ImpactWatch Blog by The Bivings Group » Resources

Dos and Don’t of Company Blogs

Alla — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:01:53 +0000

We love talking about Best Practices here at the Bivings Report, and today we’re offering up a very meta look at best practices in company blogs. Every business has a point of view or way of delivering their products and services – and what better way to share that with the world than on their sites? At last night’s June Social Media Club DC event, the panel discussed the strategies and challenges of their respective companies’ blogs.The speakers ranged from AARP, to Jess3 to the Nature Conservancy and their wise words (along with our perspective) could be distilled in the following list:

Leverage your company’s unique point of view to create great content. There’s a reason your company does what it does: so share it with the world
Be Authentic. Chances are – if a reader is checking out your company’s blog – it’s because they care about your products, services, or brand. Or maybe they just think the colors are pretty. Regardless, your blog isn’t a sales pitch, it’s a way to share your organization’s perspective about relevant topics.
Blogging takes a sustained and concerted effort. This means posting content on a regular basis, and not expecting your first 300 word post to get picked up by Mashable. Your blog WILL find its voice and niche audience,but getting there will take work and dedication.
Great content leads to great SEO (not the other way around). Don’t spend so much time worrying about keywords, and more about what you’re actually writing. Sure, its nice when google picks up your content, but the content itself is what will drive traffic (as well as fame, fortune, and new business leads) to your site.
Get lots of people in the mix. Allow all types of employees to have a voice. The programmers probably have good advice, as do the upper management. Involving many different authors also allows for more even workload distribution.
Measure. Web analytics can help you see the full picture when it comes to traffic. Tracking the data over time can show valuable trends. Are old posts still getting lots of pageviews? Maybe that’s a good opportunity to revamp them.

DON’T

Stop posting if the blog isn’t an overnight success.
Forget to share your posts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets.
Aim to sound like your competitors.
Forget to make sure any guest posts/cross-posted content is OK with your lawyers

Top Social Media Monitoring & Measurement Posts of the Week

Hannah Del Porto — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:22:52 +0000

A few goodies for the week:

Social Media Metrics Beyond Small Victories – Engage

Online Media Monitoring: An Essential Part of Listening – Burrelles Luce

Try Being Unsocial with Customers First – Destination CRM

-
SEE LAST WEEK’S TOP POSTS

photo: soulfish

Top Social Media Monitoring & Measurement Posts of the Week

Hannah Del Porto — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:33:29 +0000

With everyone on vacation this month, there hasn’t been a lot to read. Here’s the best of August:

10 Steps for Successful Social Media Monitoring – Mashable

Social Media ROI – is this the measurement framework we’ve been waiting for? – Smart Insights

The 10/90 Rule for Social Media – Sysomos

Ethics in PR Measurement – Philip Sheldrake

The etiquette of eavesdropping – Research Magazine

Rethinking the Value of Social Media: Measurement – WebWorkerDaily

From WTF To KPI: PR Measurement In Acronyms – Shonali Burke

Choosing Goals for Social Media – Amber Naslund

Customized Social Media Metrics Are Important to Measurement – Spiral16

See Last Week’s Top Posts

photo: Mark Strozier

Managing Social Media: A Back to School Reading List

Hannah Del Porto — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:16:54 +0000

In a medium that changes every day, best practices from a year ago aren’t going to cut it. So it’s a good thing that new books on social media are rolling out all the time. Here are 5 to catch you up for the school year.

Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment (New Rules Social Media Series) – Jim Sterne and David Meerman Scott
While other books explain why social media is critical and how to go about participating, Social Media Metrics focuses on measuring the success of your social media marketing efforts. Success metrics in business are based on business goals where fame does not always equate to fortune… Knowing what works and what doesn’t is terrific, but only in a constant and unchanging world. Social Media Metrics is loaded with specific examples of specific metrics you can use to guide your social media marketing efforts as new means of communication.

Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web – Brian Solis
Engagement is shaped by the interpretation of its intentions. In order for social media to mutually benefit you and your customers, you must engage them in meaningful and advantageous conversations, empowering them as true participants in your marketing and service efforts… There are thousands of customers waiting to hear from you about your business and vision. It’s the minimum ante to create a vibrant and loyal online community. When you engage, you will build an authoritative social network that increases your visibility, relevance, influence, and profitability. It’s time to Engage!

Preorder these next three and they’ll arrive by the time you get through Solis & Sterne.

The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success – Lon Safko
The Social Media Bible, Second Edition (www.TSMB2.com) is the most comprehensive resource that transforms the way corporate, small business, and non-profit companies use social media to reach their desired audiences with power messages and efficiency. In this Second Edition, each of the three parts – Tactics, Tools, and Strategies – have been updated to reflect the most current social media trends.

Social Media ROI: Managing and measuring social media efforts in your organization – Olivier Blanchard
No abstract available yet for this book, but Olivier is well known for his no-nonsense advice on ROI calculation. I’m sure the book will be a valuable resource for businesses that want to know exactly what they are getting out of their social media efforts.

The Social Media Management Handbook: Everything You Need To Know To Get Social Media Working In Your Business – Robert Wollan and Nick Smith
The Social Media Management Handbook provides a complete toolbox for defining and practicing a coherent social media strategy. It is a comprehensive resource for bringing together such disparate areas as IT, customer service, sales, communications, and more to meet social media goals. Wollan and Smith and their Accenture team explain policies, procedures, roles and responsibilities, metrics, strategies, incentives, and legal issues that may arise.

Alternatively, you could follow David Meerman Scott around and take notes…it all ends up in a book eventually.

photo: RLHyde
*Book abstracts via Amazon.

Top Social Media Monitoring & Measurement Posts of the Week

Hannah Del Porto — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:50:47 +0000

Top Five Social Media Marketing Mistakes – BusinessWeek

How to Audit Your Social Media Efforts: 20+ Questions to Ask Yourself – Sociatic

Social Media Monitoring Tools Exposed – The Viral Muse

If you only do one thing in Social Media, it ought to be SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING. – PR Squared

Matrix: Brand Monitoring, Social Analytics, Social Insights – Jeremiah Owyang

Manage Your Online Reputation—Before Someone Else Does - Wall Street Journal

My Feelings About Sentiment Analysis – Intelligent Enterprise

European PR measurement summit – really? – Liberate Media

Measuring Social Media’s Impact on the Bottom Line – Winning Business

Crack isn’t just a waste of time. It’s bad for you too – BrandNet I thought this headline was funny and went to check it out. Turns out it was actually relevant.

SEE LAST WEEK’S TOP POSTS OF THE WEEK

Top Social Media Monitoring & Measurement Posts of the Week

Hannah Del Porto — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:29:55 +0000

Slow week, but I’m working on the Top Posts of the Year from the past 52 Top Posts of the Week lists. Please add a comment with anything that I missed. Also, Dear Mark Evans, please stop cranking out amazing blog posts every day. It is making the rest of us look bad :)

How Much Does Social Media Cost? – Sysomos

The Barcelona Prinicples of Measurement – Katie Paine

First global standard of proving value of PR created at European Summit on Measurement – PR Week

SEE LAST WEEK’S TOP POSTS

-
Follow Hannah Banana on Twitter (if that is her real name).

Follow ImpactWatch on Twitter.

Top Social Media Monitoring & Measurement Posts of the Week

Hannah Del Porto — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:45:57 +0000

Three ways to act on your social media monitoring – Social Media Today

52 Questions To Ask When Hiring A Social Media Company – Outspoken Media

Six real ways to measure social media – Meme Burn

How ‘BT Sarah’ spies on your Facebook account – Daily Mail. [The Daily Mail is often silly-bazilly but this is clearly meant to alarm readers who are less web-savvy. I propose higher webucation.]