Speakers Included:
Mario Sundar (LinkedIn), Lionel Menchaca (Dell direct2dell.dell.com), Tom Hoehn (Kodak 1000words.kodak.com), Carolyn Abram (Facebook, blog.facebook.com), Nicki Dugan (Yahoo, yodel.yahoo.com).
1. Status: It’s a relationship & it’s complicated
Michael Dell was the impetus behind blog. Find people talking about Dell and engaging them. Started off w/50% against Dell.
Lots of education. Not just rehashing press releases or what’s on Dell.com.
Need to “humanize the brand” – Tom Hoehn. Putting a face on the “faceless corporation.”
2. Tell Honest, Current Stories
Dugan: Originally an uphill battle to get people to talk like humans on the blog. She came up w/writer’s guidelines. Write from the users’ perspective. Don’t write “our users,” write “you.” Put some of yourself in it. No jargon, use natural language. How you email your mom.
Be interesting and relevant – Hoehn.
3. Know your limits.
Dugan: She had to realize that there were things she couldn’t control from a legal standpoint. She had caused Yahoo to do an SEC filing. Lawyers hackles get up: more work, can’t control the conversation, etc. She wrote up some comment guidelines. Legal said they’d review every post to start, but they developed a sense of trust after a while. Entering a proxy battle is a completely different situation, though.
Menchaca: to start up he got on a conference call w/9 lawyers from Dell. They said every post had to go through legal. “We can’t have a blog if it’s not written in a personal way.” Legal was realistic and only pushed back on safety issues. A series of posts on a recall went through legal.
Abram: Find out your limits before hand. What is legal worried about? Deal w/those issues up front.
4. Make lemonade.
Abram: Talked about a change to FB that showed more info about self and friends and a blog post that was taken the wrong way. You need to strike the right tone. You also need to fix what’s wrong (new privacy tools.)
Dugan: Yahoo TV redesign pissed off users. Lots of negative comments, but it led to a better product.
Menchaca: Don’t post your first couple post w/no outbound links. When Dell was called on this he created a post w/outbound links…he’s listening.
Blogs can be social juditzu – paraphrased by Mario Sundar.
5. One size doesn’t fit all.
Abrams: Chose not to allow comments. Just didn’t have the bandwidth to follow up.
Hoehn – love comments. The value of negative comments far outweighs any individual comments.
6. Learn as you go.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission. You can test everything. Learn. Go. Learn. Go. – Hoehn
Never be afraid to change your direction. – Abram
Be real – dugan. If your blog is just a repurposed PR people won’t come back.
7. It’s not just words. (The future of corporate blogs.)
Dugan – Posts w/video are most popular. Includes flickr stream.
Abram – mini feeds, mash ups. Multi-things in one stream. (pictures, words, video)
Hoehn – photos! (Kodak.)
Menchaca – Tried to serve video w/a proprietary system (from Dell). Finally switch to YouTube. Leverage existing community. Dell missed this going into blogging. YouTube is important from Global standpoint.
Q&A:
Dugan – it’s hard to track roi. There are some metrics, (incoming links, etc.) What are your goals, and are you achieving them?
