Unfinished play for a corporate blog

A couple of weeks ago on Habré ran a post “ Your company (does not) need sociality ”, the author of which walked hard on corporate blogs, corporate twitter and other corporate groups on social networks. The summary of the post is approximately the following: the east is a delicate matter. Before you start a corporate blog, ask yourself the question - why do you need it? And if the answer is not obvious to you, drop it right away.

Global statistics confirm the author’s skepticism - a year ago, the Wall Street Journal published the results of a study entitled "Most corporate blogs are mistakes caused by a lack of imagination." In numbers: 56% publish press releases and outdated news, 70% focus on topics of their own business, 74% practically do not comment. As a result, 53% of companies believe that blogging did not affect their marketing in any way (I give a link to the repost, because the WSJ page went before the habra effect).

And if you dig in the direction of high-tech companies? It would seem to them, and cards in their hands! Unfortunately, the situation here is no better: a rare bird will reach the middle of the top. And this means that marketers still found the answer to the question “why” ... But they could not answer the question “how”. Or did not begin to bathe this question. For the past year and a half, I have been closely involved in the corporate blog of one very famous company. Guess which one? :) I can assure you that the answer to the question “how” is not as simple as it seems. Continuation of the story under habrakat.

Background - a corporate blog as a means of dealing with surrogate users.

A long time ago, in 2006, in one of the divisions of Intel, namely in the Software & Services Group (SSG), it was decided to launch a blog dedicated to software. (At the risk of seeming to be a bore, just in case, I’ll tell you: in addition to hardware, Intel also produces some tools for software developers, including compilers, all kinds of libraries and profilers. So, all this software is made in SSG). The answer to the question “why” was obvious - to break the image of a 100% hardware company and start talking about Intel as a software manufacturer. And about a year later, a Russian-language analogue was launched, the promotion of which I am engaged in. Here it is: www.intel.ru/software/blogs

Why do I need this? No, really, why Intel needs this more or less clear. But why did I personally need to abandon my own team of engineers and bring down marketing? You will laugh. Do you know such a thing as “product marketing engineer”? Yes, yes, these are such nice guys who travel on VIP customers, and from their words write down the requirements for products. And programmers then fulfill these requirements. Surprised but fulfilled. Unless of course the requirements suddenly change in the middle of the development cycle, which also happens. Robert Blockgave a very good definition of product marketing - "surrogate users." So, my naive plans were to give each engineer a blog in their hands and a drum on their neck so that he himself could ask potential users what feature they needed. Without any surrogate. Already laughing? Okay, let's go further.

The author!

What to write about was seemingly understandable, there were a lot of products. The question remained open - who should write? The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is technical support engineers. They can tell enough successful stories, and their work experience is serious. A small problem remains: support engineers are very busy people. In addition, they are used to communicating in terms of “problem-solution”, and by no means can they always “ignite” the public.

Another related category is marketing specialists. These can write ... Press releases. And we don’t need such hockey. Who is left? Right, the most ordinary software engineers. And it was just with them that the biggest catch was waiting for me. I found out…

10 reasons why a developer will not write on a corporate blog:

• I have a release, I have no time
• I do not know what to write about
• I'm not a writer, I know C ++, but in Russian I don’t really succeed
• real cool programmers don't read or write blogs. MSDN drives.
• I already have LJ (blogspot, my site), why do I need a corporate blog?
• what if I’m writing something wrong, and the authorities will punish me?
• if you write about what you’re not being punished for, readers will laugh
• my boss generally thinks that blogs are not serious
• Suppose I write, and then who will respond to comments?

I must say that all these fears are not unfounded. Can you imagine how long a typical programmer needs to post on one screen? Especially if this is his first post? Two days, no less. And then something like this may begin (by the way, good practice in live English).

Hope dies last, or “Give Us The Money, Lebowski!”

There remained one more category of people who posed the question in full: if I write a blog, how many people will read it? The eternal problem: no one writes - no one reads. No one reads - no one writes. Fairly, nobody wants to write for the sake of the process ...

Tips & Tricks - what it costs to launch a corporate blog.

It's too early to talk about the success of the Intel Software Network blog . But here are the few steps that helped move this almost hopeless business off the ground. If anyone has experience promoting corporate blogs - share it! I, in turn, am ready to share mine.

• tune in to slow, gradual growth. It’s available to tell your superiors that getting a return in 2-3 months is unrealistic
• work individually with each of the authors, up to co-writing the first few posts
• look for people who have LJ experience and creative inclinations
• attract youth as the most socially active layer
• launch any incentive program (for example, to award distinguished authors with a diploma at general meetings)
• regularly attend meetings of big bosses and methodically inspire the idea that a blog is a very useful thing for their product
• Collaborate with an experienced blogger or journalist. It will help to solve the problem of “chicken and eggs”
• Minimize pro-marketing posts. This scares readers away.
• publish internal How to and FAQ
• and of course, always, always respond to comments. Even if they are not very pleasant.

What came of it all can be seen here .

Good luck to all!