Today's panel is led by John Pozadzides. Panel members include Matt Mullenweg, Liz Strauss, Aaron Brazell, and Mark Ghosh.
Note: the following are summarizations, not direct and/or complete quotes.
Why do you need a blog?
Aaron: Transparency is key in today's business world.
Matt Mullenweg asks the room, "how many of you read blogs?" Everyone raises their hand. "How many of you read press releases?" Six. Point made.
John doesn't let his employees contribute to the company blog, even though they go to trade shows and conferences and speak with clients. His reasoning is the permanence of blog posts and the greater risk of human error. A one on one conversation can be handled more easily if erroneous information is given.
Matt: If you can help your customers appreciate your product as much as you do, you're going to build brand, product, and customer loyalty.
Liz: Relationship builds trust. People buy faster when they trust you as opposed to when they don't. They don't have to do additional research to make sure you're telling the truth.
Mark: I believe that everyone's a blogger. It's not how good you are at blogging, but how passionate you are about the subject you're blogging about. My dad is passionate about alternative medicine. I recommended that he blog about his personal research. He is now going to publish a book next year from his blog.
Mark: If you find someone (an employee) who's passionate about something in your company, get them to write for your blog.
Liz: You can teach people how to write. You CAN'T teach people how to love your company.
Aaron: I wrote a post lately about the process I go through when writing a post. Lately, my quality has kicked up a notch. I usually have 5-10 things rolling around in my head… random topics inspired by life. When I finally sit down to write, it's more or less an email. I've already spent time formulating the idea in my head.
Liz: Zappo Shoe Company sent flowers to a customer who couldn't pay their whole bill because of a family crisis. That customer wrote a blog post about it. If a company cares that much about their client, they must have good shoes.
Matt: On Writing Well, by William Zinnsser, is a well-written book writing well.
Liz: The Speed of Trust is a book about how increasing trust improves ROI.
Aaron: Your customers ARE GOING to have the conversation about your brand, product, or service. The question is: Do you want to participate in the conversation? Do you want to host the conversation? Or would you rather it go on without your involvement?
Matt: Have you read the DreamHost blog? It's crazy. It's actually really, really cool. It sets a tone and culture for the whole company. It shows that they care about the customer but that they're not weak. They had a huge problem recently when they overbilled customers by millions of dollars. That was TERRIBLE, yet they were blogging through the whole thing.
Matt: Through the whole thing, I really appreciated how human it was. When things go great, they're not talking about you. Companies who have status blogs on external sites do very well when there's a problem. If their hosting goes down or something crashes, they're still blogging from this external blog and maintaining relationship with their customers during crisis.
Matt: I like to encourage bloggers, as a public service announcement, take time to write the positive posts too. Don't just cover the complaints and negatives of companies and products, but give credit where credit is due.
Aaron: Basic SEO practices. Use descriptive titles, particularly when blogging about a product or service. Second is to really understand the conversational nature of blogging. Many blogs are strained and forced. It takes away from the authenticity.
Liz: You have to know what it is that you do and make sure other people know as well. Know who is reading. Pay attention to what they're coming to read about and build a relationship with them on their interests.
Matt: Avoid hyperbole at all costs. All hosting companies claim to be the best at everything. Your customers aren't stupid. Treat your customers with respect. Don't dumb things down for your readers.
Mark: Patience. Practice what you preach.
My Question: What do you think about companies who remove attribution of employee's names on blog posts once those employees leave the company? And what is the employee's incentive for writing on a corporate blog rather than an independent blog when they can lose all credit for their work?
Mark: when you work for the company, you are the company. When you leave the company, your identity that could compromise the company's reputation can be modified to fit the company.
Aaron: If a company wants to take/keep the attribution, they should. It goes back to "why is the employee writing on the corporate blog?" I neither support nor denounce a company that does it either way.
Liz: When you work for a publisher and you leave the company, they own it. It's understood.
Matt: I WOULD feel weird if the company removes the employee's name from the post, though.
End of Session. Debating whether to stay for the last one. It's about coding.
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