Tuesday, April 17, 2007

On Corporate Blogging

A recent article on BrandWeek.com highlights the challenges and successes in corporate blogging. There are a number of notable corporate blogs mentioned, David Neeleman's JetBlue Flightlog (which had a bit of a hiccup after their canceled flights), to McDonald's focus on corporate social responsibility on Open for Discussion, to the infectious Southwest Airlines' Nuts About Southwest, to Bill Marriott's ambitious and very personal approach on Marriott On the Move.

The bottom line: each one of these blogs serves a purpose, reflects positively on the brand it represents, and aligns with a larger corporate communications strategy. Blogging itself is not a strategy.

An observation from the article: larger companies are less likely to have CEOs blogging; these are typically run by PR and product management types. I can't say this is surprising - what Fortune 500 CEO has time to blog full-time? Nor is it a negative thing. As long as good content is being provided (and by "good" I mean something that is considered valuable by readers), it doesn't matter who writes it.

People want to know what goes on inside their favorite companies; they want to know what employees - from the CEO to the administrative assistants - think about the company they work for.

Why this need for near-voyeuristic information? Because to some customers, everything a company does reflects on its brand. Think this just applies to your most loyal customers? Think again. Look at what's happening to Wal-Mart because of the way they choose to handle healthcare.

We all know the buzzwords that are echoing in the marketing space right now: authenticity, transparency, responsiveness. All of these should be addressed as part of a marketing strategy, and a good corporate blog is one way to start.

Labels: blogs, brand, CEO, corporate blogging, strategy

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:55 AM

Comments |

LINKS TO THIS POST |

Thursday, March 22, 2007

What Is the Face of Your Brand?

After many faithful years of service to Late Night with David Letterman (and prior to that the Late Show with David Letterman), everyman Calvert DeForest (aka Larry "Bud" Melman) passed away this week at the age of 85. He hadn't appeared on the show for 3 years, but he is still closely associated with it.

"What does this have to do with my brand?" I hear you ask.

Everything. And let me tell you why.

When he was picked out of obscurity (DeForest was working at the Social Services office at the time), Letterman's crew had the brilliant idea of putting a normal schlub into situations in which he had no experience. They'd throw cue cards up there for him to read, but the real value for the Late Show's audience was to see how DeForest reacted. They were never disappointed.

But more than the entertainment value that he provided, DeForest represented the Letterman brand: zany, unexpected and unscripted interactions between people, held together with Letterman's own quick wit and acerbic sense of humor. People knew that with Letterman, they were getting someone irreverent - certainly much different from the "apple pie" approach of Johnny Carson.

Now think of your own audience - your customers, prospects and employees. In this digital age, they are part of your marketing team, whether you want to admit it or not. They're engaging in conversations about your brand and representing you to the outside world. Are you aware of it? Are you enlisting their help? Most importantly, have you given them anything to relate to? Who is the face of your brand?

The last point is critical, because today more than ever, relationships count. We're awash in a sea of data, constantly being barraged with messages. Who has time to read another piece of corporate collateral? If an organization can take the time to build personal relationships with its constituents and be authentic in its approach, the trust and connection will be cemented.

One way to go about this is with a CEO blog. This can be a powerful branding tool if used properly. Here's a quick list of the top 10 CEO blogs (or more properly Executive blogs, since these aren't all CEOs). But what should a CEO blog about to make the company seem more human?

Travel and experiences out in the field with real customers (avoiding any confidential information, of course)
A personal passion, whether it's sailing, a charity, or family interests
Examples of how customer service feedback changed a process or product at the company
Calling out successes of individual employees who live the brand; that is, employees who are demonstrating the values of the organization in their personal or professional lives
Please do not blog about new product releases - your audience can get this from your corporate Web site

These are just a handful of ways to get started. I'm open to hearing more, of course!

Labels: blogs, brand, CEO, CRM, New Media, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 10:16 AM

Comments |

LINKS TO THIS POST |

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

In Order to Manage Risk, We Must First Understand Risk

[With apologies to George Costanza]

Over at Communications Overtones, Kami Huyse has a great post about the top 10 risks of corporate blogs. Very insightful.

A number of fears in her "unlikely" category have been expressed to me by a number of clients who have shunned my recommendations to start a blog. These include legal liabilities, violation of corporate privacy, regulatory issues and lawsuits. My usual response to this is: "that's all possible in the realm of email and was hotly debated when email was introduced to corporations."

This "fear" is usually a red herring for some other underlying reason(s). It could be that the CEO doesn't feel comfortable writing, or that no one on staff has time to write one, or that they simply don't understand the blogosphere.

Whatever the reason, it's our job as social media professionals to help them get over this fear and embrace the reality. It's coming along faster than they think.

Thanks to Brian Person for the link.

Labels: blogs, CEO, Risk, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:07 AM

Comments |

LINKS TO THIS POST |

Thursday, February 22, 2007

When Should a CEO Blog?

Notable CEO bloggers Jonathan Schwartz and Bill Marriott "get it." Their posts are personal, timely and tied to company events. It seems that JetBlue's David Neeleman is still a bit of a novice.

JetBlue established David Neeleman's Flight Log as the corporate blog - very corporate - as it exists not as the expected blog.domain.com URL, but under the more formal domain.com/about/ourcompany URL. To me, that means that it's part of the corporate structure rather than a somewhat independent site. It's purely semantic, but the perception matters.

Neeleman's blog is described as follows:

Each week I fly on JetBlue flights and talk to customers so I can find out how we can improve our airline. This is my flight log...

Great premise. If only he followed up on it. In October and November, there were only 4 posts each month; December saw 3; January, only one. And it hasn't been updated since February 1. So let me get this straight. The CEO of an airline flies every week (as one would expect him to do), but his blog is only updated a few times a month?

We all know that JetBlue has been in the news over the past week over a plane full of passengers that sat on a runway for 10 hours. Crisis communications is a natural function of a blog. If I were Neeleman, I'd have made sure that any and all updates related to this public relations and customer service disaster were clearly communicated on my blog.

Mr. Neeleman did take the time to write a very sincere and heartfelt letter to JetBlue customers; this is the very type of entry his blog needs. Perhaps he should take charge of the blog himself and relieve the marketing communications flunky of the underwhelming job he or she has been doing.

Here's Neeleman's letter in full:

Dear JetBlue Customers,

We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.

Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue's seven year history. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected our customers to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue's pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President's Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further hindering our recovery efforts.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week.

We are committed to you, our valued customers, and are taking immediate corrective steps to regain your confidence in us. We have begun putting a comprehensive plan in place to provide better and more timely information to you, more tools and resources for our crewmembers and improved procedures for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are confident, as a result of these actions, that JetBlue will emerge as a more reliable and even more customer responsive airline than ever before.

Most importantly, we have published the JetBlue Airways Customer Bill of Rights—our official commitment to you of how we will handle operational interruptions going forward—including details of compensation. I have a video message to share with you about this industry leading action.

You deserved better—a lot better—from us last week. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to welcome you onboard again soon and provide you the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us.

Sincerely,
David Neeleman
Founder and CEO
JetBlue Airways