John Battelle to Corporations: You’re Publishers Now
Had a conversation the other day with search, blog advertising, and Web 2.0 guru John Battelle about his upcoming session at the Blog Business Summit. We were working to find the intersection between what we’re both hearing from companies that want to tap into the new marketing model, and what his experience has been. John will be submitting his session details to me in a few days for posting, but I thought I’d share my thoughts of what we discussed.
Some of the key conclusions from the conversation were:
* We are transitioning from a CPM world to a conversational one. The shotgun approach to marketing is being replaced by a model more akin to a laser beam.
* Search has been a major catalyst for the changes we’re seeing in media. Many companies are creating blogs in order to improve their positions in search engine rankings. Podcasts and video creations are also discovered predominately via search.
* Guess what. You used to just sell widgets, you’re now a media company too. Companies not only now have the ability to propagate audio, video, and text worldwide — they also have the obligation to do so (if they want to stay competitive.)
* Corporations are finally embracing blogging. What we’ve been calling the “fear of blogging” is rapidly vanishing.
* If you are going to start blogging as a company, the first step is find the bloggers. Forget (for now) what software you’re going to use, or how you’ll host your blog(s). First you need to find passionate, talented people that want to post regularly.
I’ll have more information on each point as we get closer to the conference.
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Oh, we’ll keep it hot enough so some traces of fear and loathing shall remain. That’s to ward off the threadjackers and con artists.
Direct response marketing and WOM have been lasers for decades.
It’s true that all web sites, including blogs, must evolve to multi hyper media. Text must be accompanied by photos, podcasts, enhanced sidebar functionalities, and video.
Especially for CEO bloggers, video. To more fully personalize and humanize the blog, to reach out and, via immersive haptic effluvial embodiment telepresencing, TOUCH someone.
Sad shame that a company would imagine it had to HIRE people who are passionate bloggers. There are already bloggers at every company. Find one that is gung ho about the company, it products, how the products benefit customers, and let them have a little official blog for the company.
Sad shame. It’s the CEO who should be the most passionate, most enlightened and visionary, most aggressively experimental and explorative.
It must be Business As Unusual, or perish. Video blogging is the royal road to intimate customer conversation and online brand loyalty.
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