)

Heavily moderated, both by forum webmasters and participants

Structured, threaded discussions predominant

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#5: Instant Messaging

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#6: Wikis

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#7: Social Networks
MySpace (51M)
Facebook (14M)
MSN Spaces (9.5M)
Yahoo 360 (4.9M)
LiveJournal (3.0M)

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Niche social networks are huge

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And corporate social networks
are gaining traction

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#8: Photo & Video Sharing

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 Let’s summarize
1. Society is like a teen; they don’t want
your messages.
2. We need to build a relationship with
them – to be where they are.
3. I shared 8 social-media tools to help
you do that.
4. We’re uniquely positioned to be the
heroes of social media.

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Don’t Fight It.

FLEE!

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 Find
Listen
Engage
Empower
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Find

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Listen

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Engage

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Empower

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 Getting started
• Read The Cluetrain Manifesto.
• Start reading all the blogs listed in the resources section.
• Listen to one new Podcast each week for the next month.
• Start a blog.
• Seek opportunities to talk about social media with peers and clients –
they may already know something about it.
• Catalog all the internal social media projects happening in your
agency that are under the radar. 
• Hyperlink with others that share your passion for social media.
• Bring up the subject in your next client meeting. A great fire
starter is, “Do you guys have a corporate blog policy?” 
• Collect case studies and every piece of evidence you can find to back-
up your story.
• Identify those clients that are the most likely to try social media
strategies and pitch them on it. 

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Resources

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“The Many Forms of Social
Computing” from Forrester
Research, courtesy of Steve
Rubel.

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The Kryptonite Bike Lock Case Study

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 Blogs to follow regularly
 
http://www.tompeters.com/ – Management consultant madman Tom
Peter's blog.  I like this blog because Tom writes just like he speaks.
 
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ – Marketing guru Seth Godin's
blog.  Seth has one of the most widely read blogs in the marketing
category.
 
http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/ – Charlene Li of Forrester
Research has an excellent blog.
 
http://www.jaffejuice.com/ – Joseph Jaffe’s blog.  He’s the author of the
book “Life After the 30-Second Spot.”

http://www.micropersuasion.com/ – Steve Rubel’s blog. Steve is probably

the most prolific PR blogger on the planet.

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 Corporate blog information
Corporate Blog Success Stories
Stormhoek Wine, a winery in South Africa that started a CEO blog and used blog seeding
strategies to double its sales in one year.
Bob Lutz, vice chairman, GM; Lutz’s blog, Fastlane, generated a significant amount of buzz for
the company because he was the first high-profile executive outside the tech industry to
blog.
Randy Baseler, vice president of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes; Baseler’s blog has
successfully engaged Boeing’s customers one-on-one to get feedback on products and co-
create airplanes.

Corporate Blog Lists

The New PR Wiki: http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php
Fortune 500 Blogging Wiki (http://www.socialtext.net/bizblogs/index.cgi)

Other Corporate Blogging Information

BBC article on successful business blogging (which mentions the Stormhoek case example
above).
The Corporate Weblog Manifesto, a white paper on corporate blogging by Microsoft blogger
Robert Scoble.
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 Corporate blog information.
Sample Blog Policies:
Harvard Law: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/home/terms-of-use
IBM: http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/jasnell?entry=blogging_ibm
Yahoo: http://jeremy.zawodny.com/yahoo/yahoo-blog-guidelines.pdf

Typepad Blog Samples:

KD Paine’s PR Measurement Blog: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/
Media Guerrilla: http://www.mguerrilla.com/media_guerrilla/
Citizen Brand: http://citizenbrand.typepad.com/swenson/
Jennethink: http://jenneink.blogs.com/jennethink/
The Long Tail: http://www.thelongtail.com/the_long_tail/

Creative Commons Sample:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/

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 Steps for starting a corporate
blog
Phase I Phase II Phase III

The People The Tools Lift-Off

 Identify the  Chose a blog tool.  Launch and
individuals that  Develop the blog provide ongoing
will contribute to layout, look and support for the
the blog. feel. blog.
 Approve a blog  Register Creative
policy. Commons license.
 Train the  Develop starter
bloggers. content.
 Establish online
conversation
monitoring
system.
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 RSS & monitoring sources.
Steve Rubel’s blog post on “35 Ways to Use RSS”:
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/06/35_ways_you_can.html

Fluid blog’s comprehensive list of monitoring sources:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://fluido.wordpress.com/2006/05/30/mini-guida-al-monit

Yahoo’s list of RSS Aggregators:

http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Data_Formats/XML__eXtensible_Markup_Language_/

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 A few words about ROI
Here are several possible ways to present the business case for a corporate blog:
 
Consider current costs for reaching a customer via other marketing methods.  What is the per-lead cost for
direct mail?  Online banner ads?  Print ads?  What are you currently paying on average for Google ad
sense key words?  Compare that to the cost of establishing a corporate blog.
 
How much money is spent on SEO tactics (it will most likely be in people and time)?  Compare that to a blog,
which can dramatically increase traffic to a corporate site because search engines love blogs.  A
Backbone Media study of corporate bloggers entitled “Corporate Blogging: Is It Worth The Hype?”
found 83% of respondents saw a traffic increase from their blog to their corporate Web site.  For the
majority of respondents, their corporate blog(s) represent up to 35% of their corporate blog traffic.
 
Consider a company’s product development and R&D costs.  Compare those to the virtually free qualitative
research you’re getting directly from customers who interact with a corporate blog. LEGO engaged 250
of its most loyal fans in the development of a new high-end LEGO-train product.  LEGO designed the
train exactly the way the fans wanted.  As a result, LEGO sold 10,000 units in less than two weeks
through the fans’ online word of mouth, with no other marketing.  Think of the blog world as the biggest
focus group on Earth.  Via comments and trackbacks, you can find out what’s on customers’ minds, what
improvements they’d like to see to your products and what new products they’re dreaming up.
 
How much has the company spent managing crises over the years?  Fighting lawsuits?  Retaliating against
negative media?  A corporate blog can serve as a dampener for such issues.  The blog gives people a
place to vent, to ask questions and to feel heard.  The cheapest way to fix a crisis is to prevent it from
happening (see the Kryptonite bike locks story).
 
Think of the investment companies make to solicit media coverage.  It’s time and money well spent.  But a
company can very cost-effectively supplement that effort with a corporate blog.  A Euro RSCG Magnet
and Columbia University survey of the media last year found 51% of journalists view blogs regularly.  In
the Backbone Media survey, 59% of the respondents said their blog had been contacted by a journalist. 
And half of those journalists published a piece about the company. 
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 Blog posts that address ROI of
social media
http://www.clickz.com/experts/crm/actionable_analysis/article.php/351

http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2004/10/scoble_on_blog_.html
 
http://forrester.typepad.com/charleneli/2004/10/fear_of_corpor
a.html
 
http://www.clickz.com/experts/crm/actionable_analysis/article.ph
p/3517546
 
http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-to-
measure-value-of-corporate.html
 

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The Five Forces driving
social media

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#1: The Internet is everywhere…
US Internet Penetration

Broadband
Not Online Users
108 Million; 105 million;
38.1% 37.1%

Dialup Users
70 million;
24.8%
Ad Age from eMarketer data, 2005

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 …and “always on”
Internet Users
(millions)
Broadband Users Dial-up Users

180
160 157
142
140 124
120
105
93
100 87 84
72 70
80
56
60
43
40 31
20
0
2003 2004 2005 2006* 2007* 2008*

Ad Age from eMarketer data, 2005

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#2: Broadcast viewership and
listenership is eroding

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#3: Newspaper readership is
declining

-The Annual Report on American Journalism

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#4: People avoid advertising

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 #5: The Long Tail is reshaping
markets

The Head
Dozens of markets of millions The Long Tail
Millions of markets of dozens

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 A Long Tail example

Amazon Sales
Total Inventory (books)
Long-tail,
29%
2,300,000

130,000
Hits, 71%

Amazon Barnes & Noble

- Chris Anderson, editor in chief, Wired

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 Jeff Risley

http://risleyranch.blogs.com
jrisley@beap.com
(816) 512-9527

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