Join Me in Snarkville

Business Blog Case Studies: Yvonne DiVita, Susan Getgood & Toby Bloomberg lead a rap session with you, the BlogHers, about what worked (and what didn’t) when implementing blogs for business.

Session Notes:

Please note that I am typing during this session. I expect a blanket forgiveness on any spelling, grammar, or nonsense mistakes. I may come back and clean this up and add any content in the “post production” of this entry. If I have anything to say that isn’t part of the
live-blogging itself (read: my personal running commentary), I will note it by the italics.

The BlogHer staff requested that today’s presentations not have powerpoints, so I will do my best to share what is going on, but I should let you know that there is a podcast of every session so if you want the details, I’d go to the powerpoint.

Link goodness: www.getgood.com/blogher/index4blogher.htm There is a document of all the URLs from the blogs — I will NOT be linking to them.

Why this session: Because from experience the audience knows as much or more than panels — so this is an unpanel.

45 minutes of the Case Studies: 5 minutes each on 7 case studies.

Second half of the session: Share information/Attempt to build “best practices” then the notes will be turned into a document.

Case Study #1: Toby: Began with group message.

Tim Jackson began a blog called MASI guy blog. Worked for a company that makes high end racing bikes. With no budget he looked to engage people with the emotion behind the brand. In short order, his own personality came out. Mistakes were owned and he allowed controversity. Tim became a celeb in the vertical because of the risks he took. The passion in the blog re-kindled the flame on the brand again. Retail shop had a computer up with the blog up at all times. Challenges to keep up with the blog and keep pace with it and management doesn’t get it. And finally keeping his personality real.

Case Study #2: Yyonne:

Surprise working one: Business blogging boot camps. 6-10 people intro to blogging and in the afternoon they build a blog. A guy wrote a book about personal stories about fathers who have passed away. Needed a way to get in it out in front of people. A few months later, his blog was coming up on page one in Google. He got an intern to help him. Not a visual appealing, but it works. Then his wife a photog built her blog.

Not working so well: Book called “Know your Bones” Build a blog to try to sell lots of copies of her book. How much time do you really have? “A look at today’s fractured health system” Her medical practice interfered; she wasn’t posting much; not many comments. Scheduling posts to go up later. Now, her husband has come onboard and the blog is just sitting there.

Case Study #3: Jody of AskPatty (but Jody is not Patty)

Ask Patty is a help women buy a car and have a positive experience. (80% of complaints about the car buying process). Stragety was to reach out to bloggers who are more women. Begin an intimate conversation. Appealing to have women experts. Common ground for dealers and women can meet to make the enhance the experiences. Problems: Not expecting explosion of traffic to the site — so bandwidth is a problem. New blog — launched 5/21. Not Prepared for the e-mailed questions. Need more developer tools.

Case Studies #4: Heather Web Hosting

Moved our business to a blog. The business is the blog. Didn’t work: Static pages were not working. Comments didn’t work in this part. Search engines wasn’t working. Closed down the comments and opened up forums. Increase in hits which also helped. Tagging helped the search engines.

Case Studies #5: Firefly diapers

Business is to extend the world for customers. Create a context for product for organic cloth diapers. Use the blog to respond to questions. Goal was to tie the company into the commiunity. Keep the blog professional is key. “They give me crazy and I give back calm.” high value content. Rules, not chatty; no children names or information; no personal information; no nasty talk. It has been hard to keep my personal life out of the blog. Doing what she likes online — informative lecture. Kept a posting schedule. What hasn’t worked: since it is just me, posts aren’t as frequent. Posting daily ended. comments haven’t worked. Less e-mail newsletters or full length articles in the site. Works very hard to personalize a global issue.

Case Study #6: Average Jane for the Lee Jean

Goal was “do something online”; but came up with doing a blog as a giant from a commerical. Worked hard to keep it very obvious that this was humor. Did lots of research, including finding out that there is a fetish about this. By the end “that was the audience.” Backdating posts didn’t work because people don’t read archives. Ran out of ideas to posts. This was entertainment. And it was fun.

Case Study #7: Research on Fake Blogs

Link goodness: www.sumofmyparts.org/blogher.htm

People get freaked out when the blogger turns out to be someone not who they really are. 90% of authors provide name. 54% give details. Blogging fictionally is considered taboo. Is Blogging journalism? People demand credibility. Blogs are really a subjective medium.

Sum up: if you block your ID you may think you are safe, but you are not.

Drawing from own experiences: What Works and What Didn’t:

It Worked:

Owens-corning wanted “pink panther” to do the blog. It isn’t the most popular blog without comments. But to them this is popular and a greatest experience. But now they want MORE.

Change the “blog” language. Pull “comments” and change to something more real.

Character blogs, may not be loved of A list bloggers, but they can work.

It Didn’t:

Character Blogs: Wanted to launch a blog by a horse that was going to die in a year.

Question:

What type of business does comments work? (No answer was really given)

How do you blog about when things go wrong? Advice: Don’t start one when something goes wrong. Otherwise it is a crisis blog. Tell the truth. Make the customer affected problem information out as fast as possible. Start small and be ready to make mistakes. Own errors and put it up quickly even if it is just we are looking into it.

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