The following is a series of 2007 corporate blogging case studies from: Dow Chemical, Sun Microsystems, Airwide Solutions, Approva, The Bivings Group, Midwest Airlines, Dot Mobi, Nortel Networks, HP and Microsoft.
DOW CHEMICAL
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
While Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company is a strong believer in communicating with employees, its nearly impossible for him to have an active dialogue with 43,000 employees operating in 175 countries. To help facilitate meaningful discussion among these employees, Dow launched an internal blog for Andrew, called Access Andrew. Launching Access Andrew, however, was fraught with risk and questions. Would the blog be credible among Dow’s people? What if blog postings leaked to the media? How could Dow keep the dialogue productive, encouraging employees and leaders to address their toughest issues? What if nobody joined the conversation? Dow built a plan to mitigate these risks and to effectively connect their leadership and employees.
The Ingenious Proposal
A fully interactive blog, Access Andrew is designed to give employees around the world an opportunity to connect directly with the company’s leader and with each other. Access Andrew is intended to facilitate meaningful internal discussion about the company, its values and culture, products and goals, as well as important industry and public policy issues. Specifically, the blog is designed to achieve the following objectives: Broaden the reach of management messages to employees, make executive leadership more accessible, enable instant, direct feedback from employees, build a greater sense of community among Dow people, and help drive culture change, reinforcing openness and transparency in communications.
The Call
Dow worked with employee communication consultants Insidedge and PR agency GolinHarris to develop a strategy to introduce internal blogging at Dow:
Use research to define best practices: Insidedge and GolinHarris researched leading blogs to establish a checklist of characteristics necessary for success. These included: ease of global access; authenticity of content (written by Andrew himself); relevant and timely to key issues; and offering unique points of view, among others. Establish ground rules to guide employee participation and processes to facilitate Andrew’s involvement: Dow prepared Andrew for blogging and secured his commitment to writing his own posts and providing frequent updates. They also worked with internal communications and legal units to write clear, comprehensive guidelines and policies for blogging. Dow built a blog publication process to preserve Andrew’s voice while ensuring that necessary legal and grammatical review occurred, and to ensure a 24/7 process for reviewing and posting employee comments. Before formal launch, Dow piloted the blog with their global Public Affairs team. They educated employees about blogging and whetted their appetite for Access Andrew’s debut by posting relevant articles on the company intranet. They also positioned the blog as a six-month trial to provide an exit strategy if needed. Market the blog aggressively to drive participation: Dow tied the blog’s debut to their advertising campaign launch in Europe and used multiple media to raise awareness and drive participation. They promoted the blog with a series of posters that were unveiled at facilities around the world. They aired a video ad about the new blog on the company’s internal television system. Andrew expressed his passion for the blog at Town Hall meetings and on a quarterly global employee satellite broadcast. Be willing to tackle tough subjects: Honest dialogue requires discussing bad news as well as good. Since his first post, Andrew has tackled a number of topics, including reporting on the annual shareholders’ meeting, addressing marketplace buy-out rumors, and responding to employee posts about Dow’s work environment. Andrew continues to author the blog himself with minimal input from the legal and communications teams.
The Success Story
Metrics indicate success against Dow’s objectives:
More than 13,000 employees visit the site weekly, spending an average of nearly nine minutes on the page. Weekly visits and average visit durations have been increasing. For example, there were over 25,000 and 18,000 visits during two recent entries. Employees have posted (and Andrew has responded to) questions and concerns ranging from leadership changes to childcare options. Leaders regularly join the discussion responding to specific questions and concerns. And Andrew updates his blog regularly, on average, every 10 days. Each of Andrew’s posts net an average of 73 comments, with more than 800 employees posting more than 1,300 comments since the blog’s launch. The blog has enabled employees to address one another and raise new concerns. Approximately 27 percent of employee comments respond directly to other comments. Another 35 percent relate to a new topic other than the posting topic. A month after Access Andrew’s launch, 68 percent of Dow’s employees have read the blog and 77 percent felt it has enhanced employee communications. Based on this success, Dow recently decided to maintain the blog after the six-month trial period and are evolving it.
SUN MICROSYSTEMS
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
Every quarter, public companies must fully disclose their financial earnings widely and quickly to shareholders and investors. To disclose this information broadly and in a timely manner, companies leverage a newswire service. Sun Microsystems decided to challenge the traditional disclosure method, proposing a more effective process. After communicating with the SEC and debating the issue internally, Sun decided to release its fourth quarter (Q4) and full 2007 fiscal year earnings announcement via the company’s Website, which, in turn was disseminated via open syndication protocols (namely, RSS) to those subscribers of Sun’s news feeds. After publication to the Internet, Sun then distributed this information via traditional news wires for dissemination to private news agencies and distribution vehicles. Was Sun in violation of Reg FD? No, and they did not face negative repercussions. The release of Sun’s fiscal year ‘07 earnings via the company’s Website proved that using the Internet as a vehicle to ensure broad, fair and non-exclusionary access to information about corporate performance is effective. The full disclosure of a public company’s financials via a corporate Website attracts a varied audience. In this particular case, Sun Microsystems was hoping to garner the attention of not only its shareholders, but also the SEC and the larger corporate community.
The Ingenious Proposal
Through the disclosure of the financial information via a blog and RSS feed from the company’s website, Sun’s intentions were to: increase the transparency of Sun; allow the general investing public – those with a web browser or a cell phone – the same footing as those with access to private subscription services; fulfill their desire to disseminate information on a fair and equitable basis; allow the network to be used for what it’s intended – connecting people and information; change how Sun communicates with the world; and, set a path for other public companies striving for greater transparency.
The Call
Sun believes that with the rise of technology we should allow the network to be used for what it’s intended – connecting people and information. Sun’s release of financial information via its Web site and RSS feed would be an adjustment for investors and stakeholders who were only familiar with how this type of information was being released via the newswire, but it would allow for the information to be disseminated more quickly to a wider audience. In order to begin preparing the larger corporate community for this, Sun took proactive steps to inform key stakeholders. This process could not have occurred if it were not for the various conversations, regarding Reg FD, that Sun executives had and continue to have with SEC Chairman Christopher Cox regarding Reg FD. In an effort to prepare for the release of Sun’s fiscal year ‘07 financial earnings via the Internet, Sun remained transparent in their actions. Chief executive officer, Jonathan Schwartz, led the way in this transparency by openly blogging about how Sun would release their financial information in July. He communicated the company’s rationale, and allowed for dialogue to occur among his readers. Some applauded his initiative to change the disclosure methods, while others were skeptical of the reason the Company was choosing to release via the Web earlier than the wire. Nonetheless, the Company’s intentions were clear and, if nothing else, it got people talking about Reg FD. Schwartz wasn’t the only executive to blog about Sun’s decision to disclose their financial information differently. Michael Dillon, Sun’s general counsel, also dedicated one of his blog entries to Reg FD. As he describes in his blog entry, “in the area of securities regulation, being ‘innovative’ is not always considered positively.” However, Sun’s goal of disseminating information quickly to a broad audience was very much aligned with the expectations of the SEC.
The Success Story
Sun received feedback both internally and externally regarding their new approach to full disclosure. Through Jonathan Schwartz’s blog, Sun was able to measure how key stakeholders felt about the innovative approach in disclosure. One comment thanked Schwartz for “driving [the Company] to the right direction,” while applauding him for clearly demonstrating how insights from operational effectiveness can help achieve the Company’s strategy. Alex Simpson, a reader of Mike Dillon’s blog, commented about Reg FD by applauding Sun’s efforts to “move the disclosure regime out of the 1990’s.” He continued by commending Sun for being at the forefront of pushing the envelope and encouraging evolution of out-dated processes. The qualitative comments received by Sun specifically map back to the Company’s original objectives. One Sun blog comment sums it up best by stating, "The way I receive and process information is changing on a daily basis. This increased distribution channel will engage a different audience in a different way, and that is a positive thing. Sun’s success in its blogging program exceeds using it as a tool to inform stakeholders about the Company’s changes to Reg FD. To date, Sun has 4,000 employees who are creating a Sun culture of transparency and openness through their blogs.
AIRWIDE SOLUTIONS, INC.
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
Airwide Solutions, providing mobile infrastructure systems that help mobile users send picture and text messages securely, is on the front lines of new handheld technology. On an impressive growth track with hundreds of employees in 10 international offices and multi-million dollar sales, Airwide wanted to expand its relationships and attract the attention of industry analysts and journalists. They also wanted to make a bigger impact on the conference circuit, and get more recognition in North America. In April 2007, they decided to re-engineer their traditional approach to public relations, taking it to a new level in a universe they weren’t leveraging enough, the web. First and foremost, Airwide wanted to be an active part of the online conversation in the field of mobile messaging, drawing experts’ attention to their solutions. They knew that more industry recognition would lead to an even better reputation, and that bigger revenues would follow.
The Ingenious Proposal
Airwide first developed five specific goals: To raise awareness about Airwide on the web, in particular in the US, to build deeper relationships with industry analysts, to build deeper relationships with journalists, to be invited to speak at industry conferences, and to win an industry award. Other projected benefits included enhancing Airwide’s reputation, helping with product development, and increasing Airwide’s reach for new product launch and company announcements. Airwide wanted to reach everyone interested in mobile content, whether professionals, amateurs, or even those searching for a relevant keyword. This included industry analysts from the top firms, journalists from offline publications, experts in the space, and executives from competing companies. Airwide decided to create a blog, written by industry experts, to achieve these goals. The target customers are enterprises that buy messaging software and content. The interested end-users are people who aim to get the most out of their phone.
The Call
An editorially independent blog, written by industry experts (as opposed to company employees), is different from the usual corporate blog. It establishes more credibility because it shows the sponsor is willing to relinquish control of the message and instead simply support and participate in the industry conversation. This paradigm shift in the purpose of marketing and PR is extremely hard for most companies. Showing true vision, Airwide embraced the concept readily. Airwide retained MarketHum, a social media consultancy, to build an editorially independent group blog in the mobile content category. In May 2007, the Mobile Messaging 2.0 Thought Leadership Community, sponsored by Airwide, was created by MarketHum co-founder Francois Gossieaux at http://www.mobilemessaging2.com . MarketHum engaged freelance creatives to create a brand identity for the new blog, which was built in WordPress and hosted by Corante. As acting editorial director, Corante founder Hylton Joliffe recruited experts to become contributing group bloggers. One month after launch, the blog already featured 40 posts and 30 comments. The contributor base includes: Imran Ali, mobile industry entrepreneur and software developer, Nancy Broden, Longtime mobile user experience specialist, Darla Mack, well-known commentator on mobile consumer applications, Debi Jones, mobile industry observer, researcher and commentator, Paul Ruppert, consultant and senior executive in the mobile industry, Chetan Sharma, wireless expert and industry advisor, Russell Shaw, veteran technology and telephony industry journalist and author, Ewan Spence, prominent technology writer, blogger and podcaster, and Oliver Starr, senior mobile analyst for Guidewire. As a sponsor, Airwide sees their branding and a link to their site from the blog, and Airwide executives are encouraged periodically to write a sponsored post, which shows up on the blog in a special format to indicate that the contribution is part of the corporate sponsorship. Ongoing project management consists of a weekly editorial call with the thought leader bloggers and a weekly update call with executives from Airwide, MarketHum, and Hubbub PR, a MarketHum business partner.
The Success Story
Since its inception 5 months ago, the blog boasts 200 posts, 200 substantive comments, and 24,000 total unique visitors (data from Google Analytics). Currently attracting 8,500 page views per month, the blog also has 200 RSS subscribers. It is ranked within the top 40,000 blogs on Technorati and has been linked to by more than 125 websites. In a keyword search for the category name “mobile messaging," the blog shows up as a top- ten result in Google. In addition to the increased awareness, reputation and reach resulting from this success, the blog has attracted prominent analysts and journalists as both contributors to and readers of the blog. As an example, Om Malik, one of the best-known mobile telephony journalists in the world, has read and linked to us. The blog has already led to at least two speaking opportunities for the Airwide CTO in front of major audiences. This coming October, the thought leaders will convene for a bloggers dinner the night before the major industry event for mobile telephony. Shortly thereafter, they will participate in a conference call in which Airwide will share and get expert input on product development and marketing strategy for 2008.
APPROVA
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
Gathering momentum in the days after the Enron and WorldComm scandals and the ensuing passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation, Approva was uniquely positioned to capitalize on the changing regulatory environment for corporations. Approva is a software developer supporting publicly-traded companies and assisting them in their efforts to meet compliance requirements, such as SOX. With many big-name competitors also offering compliance solutions, Approva had little visibility among key third-party influencers. To address these issues, the executive team sought to increase Approva’s thought leadership in the governance, risk and compliance space, while driving sales leads and enhancing Approva’s corporate market valuation. Thus, the challenge was to package Approva’s offerings in a compelling light, particularly by using industry news topics, such as the 5th Anniversary of the passing of SOX legislation, in a creative manner to garner interest in traditionally lackluster topics.
The Ingenious Proposal
DBC Public Relations (DBC), along with the marketing team at Approva, developed an innovative blog for Approva, titled Audit Trail. The goals of the blog were to expand the depth of external communication by soliciting and posting original, creative content elements; position Approva as a thought leader in regulatory compliance; increase web traffic to approva.net and Audit Trail, and attract 1,000 visitors in the initial 3 months; strengthen corporate messaging; create and increase visibility for Approva in SOX/Compliance media; leverage industry hot topics within the public relations campaign; increase search engine visibility; and, integrate with all other marketing vehicles, including e-blasts, traditional media, and advertising.
The Call
For the creation of Audit Trail, the main focus was to leverage a campaign theme that resonated with the much maligned audit community, often typecast as dowdy, serious, and often, dreaded visitors among the business community. Approva and DBC collaborated, and Approva’s Love a Good Audit campaign theme was born. The Love a Good Audit theme not only highlighted Approva’s value proposition to the market, but also upended typical assumptions about audits, and auditors. Although the campaign theme claims Approva is all about fun & games, Audit Trail is far from party central. Audit Trail’s core purpose is to serve as a dedicated forum for Approva to share news, insights, and executive commentary on industry issues essential to differentiating Approva from their competition. A blog editorial calendar was created to drive content creation, which included elements such as: daily news round-ups of important industry developments; Weird Wednesday, news related to odd or offbeat accounting stories; executive team opinion pieces, posted bi-monthly; advisory board opinion pieces, posted as available; customer case studies and commentary; and breaking news commentary and insights. In addition to content, a blog linking strategy was implemented to increase Audit Trail’s ranking on blog search engines, such as Technorati. The top 20 blogs in the space were identified by DBC and added to Audit Trail’s industry blog roll. Each blog was then contacted, introducing them to Audit Trail, providing links to poignant original content as well as encouraging them to link to Audit Trail, thus increasing the industry blog community. In addition to regular blog editorial content, during the month of July 2007, Audit Trail hosted a campaign celebrating the 5th anniversary of the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley Legislation. The homepage of Audit Trail prominently displayed a countdown clock until the 5th birthday of SOX on July 30th. Major campaign elements during this month on Audit Trail included: compliance survey to public company executives; delivery of birthday cake to former Congressman Michael Oxley, co-founder of SOX; industry expert commentary blog postings; an original SOX 5th Birthday Song and music video; press releases and press outreach; a SOX 5th Birthday eCard; and various postings related to five-years of SOX history.
The Success Story
Since its launch, the Audit Trail blog has blown away every metric defined by DBC and the Approva, and it continues to gather momentum. In seven months, Audit Trail has seen 26,861 visitors. They expected a slow build and anticipated 1,000 visitors in the first three months. By the end of April, they had exceeded their goal by 400%, with 4,000 visitors. As a result of an Approva eBlast promoting the SOX 5th Birthday Celebration kit, Audit Trail set a single-day traffic record of 2,791, quadrupling the previous record. During the month of July, Approva received media coverage in seven targeted trade publications. Links to other blogs have increased dramatically, from zero in March to 71 in September. Search engine visibility is directly below that of SEC and other industry organizations on key issues. Executive and breaking news commentary is working, with 810 clicks into the Audit Trail coverage of the PCAOB SOX guidance in May. Original content was contributed by executive team leaders, such as Approva’s CEO, Phil Livingston (former head of FEI and an author of the original Sarbanes-Oxley legislation) and Harvey Pitt (SEC chair at the time of Sarbanes-Oxley’s passage). In addition, presidential candidate Ron Paul submitted a Q&A to Audit Trail during the SOX 5th Anniversary month in July. The blog has also increased its Technorati authority from 0 to 71, and has garnered attention from trade media, securing 7 media placements in July alone.
THE BIVINGS GROUP
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
The Bivings Group lacked a medium for showcasing the company’s projects, publishing research and reports, and discussing issues in new media, technology and politics that are relevant to the company’s projects and clients. To resolve this problem and to provide the company with a flexible platform, The Bivings Group developed a corporate blog called The Bivings Report.
The Ingenious Proposal
The Bivings Group decided to create a blog that would serve as a source of news, insight, research and analysis on the web-based communications industry. They tailored their blogging efforts to several key audiences: members of the traditional media industries (newspaper and magazine publishers), representatives from politics interested in online developments, potential clients, and individuals interested in emerging Web 2.0 technology. The goals of The Bivings Group’s corporate blog were to find new business opportunities, garner attention for media research, showcase the company’s abilities and quality work in new technology, and solicit feedback and commentary from audience members.
The Call
The Bivings Group implemented a corporate blog as an extension of its main website called The Bivings Report. Tapping in-house design, programming, and communications professionals, The Bivings Group built the blog in WordPress, an open-source system, and customized the blog with various types of new technology to serve the company’s needs. Specifically, they used video, podcasts, sharing tools, and wikis on their corporate blog to demonstrate the company’s capabilities in Web 2.0. Finally, The Bivings Group used its corporate blog to develop a library of research materials and written reports relevant to new media and politics. By publishing these materials on a blog, they are easily accessible and available to the public.
The Success Story
The Bivings Report has been an extremely productive tool for The Bivings Group. Publishing articles consistently on a near daily basis, The Bivings Report has grown to become one of the top “public affairs” blogs in the USA. They have also received several new business opportunities and numerous press inquiries through the blog. Most recently, The Bivings Report was recognized by the Web Marketing Association for the high quality of technology and content employed on the blog and received a Blog Standard of Excellence award. The Bivings Report has given the Bivings Group an opportunity to expand upon and develop its corporate identity online through discussion, written expression, and graphic design.
MIDWEST AIRLINES
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
The challenge was in deciding if Midwest Airlines should begin a corporate blog. If so, what purpose would it serve and how would it enhance their business? Should it be a CEO blog for the investor community or airline industry buffs? Or should it focus on their customers, who are at the core of Midwest Airlines’ service-intensive business philosophy?
The Ingenious Proposal
After researching the blogosphere and how it is used, Midwest Airlines chose a customer-focused blog, narrowing it down to baby-boomer women who now have the time and money to travel and enjoy getting away with girlfriends. The blog is service-oriented in that it offers travel information, details about destinations to which Midwest flies, costs, reviews of hotels, restaurants, shops and more from the personal perspective of the blogger — who plans the trip, takes it with a girlfriend or two, then shares details with readers. All travelers can find value in the posts. It is a low-profile corporate blog, but coded links to Midwest Airlines show a very good ROI in ticket sales. The main goal was to enhance their service offerings to customers with a focused travel blog that offers useful information on how to plan a successful getaway with friends. It covers unusual destinations in and around cities served by Midwest Airlines. Details may include how to get around town, what cabs or rental cars cost, hotel reviews and how the blogger found the best rates. The blogger tells readers what she and her friends liked and disliked. The goal of each post is to make it easier for women (especially those who have never taken a girlfriend getaway) to feel confident in planning or participating in one. Consideration for limited budgets is also part of the mix — finding decent hotels at a good value, bargain shopping opportunities, using public transportation where feasible, etc. Basically, the blog extends Midwest Airlines’ reputation for providing outstanding care for its customers. No goals based on financial return were set, but it was anticipated that some would occur. The effort was more of a service and networking opportunity for the airline brand.
The Call
Once a niche market and blog style was chosen, the plan was to find the best blogging tool. Midwest Airlines settled on Wordpress, hosted on the Wordpress site — no cost was involved and the site could be easily managed by the blogger. The goal was to have the site functional by 9/1/06 with several posts already published to minimize the “empty look” of a brand new blog site. A number of trips were taken by the blogger before the launch to ensure a number of posts would be in the queue. The header is original art designed by a staff artist. Some technical assistance with launching the blog was provided by Midwest’s E-Business team and Marketing’s production specialist. A news release was sent out by Midwest Airlines, announcing the blog launch. The blogger regularly interacts on other blog sites for networking, and a link to the blog lives on the Midwest Airlines Deals Web page. It also appears in weekly customer e-mails and monthly newsletters to Midwest Miles members.
The Success Story
Travels with Tish — Girlfriends’ Getaway Guide has been continually updated for 13 months. Readership has steadily grown. Reader interaction through comments and e-mails has been very good. Readers consistently click through to the numerous links provided to access additional topic information and to buy tickets from Midwest Airlines. The ROI has been excellent, providing approximately a 6:1 return, though much more return can be assumed that may have been triggered by the blog, but booked using alternative methods. Their objective of providing a meaningful service to female travelers has been met, as positive reader response indicates. Their niche market is baby-boomer women, but they have found that men and women of all ages are tuning in to read the posts. While they anticipated that some additional ticket sales would be generated, they had no defined goal. Consequently, the resulting revenue has been an overwhelming success and an enhancement to their original purpose. Moving forward, the blogger is currently designing a more interactive blog site for Travels with Tish, using Joomla on an independent hosting service. It will retain the original artwork and feel, but offer more travel information and opportunities to share experiences. She will incorporate a women’s travel forum and more information about group travel opportunities. Additionally, she will include a segment for those who want to travel with their dog (also a growing niche market in which Midwest Airlines is already an industry leader with its Premier Pet Program.) The URL for the new site will be shorter and easier to remember — travelswithtish.com.
MOBILE TOP LEVEL DOMAIN (DOT MOBI)
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
Launched in 2006, .mobi (dotMobi) is a top-level domain for the mobile Internet. It is the first domain that sets design rules so that any .mobi site is guaranteed to present well on a mobile phone’s two-inch screen (examples include http://businessweek.mobi, http://cabbies.mobi, and http://aaa.mobi/). Every launch of any top-level domain is bound to be controversial (note past attempts to launch domains such as .xxx or .geo.). In 2006, dotMobi sought out a way to deflect criticism early and strive to be the most transparent of any of the new top-level domains ever launched. They decided to create a blog.
The Ingenious Proposal
At the program’s start, the objective was to insert dotMobi as a credible participant in online discussions about the mobile Internet (often a sticky situation where corporate interests are concerned) and, in so doing, elevate dotMobi’s ability to influence conversations about its brand and mission. The audience, at the very early stage, was so-called “domainers" or people and organizations who make money buying and selling domain names on the Internet. Since dotMobi was utilizing some fairly novel processes for distributing these domain names (such as auctions for premium names and enforcing a sunrise period for trademark holders), this communication was critical. Also, the team knew that having dotMobi create its own platform to engage in online conversation would correct misconceptions about the company in those communities as well as in the in the press. Essentially, dotMobi built its FAQ online and in public via the blog.
The Call
One thing was clear, traditional technology PR approaches simply weren’t going to work in this case since dotMobi needed to interact with a community that primarily trusts their own, so dotMobi enlisted the help of Edelman, a global PR agency. The first strategy was to prepare dotMobi’s key employees with best-in-class training in how to engage with online communities. The next step was to leverage each employee’s expertise. After training, dotMobi employees were assigned ebeats. The VP of Business Development, for example, handled mobile-marketing-related topics, the director of industry relations covered auction and sales-related matters, the CTO offered technical perspectives, and so on. Once dotMobi’s internal bloggers were trained and assigned, the agency provided monitoring of popular blogs, online communities, and message boards. In each case, criteria was developed to determine whether a response from dotMobi. The agency took this information and provided counsel, which the dotMobi bloggers took into consideration while writing their posts or reactions. This approach allowed dotMobi to not only be proactive and transparent in its communication, but to also counter broad misinformation with context, expertise, and insight. The results can be seen at http://dotmobi.typepad.com. Since time was of the essence, the team chose to speed deployment using trusted off-the-shelf parts. Part of the beauty of what Forbes once referred to as “the cheap revolution" is that excellent Web 2.0 communications tools are available for free or nearly free. TypePad Pro was selected for its ease of use and customization, as well as its integration with several Web 2.0 tools. The team used pre-Google Feedburner to enhance the measurability of the blog’s RSS feed and ensure that it could determine whether subscribership grew over time. Recognizing that not all or even most Internet users are using RSS, the team used FeedBlitz to generate an opt-in newsletter from the RSS feed. To-date, the blog’s email subscribership continues to be one-third of the total, even in a technically focused field.
The Success Story
The dotMobi blog, available at http://dotmobi.typepad.com/ consistently enjoys 55-60 links from unique blogs in any trailing-180-day period. This is quite comparable to blogs that discuss the domain industry from a more journalistic basis, which tend to enjoy between 50-150 such links. Such sites include blogs like Domain News, Domain Name News, and I Squatted Your .EU. Subscribership has grown to a seven-day moving average of well over 550 unique subscribers. The team decided early on that page views was not the best or even a good metric since the full-text RSS feed obviates the need to visit the site in most cases. Each post inspires an average of between three and five comments from the blog’s visitors, indicating that interest is high and the public is engaged. Most importantly, however, the dotMobi blog has changed many minds about the .mobi domain and, as such, remains the most transparently managed and communicated domain to-date of the newer ones supported by ICANN in the past several years.
NORTEL NETWORKS
The Challenge
In 2006, Nortel appointed John Roese as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with a mandate to lead Nortel’s technology innovation engine and become the functional leader for Nortel’s more than 12,000 engineers and developers around the world. With a passionate and outspoken technology leader of its R&D initiatives, Nortel saw an opportunity to enhance its thought leadership position and initiate an on-going dialog about technology, innovation, the telecom industry and Nortel.
The Ingenious Proposal
Nortel’s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel set out to implement a blog, written by John Roese, which espoused those values and encouraged a direct, immediate dialogue with one of its key executives. Nortel implemented John Roese’s blog with three key business and communications objectives in mind:
1. Build a credible communications vehicle for direct interaction and dialogue with customers, partners, and other stakeholders.
2. Promote industry thought leadership in areas important to Nortel.
3. Enhance the awareness of Nortel as an innovative, transparent and cutting-edge telecommunications company.
The primary audiences for John Roese’s blog are Nortel’s customers, partners, investors and employees. They are the stakeholders with the keenest interest in Nortel’s technologies, opinions and industry. Secondary audiences include industry influences such as analysts and media.
The Call
Nortel leveraged its integrated marketing communications team to develop and deploy a blog written by John Roese. A proposal and justification for developing the blog was submitted in November 2006 and an aggressive timeline was set to deploy the blog in early 2007. The overall plan was to: design, develop and deploy a text blog focused primarily on technology and innovation that conveys John Roese’s unfiltered opinion, personality, and thought leadership; have John Roese write technology-related content in an accessible manner so that anyone can participate in the conversation; hyperlink heavily within the blog to relevant photos, podcasts, videos and vlogs to encourage community building and provide non-Nortel content and perspectives; launch the blog in early to mid-January to coincide with the launch of the new Technology section on nortel.com; announce the blog internally and on nortel.com, but allow external interest to grow virally; and, post new entries every 7-10 days to keep updates frequent but not consume too much of John Roese’s time. There were some technical and logistical challenges to overcome when developing the blog: designing and developing Nortel’s first blog quickly while working with a relatively new medium for the company; managing expectations on frequency of updates – John Roese’s dynamic and hectic schedule prevents him from writing as often as he or the communications and marketing teams would like; guaranteeing a quick turnaround for reviews and approvals from subject matter experts (as needed) and the legal department. Nortel decided to use WordPress, a free open source blogging platform. The team included John Roese, CTO, Nortel Velma LeBlanc, Director, CTO Communications, Janet Chan, New Media Communications, and Laurie Borgen, Online Marketing.
The Success Story
John Roese’s blog has successfully addressed Nortel’s challenges and goals. Success is measured quantitatively through unique visitors, RSS subscriptions, percentage of engagement, and number of trackbacks. Additional qualitative measures include content and quality of reader comments and word-of-mouth communications about the company. The blog allows John Roese to share his thoughts and opinions on industry, technology and on Nortel directly. He writes the blog himself and this authenticity has resulted in credibility. The blog has received 72,154 unique visitors and garnered 487 feed subscribers since its launch. It has received trackbacks from Tom Foremski’s IMHO and Slashdot, among others. John Roese has used his blog to effectively promote and discuss Nortel’s thought leadership endeavors, from Hyperconnectivity to 4G to video’s impact on the Internet. Nortel stakeholders have weighed in on these topics by sharing 302 comments and opinions directly with John. As with any discussion, not everyone agrees with these positions. But John Roese’s blog has facilitated their dissemination on his blog and elsewhere. In September 2007, John penned a guest column about 4G technology on GigaOM, a widely read telecommunications blog.
HP with Porter Novelli
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
Each year, Porter Novelli supports the HP Workstations business unit at SIGGRAPH, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, in organizing public relations activities. SIGGRAPH attracts approximately 24,000 attendees including artists, research scientists, gaming experts, developers, filmmakers, academics and leading editors and analysts from 79 countries. The challenge for SIGGRAPH 2007 was garnering press coverage and online buzz for HP Workstations products in the absence of new product announcements.
The Ingenious Proposal
Porter Novelli proposed to the HP Workstations team that they create a video blog and leverage HP’s sponsorship of the SIGGRAPH animator competition FJORG! Co-sponsored by DreamWorks Animation SKG and AMD, FJORG! featured 15 three-person computer graphics animation teams from around the world competing in a 32-hour competition to create the best 15 second or longer animation using HP xw9400 Workstations. The goal was to generate awareness for the FJORG! competition and the HP Workstations brand through online media and Consumer Generated Media.
The Call
HP kicked off SIGGRAPH 2007 with the launch of workstations.tv, a video weblog designed to celebrate the broad array of products and services created using HP workstation technology. The workstations.tv weblog hosted video coverage of FJORG! including all of the animations created during the event as well as exclusive interviews with the animation teams.
The Success Story
SIGGRAPH 2007 was a success from both a PR and Consumer Generated Media standpoint. Using workstations.tv and partnering with SIGGRAPH, AMD and DreamWorks Animation SKG, the team was able to successfully leverage HP’s sponsorship of FJORG! to showcase the benefits of HP Workstation technology in the digital content creation space. PR raised the bar at SIGGRAPH 2007, with new media tactics that increased awareness and buzz about HP Workstations, workstations.tv and the FJORG! Competition. These tactics included: Creating and posting FJORG! event trailers on workstations.tv and YouTube; editing and posting 21 supplemental videos on YouTube promoting workstations.tv; generating over 30 press stories and blog entries, and over 10,000 YouTube views in the first 400+ backlinks to workstations.tv; conducting 8 face-to-face press briefings; securing 3 additional phone briefings; collaborating with DreamWorks Animation and SIGGRAPH PR to jointly promote workstations.tv in three event press releases, including two led by SIGGRAPH and DreamWorks; positioning workstations.tv as the main site for viewing FJORG! activities and winning animations; and securing day-of-launch blog coverage on DigitalContentProducer.com, a top tier target for HP Workstations.
MICROSOFT with Waggener Edstrom
2007 Case Study
The Challenge
The Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) is Microsoft’s premier event targeted to its 400,000 member-strong partner community. With over 7,200 partners worldwide in attendance each year, WPC is designed to help partners drive profitability and reach their business goals, whatever they may be; expanding their skills, increasing business opportunities, closing more sales, or supporting their customers more effectively. Only elite partners are invited to WPC. Every year the event is sold out with thousands of people not being able to attend. These partners are already on board with Microsoft, so the primary need is to get actionable, partner specific information out on a global basis to those who can’t attend.
The Ingenious Proposal
For WPC 2007, the goal was to deliver a breakthrough digital strategy via a blog titled “Digital WPC" that would map to Microsoft’s objectives: showcase MSPP program value; demonstrate partner opportunity via Microsoft Business Group product news; explain Software+Services framework for partners; deliver breakthrough digital strategy; enlist Partners to share their experience at WPC (blogging) and satisfaction with MSPP (video testimonials); broaden the annual campus visit program beyond channel press; expand international coverage; and increase local market coverage as a means of reinforcing WPC messages to Partners in attendance. For WPC 2007 Microsoft wanted to expand their reach and awareness to partners worldwide (as well as press and analysts) through one platform to showcase the richness and value of partner resources and opportunity, and provide a forum for those unable to attend the conference to experience key activities such as exec keynotes/speeches/videos virtually. Digital WPC seemed a perfect vehicle to achieve the objective of delivering a breakthrough digital strategy, the first of its kind at WPC, and enlist US and international partners to share their experiences at WPC via blogs, from a third party lens.
The Call
In an effort to expand conference reach to a broader audience including delegates, press, analysts, and partners not able to attend, Waggener Edstrom’s Microsoft Small and Midmarket Solutions and Businesses PR team and Digital Strategies Group (DSG) created Digital WPC. Video was a major component of the site and focused on the executive keynotes that included Steve Ballmer, Kevin Turner, Allison Watson, Chris Capossela, Mike Sievert, Andy Lees, Steve Guggenheimer, Sanjay Parthasarathy, Tami Reller, Simon Witts, and Maria Martinez. Each emphasized how Microsoft delivers new opportunities to partners through software plus services, the ongoing momentum behind Office 2007, Windows Vista and Exchange Server 2007 as well as the next wave of innovation through BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and the upcoming launches of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. Key solutions included the following: Digital WPC was showcased in Influential communiques with press and analysts, press releases, encouraging press/analysts to visit the site. They generated awareness with business groups through weekly updates, which included a very visible URL to Digital WPC in all WPC related mails. DSG built an Outlook Signature for Waggener Edstrom and Microsoft highlighting Digital WPC. We cross-linked Digital WPC to the Microsoft WPC registration page, PressPass and the Virtual Press Room. We seeded Digital WPC with Microsoft internal and US/international Microsoft partner bloggers, letting them know about the Digital WPC and encouraging them to blog about the content. We also purchased a small Search Engine advertisement on MSN, Yahoo and Google.
The Success Story
The Digital WPC site surpassed all expectations. More than 50,300 Microsoft Partners have visited the community site since the start of the conference. In less than three weeks, they exceeded (100.7%) the original 3-month goal of 50,000 visits. In the end, the program results surpassed expectations in each work stream category. Total worldwide coverage grew by 56%. International coverage grew by 210%. Most importantly, quality of coverage rose significantly year-over-year, with message pull-through at an all-time event high of 93.2%. Key observations are summarized below: Extremely targeted community: to date the site has had more than 70,000 visitors, with more than half of those qualified partners. Strong community presence: the integration of partner blogs captured an additional 6,000 visits. These partner blogs provided 3rd party validation, proving credibility for Digital WPC. Blog activity via Digital WPC stimulated additional, independent blogs for the duration of the event. This year, there were 82 original blogs generated by WPC, up 64% from 2006. Prolonged Interest: most sites see weekly traffic drop as much as 80% the week following the event. Digital WPC saw almost no change from week one to week two.
