To blog or not to blog?
“Should we start a blog”? is the first question I’m often asked when consulting with companies on new media. So here’s the short answer – no, don’t feel you *should*.
Setting up a blog for your CEO is not the only step towards social media activity. A good campaign can engage via a range of online media, from forums to Facebook. Just setting up senior execs with profiles on LinkedIn could be a great step in using new media for business benefits.
More importantly you can’t blog in isolation. What I mean by that is a blog is not a soapbox for your CEO to regurgitate corporate messaging. Social media is, well, social. Web 2.0 allows people to interact and engage in two-way, three-way, 100-way + conversations about topics they’re mutually interested in.
There’s many good reasons to start a company blog, almost as many as why you shouldn’t start one. Sometimes something as simple as a webcam can have a far greater reach than trying to talk about the company’s annual results - see Ceddarvision.tv
Before writing you need to listen first.
Viral campaigns - the secrets of their success
If the criteria for a successful viral campaign is…
- Reach a massive audience who have shared the viral, increasing exposure exponentially
- Creatively engage with consumers beyond traditional direct marketing campaigns
- Provide ROI far beyond what perhaps traditional media/marketing campaigns could achieve for the same amount
…then a viral campaign can work well.
What brands forget when planning these ideas is that a viral effect is hard to manufacture. We can’t guarantee what will work any more than we can exactly predict the outcomes of a marketing or PR campaign – at least with PR/marketing there is established methodology to follow.
It’s important to understand that a viral is not just a cheap advertising campaign broadcasting on the internet. Although really popular ad campaigns can translate well to online activity; Sony Bravia a good example.
Most virals, whether email chains, image round-ups or a video clip tend to come about spontaneously and be funny in some way. Deciding in advance what a large audience will deem funny and worth sharing is hard. If there was an exact formula no one would ever suffer through an open mic night again.
(more…)
