Montreal Social Media

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My local chapter of the Canadian Marketing Association was presenting on April 23rd an event on corporate blogging. Louis Delage and Pascal Hébert were leading the presentation which quickly turned into a discussion about the best practices of corporate blogging. Here’s my notes, thoughts and other infos that I’ve added to their presentation:

Few corporate blogging cases worthed to study

blogging business case: Wal-Marting Across America
the story: Fake blog about two people RVing across the States (BusinessWeek’s coverage)
behind the blog: Wal-Mart and its PR firm Edelman.
main mistake: Edelman admits to “failing to be transparent about the identity of the two bloggers from the outset.”

blogging business case: The Zero Movement website
the story: Not only a fake blog, but a fake community supporting Coke’s new product (The Age’s coverage)
main mistake: no mention of Coke’s involvement
more on the topic: Coke does it again and Coke Lies, Misleads With Fake ‘Zero’ Blog

blogging business case: GM FYI blog
the story: NY Times’s columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, wrote that GM is “more dangerous to America’s future” than any other company, is “like a crack dealer” addicting helpless Americans to SUVs…
the right reply: While failing to publish their response in the paper, GM used their blog to push their version of the story
behind the blog: staff and friends of GM, including Brian Akre who wrote the famous post
more on the topic: GM’s Tom Wilkinson Engages In Epic “Battle Of The Toms” and Corporate Blogging Pays For GM

blogging business case: blogs.sun.com
the story: Sun is said to promote employee blogging more than any other technology firm and is the largest company with a CEO who blogs.
the question answered: Q:”Why does Sun’s CEO waste time writing that blog?” A: Because I believe in providing clarity surrounding our strategy and operations - not just once a year in the Annual Report. I believe clarity behind our direction is useful for our shareholders, customers, partners and employees (taken from Jonathan’s blog).
more on the topic: Corporate blogging done right

blogging business case: Dell Hell
the story: A consumer named Jeff Jarvis uses his weblog to expose his own personal problems dealing with Dell. The company ignored the writer until the story became a phenomenon over the net.
More on the story: My Dell Hell (Guardian)and Dell Learns to Listen on Business Week
the results: Dell has now an important place for blogging on their site Direct2Dell for products and services + Dell Shares for investors but more important, the company has opened the discussion with their customers.

As seen, corporate blogging brings a lot a opportunities but surely a lot of questions. If you read spanish I will strongly suggest you to take a look at Siete preguntas antes de arrancar su blog corporativo. Here’s few of these questions that you will face when business blogging: Do I need a corporate blog?, Who should blog?, Is transparency possible when blogging?, Is ghostwritting acceptable? and more. Have a nice post !