Team Blogging at Southwest: Making a Group of 30 Work for One Blog
There has been lots of debate on whether or not a corporation can build a blog that has many contributors.
As we all know blogging takes a lot of time, and so many companies want to do a blog, but they are intimidated by the resources it takes.
I host a show for PodTech called Marketing Voices, and I wanted to discover team blogs that have made it work. I spoke to Paula Berg, PR manager of Southwest Airlines, who has been managing the corporate blog for some time. It has been really successful, and they have more than 30 contributors, all of whom are making it work because they don't have to blog daily or weekly, but quarterly.
Additionally, the Southwest employees represent all functions of the company--pilots, flight attendants, operations --and they have a passion for what they do. In my opinion, that is why it works, the passion for what they do shines through in what they write.
They don't have to contribute unless they want to. Paula told me not all the people are great writers but their styles work and minor editing is all that is required.
Any more team blogs that people know about that are successful?
I enlisted 25 bloggers who already blog on topics related to home, office and life organization and the result is a lively community that is driving traffic and sales to the company blog.
You're right that an editor is an important component, and so is user-generated content.
This blog is a team blog...it's easy to forget that MarketingProfs--because it's such a core part of the marketing community--is a company, but it is.
And Ann has compiled a team of many that contribute and keep the conversation varied, stimulating and fresh (and she surprises us with new contributors all the time). I offer it up as I actually point many clients, colleagues and prospects to this example all the time and show that sometimes, in rare cases, a company can be at the heart of a community (it's very rare, though).
Marketing Profs is an awesome example of a team blog. Clutter Control Freak I just checked it out and it is a great example too. Thanks for weighing in.
Our company iRise is doing a team blog (http://www.irise.com/blog) with about 10 bloggers currently. In addition, we have done live-blogging from our user conference and a couple of conferences in the last 2 months, and these have proven to be quite successful too as a way to generate blog posts. The team is cross-functional and includes members from Marketing, Alliances and Strategic Projects.
Comments
I created Clutter Control Freak http://cluttercontrolfreak.com for a company called Stacks & Stacks.
I enlisted 25 bloggers who already blog on topics related to home, office and life organization and the result is a lively community that is driving traffic and sales to the company blog.
You're right that an editor is an important component, and so is user-generated content.
Posted by: B.L Ochman | 11.20.07
This blog is a team blog...it's easy to forget that MarketingProfs--because it's such a core part of the marketing community--is a company, but it is.
And Ann has compiled a team of many that contribute and keep the conversation varied, stimulating and fresh (and she surprises us with new contributors all the time). I offer it up as I actually point many clients, colleagues and prospects to this example all the time and show that sometimes, in rare cases, a company can be at the heart of a community (it's very rare, though).
Posted by: CK | 11.20.07
My favourite team blog is Verity Credit Union: http://blog.veritycu.com/
Posted by: benry | 11.21.07
Marketing Profs is an awesome example of a team blog. Clutter Control Freak I just checked it out and it is a great example too. Thanks for weighing in.
Posted by: jennifer jones | 11.25.07
Thank you for your kind words, Jennifer
Posted by: Allen Weiss
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11.25.07
Our company iRise is doing a team blog (http://www.irise.com/blog) with about 10 bloggers currently. In addition, we have done live-blogging from our user conference and a couple of conferences in the last 2 months, and these have proven to be quite successful too as a way to generate blog posts. The team is cross-functional and includes members from Marketing, Alliances and Strategic Projects.
Posted by: Tom Humbarger | 11.27.07