I currently support the management of a client’s blog in Spain – Vodafone’s Smartblog. It is about mobile apps and it is disaggregated from the corporate image of the company. In this case, my first advice is that you search for people who are crazy about telling the world what they can do with their devices, but they don’t necessarily have to be journalists or professional bloggers. Find your brand advocates!

Having a blog written by different contributors outside of your organization entails some challenges. One of the most important ones is that you have to give consistency to your blog, but also let them develop their own personality through their posts. How they write is who they are, and readers often enjoy certain posts just because of the person who writes them. If you need to edit content, you should only change the things that are incorrect in terms of grammar or content, but do not try to change the way they write, because you will lose the personality of your blog.

Having external contributors writing for your blog has another important challenge regarding their commitment to upload content on a regular basis. For some of them, the ego boost of just seeing their name on a site is enough, but if you really want their commitment you need to give them economical or other kind of incentives.

You can also encourage them by rewarding them with an extra compensation if their posts are on the top five of the most read one month, or if they have invested extra work on writing it (recording a video, etc…). Control what they write about but give them freedom to also choose their own topics.

And last but not least, if you have a closed group of contributors, it is a good idea to create some sort of group atmosphere. Set a group objective for the blog (increase number of visits, for example) or create a mail group for sharing ideas, ranking of posts and pending tasks, and maybe create some good competitiveness to encourage them to write.

These are basic tips and useful to take into account when you start a project of this kind. But the most important thing to remember is: have fun yourself and make your contributors have fun with what they do – the rest will flow on its own!

photocredit: Flickr user lumaxart.

Check out the latest edition of Business Review Europe for a contributed article in which I discuss blogging for business – you can find the article here (on page 102). In the world of Twitter, Facebook and iPhone apps, blogs might seem a bit old-hat, but they can still be incredibly powerful tools for engaging with your audience, if they’re managed correctly.

Too many businesses start corporate blogs without giving much thought to what exactly they’re trying to achieve or any real plan for maintaining momentum once the initial wave of enthusiasm has died down. Launching a blog might seem like a very easy thing to do, but you shouldn’t underestimate the amount of work involved in ensuring it reaches the right audience and delivers the results you want. Learn to avoid the five most common mistakes:

1. Not understanding the audience
2. Failing to plan content
3. Not promoting the blog
4. Treating the blog as a digital press center
5. Impatience

For tips on how to make your business blog a success – and avoid these common pitfalls – and see some examples of brands that are getting it right, visit the link above to read the full article.

Considered analysis and commentary is critical. 140 characters forces brevity and, frequently, superficiality.

Look at today’s tragic earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. I learned of the ‘quake through a post from my Uncle on Facebook. I went to twitter and saw a raft of RTs and links to mainly mainstream media channels. To find out what had happened I looked to blogs, mainstream media, radio and news sites in particular. I wanted to go beyond the headlines and sought out channels that were able to frame the story, provide context and give me a level of qualified detail that short form social networks couldn’t offer.

I think what the New York Times has identified is perhaps a decline in traditional personal blogging. But, in doing so, must make us question precisely what traditional blogging actually is. Is Hong Kong’s NeonPunch a blog? Or is it a news outlet? Is Tumblr a blog? A microblog? These channels have much in common with blogs as we knew them.

And what of the enterprise? I feel corporations, too, are undergoing a blog-inspired evolution. We’re gradually seeing companies such as Alibaba.com through its Alizila news site communicate in real language and offer objective commentary and news that can be commented upon and shared.

But more to the point, does it even matter? Blogging has given us a form of expression to which Facebook and twitter owe a great debt of gratitude. The consumers have spoken. They want personal opinions and they want to be able to share and comment. These attributes were at the heart of blogging long before before the first tweet was tweeted nor the first question posted on Quora.com.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumours of the death of blogging have been greatly exaggerated. Blogs – and more critically the communications revolution they inspired – will be with us until people decide they no longer want long form articles to read, share or comment upon. And I for one hope that’s a day we’ll never see.

- Cross-posted from http://publicrelationships.blogspot.com

On the latter, the New York Times summarized the study well. HP analyzed 16 million Twitter messages over forty days, and found a huge percentage of tweets amplifying mainstream media stories. Wouldn’t this seem to suggest that, even while we’ve all witnessed the decimation of many reputable publications as the “new model(s)” get figured out, that perhaps we might still tend to underestimate the importance, and perhaps the ultimate value, of our most trusted news and entertainment sources? 

In fact, the HP study didn’t surprise us quite so much here at Text 100. Last Fall, our research arm (then Context Analytics, now Beyond) published its own study, “The Power 50: Most Influential Blogs. A Study on Blogger Credibility in Traditional Media.” It found a clear synergy between so-called “mainstream media” and a rising class of small, but powerfully influential bloggers, many of whom serve as sources of commentary and/or “industry expertise” for major publications. But the study’s findings also indicated that mainstream media is still seen as highly influential and trusted, on the whole.

So, mainstream media has been hit hard by digital and mobility. Bloggers are ascending. New platforms and subscriptions models are being born. But mainstream media drives the trends. I think Philippe Guelto, a VP with Elle’s publisher, got it right (quoted from AdAge), when he said, “This is a work in progress. I don’t think this is something that is set in stone either for us or for Apple. I’d rather work with them to improve it over time than just sit on the sidelines.”

Or, we could sum it up like PopSci does in its tagline: The Future Now. 

Best to climb aboard.

Top trending topics of 2010
The top trending topics of 2010 demonstrate the power of Twitter in driving conversations around various topics, news announcements and events across millions of people. Some of the overall top trends in 2010 include:

• Gulf Oil Spill
• FIFA World Cup
• Inception (the movie)
• Haiti Earthquake
• Vuvuzela
• Apple iPad

Demographic changes
With the new influx of users, Twitter’s demographic changed drastically in 2010. According to the Pew Research Center, Twitter is no longer only perused by the tech-savvy audience and millennials are extremely active. Latinos, African-Americans and urbanites make up the majority of Twitter users that leverage the platform to not only digest news and information but have conversations with brands and friends. As indicated in this chart from TheNextWeb, 67% of followers of a brand on Twitter are likely to buy a product from that brand. This information is powerful for brands, as listening to and communicating with these audiences on Twitter could have a direct effect on company revenue and sales.

Twitter tip for 2011
Dan Zarella, a “social media scientist,” who has authored books on how to get your content Retweeted, has published some interesting findings regarding Twitter. He found that as the amount of self referential tweets increases; the number of followers of an account decreases. Zarella equates this to being at a cocktail event and doing nothing but talking about yourself, which as we all know will drive away potential friends and listeners. The same rule applies to business; if you do nothing but talk about your company you’re only going to attract a certain type of Twitter followers. Mix the conversation up and interact with people, especially about what they want to hear.

By Aaron Grabein

I’d also like to thank our contributors who have helped make this blog as vibrant and diverse as Text 100 itself.

Happy reading – and happy holidays!

Objects in the Rear view mirror, by Jay Cuthrell http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcuthrell/63028482/

Ten Practical Steps for Improving Your Facebook Presence

Now that many brands are advertising Facebook presences ahead of their actual web presences, it is more important than ever that we understand the conversations that are happening on brand Facebook pages. Are they positive or not? What type of content engages fans? Why do fans actually become fans in the first place?

What you can learn from the BP Global PR Twitter spoof

You’ll often hear social media dorks like me talking about how easy it is for brands to lose control of their message in social channels, but what does that actually mean in practical terms?

What You Need to Know About German Social Media

Guten Tag! In the next segment of our regional social media snapshot series, I thought I’d share insight from the Text 100 Munich office into the region’s unique online behaviors and cultural considerations…

Infographics and communication – data visualization in the information age

I love infographics. I really do. What am I talking about? Well, this is how Wikipedia defines the word infographics (or data visualization). Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education.

The top 10 most influential FTSE brands on Twitter

Some time ago I did a little research into which companies from the FTSE 100 index could be found on Twitter, and in this post I want to take a closer look at which of those brands are the most influential. I also wanted to know what makes those brands more influential than others, and if there’s anything we can learn from them.

Gone are the days when you could plan out your marketing and public relations programs well in advance and release them on your agenda. The idea of working on new product launch schedules that target some distant point several quarters into the future doesn’t work in today’s always-on world of the web. We’re living in real time now, and if you’re not engaged, then you’re on your way to marketplace irrelevance.

Real time means news breaks over minutes, not days. It means ideas percolate, then suddenly and unpredictably go viral to a global audience. It’s when companies develop (or refine) products or services instantly based on feedback from customers or events in the marketplace. And it’s when a business sees an opportunity and is the first to act on it.                                                                         

Off to the airport,  by Kara Allyson  http://www.flickr.com/photos/kara_allyson/4481876743/sizes/m/

 Are some companies too big to fail? That’s been a hot question in recent years. But when talking about the revolution in real time, we need to turn this question around: Are some companies too big to succeed?  With epochal changes underway, are the largest enterprises, like dinosaurs, too unwieldy to evolve? It’s a scary question that needs to be asked.

After mulling this over, it occurred to me that the top 100 U.S. companies was as good a focus group as any. So I usedthe Fortune 500, the annual list from Fortune magazine that ranks by gross revenue America’s top 500 public corporations.

I sent an inquiry via e-mail to the media-relations department of each of the top 100 companies on the list. I asked each company to tell me how it had adapted to the new realities of the real-time Web. I asked: “In the last year or two, has the structure of your corporate communications team and/or communications processes changed to embrace the real-time digital era? If so, how?” I included my e-mail signature with a link to my site, blog, and Twitter ID in case people wanted to find out more about me right away.

I heard back from just 28 of the Fortune 100 companies.

In itself, that top-line result is not encouraging evidence that the lights are on in corporate America. Even more discouraging was that I could not even reach 11 companies because there was no way to contact them online. And I received tone-deaf canned auto-responses from many, such as Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, Amazon.com, and Walgreens who did reply.

On the other hand, it was very encouraging to find that a few companies are already very much on the ball. That leads me to hope the others will be able to catch up once they focus on the right questions.  Boeing, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Ford, Intel, Prudential Financial, State Farm Insurance, UPS, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo, and others who answered my questions, deserve to be recognized as leaders. So let me say this to any senior managers from those companies who might read this: “Your real-time communications team is doing a great job, please give them a pat on the back from me.”

Question my methodology all you like. Okay, so I’m not Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. And I’m not a statistician. But I write for a bunch of publications like EContent and the Huffington Post with many readers. And I’m the author of two global best sellers in a category that should cause PR people to sit up. I write about marketing and PR, for Pete’s sake!So if I can’t find a way to contact your company’s media-relations team, and I can’t get an intelligent response from them—or any response at all—I don’t think it’s a stretch to say something is badly out of whack in your real-time communications infrastructure.

Why is it that only a quarter of the Fortune 100 companies respond in real time to media inquiries? The fastest were the five companies that responded in less than one hour. Twelve of the companies responded the same day I sent the inquiry, and another 11 responded the next day.

A comparison of 2010 stock prices reveals that on average the publicly traded Fortune 100 companies engaged in real-time communications beat the S&P 500 stock index while the others on average underperformed the index.

During the period — closing price on December 31, 2009 through closing price on September 3, 2010 (when my book Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now book went to print) — the S&P 500 stock index was down just under one percent. During the period, the average of the publicly traded companies that respond to my inquiry was up three percent while the average of the companies that did not respond were down more than two percent.  In addition, the stock prices of well more than half of the companies that engage in real-time (67%) were up during the eight month period I measured while less than half (only 42%) of those that do not engage in real-time were up during the period I measured.

My analysis provides us with evidence that there is a positive ROI (return on investment) for investing in real-time marketing and public relations. These companies that have developed a real-time mind-set are leaders in more ways than one.

- Guest post by David Meerman Scott http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/bio.htm

Twitter : @dmscott

Dell has deployed Chatter on a large scale with 113,000 employees using the social network. Chairman and CEO Michael Dell recently relied heavily on Chatter, to bring employees from two departments together in order to carry through on a sale.

Businesses that are using the paid version of Chatter ($15/month),  will have access to tools to track business data that freemium company members will not.

Social networks for enterprises aren’t new; there are offerings from large vendors like Cisco and Microsoft to small companies like Spigit, Yammer and Socialtext. According to Salesforce, it’s not competitive with the large vendors, and is focused primarily on workplace teams, handling customer and sales problems.

Although Salesforce now offers Chatter for free, the paid model can still be beneficial given its potential to track business data and integrate with any of Salesforce’s existing CRM capabilities.  The freemium service also has some interesting implications thanks to the impending integration with brand monitoring and social media management tools like HootSuite. Once rolled out,  there will be tremendous benefits to having your external monitoring portal linked closely with internal team chats in order to speed action on customer prospects or service needs.

That said, internal micro blogs and social collaboration tools tend to fail without a critical mass of users. This is something Salesforce has addressed head-on at its own company, by rewarding the employees who are making the best contributions on the network. In an on-stage conversation with Forbes Associate Editor, Victoria Barret, at the NetWork conference in San Francisco, Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said “Some workers might add as much value to the company as high-level executives, and should be paid accordingly. You, as an individual contributor, can receive the same compensation — stock, cash — as an executive vice president.”

Tumblr 101

Launched in 2007, Tumblr’s appeal comes from its simplicity and sociability. A fast, easy setup allows users to create a “tumblelog” in a matter of minutes. Once registered, users have almost unlimited customization options and can publish text, photos, audio andvideos, as well as find and follow similar users, or “like” and “reblog” interesting posts. According to Tumblr’s about page, the blogging service sees around 7 million new posts per day, and recently surpassed Digg and Reddit in terms of traffic to the site.

Many users’ Tumblr pages focus on a specific topic, such as food, photography or fashion. Jaimen Sfetko, account executive at Text100, explains why she chose Tumblr to host her popular fashion blog: “I love the community feel and how I’m able to connect with other fashion bloggers in meaningful ways. The mobile application is easy to use and allows me to post everything from my daily outfit to street style so easily.”

Brand presence on Tumblr

Tumblr isn’t just gaining popularity on an individual blogger level, either. The site’s close-knit community vibe is an attractive platform for media brands especially, for the opportunity to take readers “behind the scenes” of the operation. For example, NPR Fresh Air recently aired an extended version of Terry Gross’ interview with Jon Stewart including all of the footage that was cut from the original version. Newsweek just opened its Tumblr platform for submissions to become the next editor. The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist and The Today Show all also have Tumblr pages (Mashable has a great roundup of media companies on Tumblr here).

Commercial brands are still few and far between, but compelling content exists:

• IBM embraced Tumblr’s collaboration opportunities for its SmarterPlanet initiative, which is focused on interconnectivity as the solution to global problems. The page offers thought leadership and commentary on global issues and recent events. While the page raises awareness for some of IBM’s efforts, it keeps the focus on the major issues and trends at hand, which opens the floor for readers to join in conversation.
• Foursquare uses the custom URL feature for its corporate blog, where the company shares advice, tips and tricks on how better to use their product.
• Huggies created its Highchair Critics blog as a resource for parents. The page shares everything from unusual news stories about babies, to parenting trends, cute baby photos and videos. While the page is branded with the Huggies logo, its content is not focused only on Huggies products.

Evaluating opportunity

Before diving in to the fray, brands should weigh the opportunities and challenges associated with Tumblr. Here are a few things to consider:

• Does your brand have a specific thought leadership platform to stand on? As shown in the examples above, brands that have seen success on Tumblr don’t push their products or services – they focus on a specific topic and offer relatable, thought-provoking, compelling content that encourages users to engage.
• What demographic would benefit from your content? Tumblr’s demographic skews a bit lower than Twitter. According to Quantcast, 38 percent of users are between the ages of 18 and 34 – so if you want to target smart, savvy young adults, this might be a good option.
• What’s more important to you – tracking analytics, or embedding SEO? Tumblr’s simplistic design doesn’t lend itself to advanced SEO functionality, however it’s incredibly simple to incorporate Google Analytics into the page.
• Will your content be visual and brief? As mentioned before, Tumblr is a great platform for extending content greater than the 140-character limitation of Twitter, but at the same time, templates are typically not designed to handle verbose, lengthy posts. The most engaging content is quick and visual in nature.
• Are you comfortable being an early adopter, or would you rather wait for more brands to test the waters? There aren’t an abundance of brands on Tumblr – yet. But the brands that have jumped in with the right strategy are seeing success. If the platform fits for your company’s demographic, there is incredible opportunity for engagement.

Don’t be swayed only by Tumblr’s simplicity and fun – there is still a significant time investment that needs to be considered, potentially even more so than with Facebook or Twitter. If your brand is still trying to get a handle on Facebook and Twitter, it might be best to stray away from Tumblr for now. But if your brand is comfortable with social media, sees the value in this almost-untapped brand-building platform, and approaches it with the right strategy – opportunity abounds.

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Interested in Tumblr, but not sure where to start? Try following these Text 100 folks for some interesting content:

• Parenting - Party at My Crib from Erica Carnevale
• Fashion - Jaimen Lee from Jaimen Sfetko
• Lifestyle - The Little Things from Amber Rinehard

Fast-forward almost fifteen years, and that dream was still very much alive – I thought I was going to be the next Katie Couric (or San Francisco’s own Amber Lee) when I graduated high school. Sports reporter? Maybe. Weathergirl? Possibly. Public relations account executive? Unlikely. I traded sunny California for the harsh winters at Syracuse University (go Orange!) – based on the school’s strong broadcast journalism program.

At my first broadcast journalism class – my first foray into the world of mass media – my professor drilled into my mind that there is no such thing as being “just” a reporter anymore. A reporter is much more than that: a photographer, story-teller and editor. While chasing people down for an interview in 10 degree weather (with a negative wind chill of course), I learned this fact the hard way. For local stations I was writing, editing, panicking and begging.  While a lot has changed in my three years since graduating, including my profession, my professor was right about one thing: the idea of being “just” a reporter is dead.

After holding down multiple internships at various television stations throughout the country and graduating Syracuse, I landed as a newscast writer at San Francisco’s NBC affiliate, KNTV. Although the hours were less than pleasant (2:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. each day!), I learned that even my title as newscast writer was not 100% accurate. Aside from writing dozens of stories each morning, I would personally pick the video that would accompany each story, write headlines (I’m now the queen of alliteration) and write for KNTV’s up and coming interactive Website.

In just my 2.5 years since I’ve joined Text 100 and left the broadcast bunch behind (still the queen of alliteration!), the television industry has dramatically changed. Reporters at KNTV I still keep in touch with have active Twitter and Facebook accounts, detailing to the public stories they are covering and breaking news.  Friends working at various television stations across the country tell me that it is required that they use Twitter for their job – to get the word out on breaking news, and encourage viewers to tune into their station.

As social media tools continue to play an integral role in our lives, the tools will take on an added responsibility – and the broadcast industry needs to be ahead of that curve to keep viewers tuning in each night at 11:00 a.m. (or, at 5:00 a.m. if you are watching the shows I wrote for!).