One of the biggest areas that most company blogs seem to struggle with, is how to position its content. The natural inclination for many companies is to use a blog as strictly a promotional vehicle. But of course, readers are looking for information and content that will inform and entertain them.
And that usually means they expect a blog to be something more than simply a company’s online brochure.
I recently spent some time examining Dell’s blog Direct2Dell for my latest Company Blog Checkup.
In examining Direct2Dell, I found the blog did a fair job of positioning its content with the reader in mind. A decent mix of posts about the company, the technologies behind its products, and larger industry issues.
But I also noticed that Direct2Dell links to IdeaStorm on its sidebar. IdeaStorm is a site that Dell launched earlier this year that gives visitors the ability to post ideas on how Dell can improve its existing products and processes, as well thoughts on what the company should be offering. Users then vote each idea up or down in a fashion very similar to Digg. It’s a wonderful idea, and a great way for Dell to give its current and potential customers a way to give the company invaluable feedback.
So why isn’t Dell incorporating entries from IdeaStorm, into its blog? Since IdeaStorm is formed by reader submissions, doesn’t it just make sense for Dell to post those ideas on its blog?
Dell could publish the most popular ideas on its blog, or even bring some of the most popular contributors in as writers for Direct2Dell. Who would better know what content Dell’s blog readers want to read, than the readers themselves?
I think this all goes back to having the mindset of positioning a blog’s content from the reader’s point of view. Giving IdeaStorm contributors the chance to post their ideas on Direct2Dell would suddenly make the blog much more popular and relevant to its readers. And it would help give the blog some of the personality that it seems to be lacking, currently.
Many companies are struggling with this same problem, how to make their blogs more popular and useful to its readers. Often times, the road to solving this problem starts by asking the question, “Who are you blogging for?”
Tags: Blogging, blogs, business, Dell, Mack_Collier, Marketing
Mack,
Good post!
Your recommendations apply to all forms of marketing materials: blogs, web sites, brochures, ads, and so on. Good marketing doesn’t talk about products and services first and foremost. Instead, every word should be directed at meeting customers’ wants and needs. Every word should anticipate and answer customer questions such as:
1. Why should I care about your business?
2. How do your products and services meet my wants and needs?
3. What will my shopping experience look like?
4. How do your products and services provide me with solutions? And so on.
Furthermore, customer comments about the business should be spread liberally throughout the content, such as comments on a blog.
Content should always be written about, to and for the reader (the who), not the business (the what).
This is a difficult concept for businesses to understand and even more difficult for them to execute.
Exactly Lewis. I think the case of a company blog, companies hear how they can use it as a ‘marketing tool’, and to them, that means as a tool to promote their products and services. So many simply migrate their website content over, and use a blog as a sort of collection of press release-type posts.
The key is to write with the reader in mind. Why give them the same information they could get from your main site?
Being relatively new to the world of Blog, it took me the longest time to figure out what Blog was. At first, I foolishly thought, it was a forum for those with something significant to say. After wading through blogs about people’s dogs, their like for donuts and what not – I was still confused. Seemed like blogging was just brain leakage put on the Internet.
Being the rebel I’ve always been – after all didn’t I start my own company 26 years ago rather than take the corporate route – I decided to blog on my site http://www.SeminarInformation.com. Try as hard as I could I couldn’t get my brain to leak – who cares about what I had for lunch – so I wildly tried to blog what I consider informational pieces – and lo and behold – not a person has read one. Soooooo….maybe I don’t know so much….now if someone could explain Wikipedia……
Hate to sound simplistic, but a blog needs to be marketed just like you market your business, products and services. Without marketing, there is no blog.
Mack: Do any of these blogs “syndicate in” content from other blogs? Not just asking users to supply feedback but actually go out and copy and credit posts that cite Dell on other blogs. That will likely freak a lot of companies out but it’s authentic feedback and it gives voice and promo to people who have taken the time to blog about Dell (good and bad) in the first place. This just makes a lot of sense to me. If they’re doing that already, pardon my redundant idea
.
Thanks for a great post–Dell offers you a BIG thank you, too!
we commented on Mack’s original blog and have invited him to join us for some brainstorming in austin. His ideas fit with several others we are working on so enjoy reading the commentary here…and thank you!!
Since running my post on Dell’s blog late last night, I can verify that that I’ve received numerous visits to The Viral Garden from Dell.com, and many of the visits came from a Technorati search for links to their blog, Direct2Dell.
So Dell is obviously closely monitoring what is being said about them in the blogosphere, which is of course a great sign. Also, both Richard and John from Dell stopped by to comment. Great signs that Dell is paying close attention to the online chatter about the company.
CK it doesn’t appear that they do. I did notice that Dell was linking to some IdeaStorm members and their posts.
Mack, I agree with many of your points, but not that Direct2Dell and IdeaStorm should necessarily be cross-fertilized. It all depends on the objectives of each site.
While I couldn’t find a stated objective of Direct2Dell, I suspect it’s quite different from that of IdeaStorm. The blog appears to be about providing information to Dell customers and prospects while IdeaStorm is more about collecting information from customers and prospects.
I like their link to IdeaStorm on the blog, as it’s clear that this site is for something different. I think that mixing them up too much will potentially cause confusion about what each site is all about and when and why customers and prospects should visit each site.
BTW, I critique IdeaStorm in my post “Dell’s Web 2.0 Effort Can Do Better”.
What do you think?
Glenn I think in simplified terms, if you look at Direct2Dell, it comes across as ‘This is what Dell wants to talk about’, then if you read IdeaStorm, it comes across as ‘this is what Dell’s customers want to talk about’. My thinking was, let’s find a way to get more exposure for Dell’s customers into the content on Dell’s blog.
Again, I don’t think the content on Direct2Dell is bad, in fact I think it’s fairly good. But I think finding a way to let the customers help shape that content, would make the entire blog much more interesting and relevant.
The impact Dell is facing courtesy the Consumer Generated media is eventually something that Dell needs to measure and understand. In a business universe where Customer Collaboration and Advocacy are the new found norms, it is time Dell wakes up to these new challenges to face its ‘EMPOWERED CONSUMERS’
Mack-
Great post. Just as Lewis says above that there is no blog without marketing, there is no Dell without customers.
Customer insight is not only valuable to the vendor , but can be even more valuable for the prospect/existing customer making a decision.
While I do agree with Glenn that the two sites seem to have different objectives, the blogosphere is not about excluding opinion. And there is a clear cut value to Dell’s existing/potential customers to be more actively exposed to both perspectives here.