Three years on Habré. We share the experience of maintaining a corporate blog

Each of us saw exciting and solemn moments when, for example, communication is established with astronauts or with a satellite. People joyfully throw up their hands, sincerely and warmly smile, sometimes hug, especially if the event is significant. The LANIT team smiled, hugged, screamed, and pressed the Publish button 51 times with the mouse, wet from the sweat of their excited hands. February 2 marks the year we arrived at Habr. Emotions, experience, finds, fakapy, panic and a lot of positive - in our success story under the cut. All this will definitely be useful to those who want to rock their corporate blog on Habré, but don’t know how.

Why do we need this?

Until January 2017, Habrahabr and LANIT existed separately, although they had repeatedly heard about each other. Full-time acquaintance took place in the summer of 2016 at Habraseminar - the guys from TM spoke about the secrets of working with blogs and comments, and three of our activists listened and took a direct part in the discussion. I must say that from the outside it sounds very simple: write often, write well, comment, do not be silent, love the user as yourself, and everything will be fine. Having received a maximum of information and glowing with new ideas, the LANIT team returned to the office and thought about the need for Habr. It remains to understand why. There were several options.

• Talk about our projects and attract potential customers, generate leads and even make sales.
  
• Showcase your best practices.
  
• Search for new people on the team.
  
• To form and maintain the image of the company.
  

Nothing unusual - many companies come to the resource with just such goals. However, all this seemed to us somehow ... soulless. I wanted more than just a formal blog - I wanted a dialogue with users, discussion, interest, emotions. So, we forget about lead generation, leave sales to professional salespeople and decide that we will just talk about our projects, interesting implementations, large-scale construction projects and pleasant little things in the daily office life of a company of 9000 people. The only "selfish" goal that we left is to search for people in our team. We always need them: trainees and seniors, javists and devops, analysts and managers. So now we will leave this link here - if interested, write, call and come!

On the one hand, the preparation of texts for Habr is a point of growth for our specialists who increase their expert status when writing articles. On the other hand, this is an opportunity to clearly demonstrate that ONLANTA and LANIT Group of Companies are a serious school for all technical specialists and it is prestigious and promising to become part of our team.

Sergey Taran, General Director of ONLANTA

A journey of thousands of kilometers begins with the first step

When we came to the general concept of the blog, we had two options for starting: to gasp an article about the GIS housing and communal services and immediately get a shaft of a variety of comments, or first "probe" the ground. It was decided to start with a “Habrovian”, but moderate topic, and on February 2, 2017, we published our first article, “Hyperconverged Platforms: From Exotics to the Mainstream,” by experienced author Habr and our KorP employee .

The first comment made us understand: this is Habr, baby, you can’t easily get over here. Representatives of one of the vendors ran in and launched an attack based somewhere on facts, somewhere on sophistry, somewhere on aggression. We were ready for this - we answered as discreetly, professionally and honestly as possible. After 46 comments, the fights subsided, and we saw the result: rating +32, 56 add to favorites, 9,600 views. Such indicators inspired the team to exploits.


The screenshot of our first article is the first three lines on the Habré.

And exactly one week later we published the article How to make housing and communal services so that it is a GIS , which has become the most commented on in the annual history of our blog. From this moment, the experience began, which we share with everyone in this article.

Habr statistics - a stubborn thing

Votes - Pros and Cons of Rating

These are the most exciting and the very first figures faced by users who posted a publication on Habré. It is they who almost completely determine the fate of the article on the site, since they are responsible for accessing the main page. When we started, there was a section "Interesting" on Habré - all publications that got +5 got into it. In our opinion, it was very convenient and competent - many useful and necessary articles fell into the “Interesting” section, since +5 is not such a high threshold. But a few months later, “Interesting” was removed and a fierce struggle began for the main page, which, in descending order of rating, included the 10 most-most articles. And the rating of the bottom article may be +12, or maybe +29. It’s very difficult to get to such a threshold, and, alas, we have often noticed sensible publications on relevant topics, who could not get to the main page and did not receive well-deserved coverage (and readers did not get any benefit). However, it’s our business to accept the rules, and the reader’s advice is to look at the “Everything in a row” feed, there is a lot of really cool stuff.

For ourselves, we found another opportunity to talk with people who are interested in their own development, in methods of effective development in adulthood, with those who follow the experience of other companies, successful projects and the details of their implementation.

Julia Shikova, director of the training center "Network Academy LANIT"

As you can see, the range of topics is huge, and there is no universal recipe for how to make a rating article. It seems to us that even a neural network will not be able to identify patterns that will be guaranteed to bring the publication to the top. Nevertheless, we have identified several laws of success.

What to write about? About what they will definitely read

• Write as honestly as possible about what you know. Habr users are mainly professionals and will quickly figure out your exaggerated expertise or a translation cleverly disguised as copyright material.
  
• If you have live stories from development, implementations, or at least scrum rallies - write about them longrid: with photos, first-person quotes, emotions, mistakes and good luck. Real cases are very appreciated by readers (which was worth only our photos with white bears !).
  

Umka exists and conveys snowy frosty greetings to the readers of Habr

• If you have information about unique conferences or professional solutions, write about them. You may not get a single comment, but views, ratings and favorites will become eloquent evidence of the interest of hardcore IT people in the topic.
  
• If there is a holivarian and valuable topic for Habr, open it and publish an article - you will receive a shaft of comments. Yes, your team (especially the author) will wake up at night for the first day (the author will not fall asleep at all) and update the Habr to see what they wrote to you, but it's worth it.
  
• If you have an interesting and unique topic, which seems to be not quite for Habr, but it is amazing, write to me - readers will appreciate it. In fact, there is no topic that is not for Habr - just try to find the very IT thread that will twist your story and appeal to the entire audience, including those coming from the search.
  

These are not all secrets. We pass to a new indicator and look for insights in it.

Views

This is another figure around which the impression of the publication as a whole is built. Perhaps there is no other such IT resource where you can get 5-7 thousand views and be unhappy, because a figure less than 10 thousand is not serious. Habr really gives a lot of views. Of course, not a single author would be so naive as to think that all these 10 thousand enjoyed his masterpiece from the first letter to the last, but you must admit that even 10% of full readings from this value are not bad. But we have inspirational statistics: readings of articles on our blog, according to the Mediator, over 40% of the number of views.

Factors that influence views complement the principles described above.

• An interesting and lively topic will get its views, even if for some reason it does not come to the main (although much smaller).
  
• Comments affect views - readers see that they are commenting on the article and open to see what caused the discussion and whether or not to participate in it.
  
• Three “showcase” whales of the article influence the views — the headline, KDPV and the doc text (for PR specialists and other media fraternities - the lead paragraph). The title should reflect the theme, but be interesting, catchy and even challenging in form or a joke (for example, the headline of AliExpress brain sounds more interesting than How AliExpress and Fibrum made 11.11 virtual. But you could get by with the press-release boring version of Startup Fibrum develops VR solution for AliExpress retailer) KDPV (a picture to attract attention) should stand out from the tape - it can be live photos of the project, funny suitable images, photoshop and even memes (be careful with them) - anything but a licked clipart and stock photo. The docitive text should be capacious, conveying the topic, preserving the intrigue and compelling to read further.
  

Comments

Comments are no longer just a number. This is the point of contact between the company and readers. Users can be different: grateful, experienced, truthful, deceitful, fierce, etc. It can be your competitors, customers, employees and just those who are interested in the topic. Working with comments is a tense and serious work, you need to answer for the words in them in the same way as you are responsible for every word in your publication. Let's be honest: you can’t do without negativity. When working with comments, follow a few rules.

• Communicate correctly, do not follow the opponents' lead.
  
• If possible, respond to all comments.
  
• Answer fully and fully.
  
• Do not forget to approve the comments that users write in Read & Comment mode (well, if they are adequate, of course. Sometimes something strange, spammy, frankly rude).
  

And another point, it is quite specific to us, but still worth mentioning about it. Some commentators associate the company with the operation of the product itself (for example, someone’s account was not loaded in the GIS utilities or Aliexpress did not deliver the package, but LANIT is to blame, which they write to him in the comments). In such cases, it is worth correctly and persistently rejecting the claim, making it clear that you are outside the field of this question. Do not engage in polemics and do not try to restore justice - for this there are responsible people in their places.


This we respond to comments on a post about GIS housing and communal services

The general advice is this: do not be formal, talk as if you were communicating live. And remember: humor is a double-edged, but effective weapon with amazing amazing ability. Good irony can nullify the toughest negative.

Adding to Favorites

This is not so critical, but a very significant indicator. If your article is added to Favorites, it means that it has caused interest. Yes, it can be read later, forwarded, returned to it as necessary, but the fact remains that it interested readers.

Social networks are not an indicator, but a marker

As soon as your publication is gaining +6, it can appear in the Habr’s publics on VKontakte (which is 750 thousand subscribers) and on Facebook (110 thousand subscribers). Firstly, from these posts readers will come to your article on Habr, and secondly, this is another front where it is worth tracking the reaction and comments (including texts accompanying user reposts). As a rule, VKontakte activity is many times higher, but if you already shot Facebook, then consider the article a success.

What you need to remember when working with social networks (according to our feelings).

• This is a completely different audience - not Khabrovsky. Accordingly, the manner of communication can cross all borders.
  
• Often, commentators judge your article only by the picture and title, which means they can draw false conclusions and write completely off topic.
  
• Reposts and likes can be the merit of a picture or a high-profile topic.
  
• Narrowly thematic materials on social networks go badly.
  
• The article can be rewarded by the huge communities that will bring your article on Habré a shaft of views, but this is a lottery that cannot be influenced.
  

Winning chips

In this section we will list the most valuable secrets obtained by the keyboard and megabytes of articles. Take on arms, use, become better, but do not forget that each company is unique and able to find its own brand chip.

• Habr is the optimal platform to support the image of an IT company and broadcast corporate values. We know that many companies go to Habr for HR PR, in other words, they are looking for employees to join their team. So, you need to show not only technology, but also the work of the team from the inside, to demonstrate corporate culture. For example, we specially for Habrahabr shot a presentation video LANIT, in which we talked about the team as a whole and showed a little office.
  

Later, we ventured to post a story about how corporate parties are held: the company's birthday and New Year's. Honestly, we were very worried, but, as it turned out, in vain - users positively evaluated our experience. And we were pleased to throw interesting ideas to the HR services of other companies - well, where else, if not on Habré, to write about how to entertain hardcore IT people.


The department of eternal youth and the department of linear happiness - it's all LANIT

• A variety of topics is the key to user interest. The more aspects of the company’s activities you cover, the higher the interest in the company, its versatile experience. Be sure to publish both product, image, and even offtopic articles - this way you create really cool content and shift focus from the advertising (if you have one) component.
  
• It’s very difficult to get subscribers, but you can get constant interest. This is insanely sad when the blog has vibrant articles with many comments, and the number of subscribers is barely growing. We noticed that there are fans who do not subscribe, but, for example, constantly comment on articles. So the audience’s interest should not be evaluated only by subscribers, although you definitely need to strive for their growth - the pool of fans will help you start more efficiently with each publication.
  
• To be in good shape, you need to strive to be on the first page in the list of companies. We were in seventh place, constantly holding the top twenty, but the constant updating of the rating regularly rolls the company back to its previous positions, and everyone in this race once discovers that all successes burned out at one moment.
  

We theoretically understood what “pessimization of the Habraindex” was, but we really felt this cunning, secret algorithm process only a month after the first highly rated article was published. When the rating did not fall as planned, but from about the height to which a particularly popular article raised us, we urgently stepped up and supported the positions with additional posts.

Our conclusion is that if you want to hold positions, you need to write at least once a week and keep the current total monthly rating no lower than the total rating of the previous month with an eye to what the rating neighbors write, because their publications, of course, also affect position in the top corporate blogs. Ideally, you need to prepare at least one potentially powerful article per month. If you adhere to this principle, you will get all the profits: the rating, and interest, and views, and stable traffic to the site.


This is our team sad that the company’s blog has few subscribers

• Do not be afraid to be bold: you need to experiment with pictures, headlines, forms. For example, we used fairy tales, science fiction, and the genre of photo essay in publications. Ahead we have a few more experiments with forms and serving. There is only one condition: carefully prepare for any new products. Tip: look at the blogs of other companies and user articles, they can find a lot of insights.
  

Employees of large companies will learn about successes on projects, having familiarized themselves with the materials on Habré. The materials are juicy, interesting, with lots of illustrations / photos. This makes it possible to “touch on success” for those employees who either did not participate in these projects (or even outside of the project activity (back office)).

Andrey Bedran, Technical Director of LANIT-Integration

We tried to show the project as the direct participants saw it.

• There is no need to panic and despair if the rating has not reached the desired indicators or there are no comments. Your article will never be left unattended - for a long time people from search and Habr users will contact it, and you will be able to see clicks to your site.
  
• Do not be afraid to write honestly. Remember: if you write this way, you already win a lot. It so happens that a company, fearing competitors, constantly uncovers something in articles, hides it, tells a third or half.
  

We show the whole process from the very beginning when traces of cleft paws can still be found around the future stadium.

Of course, these are the most universal things that will suit different companies. But almost every corporate blog has its own secrets, secrets and chips that distinguish it from others, make it unique. The main thing is to have your face on Habré.

Those without whom this article would not have been

The most important thing is that people are behind the blog.

• Авторы — в нашем случае это сотрудники компании, которые создают тексты в рамках своих профессиональных компетенций, терпят сотни правок, вносят изменения, учатся и набираются опыта вместе в нами. Их нужно любить, лелеять и поощрять. Мы благодарим наших лучших авторов:
  Егора Савочкина Savochkin
  Якова Шуваева 91koff
  Илью Сазонова Poxvuibr
  Дмитрия Изместьева DmitryI
  Евгения Елизарова KorP
  Сергея Соловьева Folow13
  Евгения Вирцера Virtser
  Сергея Михалева Sirgun5000
  Константина Коточигова Crazyhatter
  Артема Просветова Art_pro
  Романа Свитича Raccooon
  Георгия Касаткина GKasatkin
  
• Внутренняя редакция — сформированная группа людей, которые снимают с авторов работу по согласованию, корректуре (обязательно исправляйте ошибки!), вычитке и т.д. Эта же команда помогает работать с комментариями и координирует всю работу.
  
• Менеджеры контент-студии Хабра, которые проводят обучение, семинары, помогают верстать и дают дельные советы во время публикации.
  

Together, they create a large team that fills the blog with interesting publications. The main thing in this process is understanding the topic, techno-thinking and complete trust in each other.
That was our first year on Habré. Total on January 29th (when this text was written): a total rating of 1,835, 1,768 comments, 3,014 favorites and 632,421 views. Kilometers of nerves, a centner of adrenaline, hundreds of smiles, a couple of grams of panic and despair, a close-knit team of real heroes. We don’t know how you are, but we continue.



So we look in a year. It's only the beginning!
By the way, you can join our team .