Tag Archives: Blogging

A new look for Mengel Musings

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If you’re reading this post in a feed reader, stop! Click over to the site right now and check out my new design. I purchased the Thesis theme for WordPress about a month ago and have been mired in CSS and PHP mods for the last month trying to come up with a fresh look for the site. I’m pretty happy with the result and I hope you all like it.

In addition to wanting to upgrade to a theme that allowed for more flexibility and customization and better SEO, I also wanted to give the blog a more professional look as I start to take on more freelance work and consulting projects. I’ve rearranged my work schedule such that I have more time for these kinds of opportunities now, so you’ll notice the consulting tab above. If your organization could benefit from some brainstorming on marketing, PR or social media strategies, please contact me (there’s a tab for that, too).

I’ve also spelled-out a comment policy and moved the site’s archive from the sidebar to its own page. The SMB-TV link above is where I’ll continue to post updates about Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley (I’m close to nailing down the details of our second SMB).

So what do you think? Take a look around and let me know how else I can improve.

Thanks for coming along with me on this blogging adventure for the last six months. I appreciate all the comments, feedback, tweets, links and just general love. You guys are the best!

A little less conversation, a lot more discussion

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Is there any ideal more vaunted in the blogosphere than this notion of The Conversation? Creating one, participating in one, shaping one… Gah! Stop! My malarkey meter is buzzing. Is “conversation” even useful?

Conversation is definitely happening on blogs. If I think about the many blogs I read regularly, most of them feature conversation, but not discussion. Don’t think there’s a difference? Let’s bring in old Noah Webster:

con⋅ver⋅sa⋅tion

-noun; the informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc., by spoken words; oral communication between persons; talk; colloquy. The ability to talk socially with others.

dis⋅cus⋅sion

-noun; an act or instance of discussing; consideration or examination by argument, comment, etc., esp. to explore solutions; informal debate.

Semantics, maybe, but what’s present in the definition of discussion that’s lacking in that of conversation is the element of argument and debate.

Most of the blog comments I read are along the lines of “great post!” or “LOVE your thoughts here, so true!” It’s more rampant with the big-name bloggers some readers are trying to cozy up to. David Spinks’ post from last month hit on the idea of people being overly complimentary just to conform to a community.

Few social media or marketing blogs I read seem to really be able to drum up discussion — actual debate in search of solutions — and not just conversation. (Beth Harte’s blog is pretty good at it.) I’m not sure if it’s because the blog authors themselves are too “safe” with topics and don’t offer posts that inspire debate, or if the commenters are afraid of offending the blogger or other commenters. To our credit, most of us “social media types” comment with a real name and URL attached, which makes us more accountable for our thoughts and words. But does it matter if you stand by what you say if you’re really not saying anything?

Before you go all “she who casts the first stone” on me, I’ll readily admit that I am not often one to dig in with debate or discussion on a blog post. If I disagree with a post, I’m just as likely to not comment at all versus commenting critically. I’ve never been an argumentative person or a debater. Some of it is not wanting to “offend” the blogger or community. Some of it is self-doubt as to whether my opposing view is “right” or not. I’m relatively new to this portion of the interwebs and I don’t always feel like I’ve gained the knowledge or credibility to be able to articulate my position and criticize the ideas of people who’ve been doing this for much longer than I have. I need to do better at articulating and sharing my opinions, even if they’re different. I need to discuss, not just converse.

People want to be liked. An easy way to achieve this is to never say anything contrarian. But that’s also not how people come to understand different points of view and create solutions together. I’d even argue that most bloggers would prefer comments that challenge their views and make them think differently than a chorus of “me, too!” voices. Brain wrinkles are good, folks.

So let’s all shoot for a little less conversation and a little more discussion, eh?

Why Lee Aase is Mayo Clinic’s Social Media MacGyver

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It’s no secret that Lee Aase and the Mayo Clinic have embraced social media. Blogging, podcasting, YouTube… you name it and they’ve experimented with it, and in most cases been successful. I was fortunate enough to sit in on Lee’s session at the 2009 Ragan Corporate Communications Conference: “The $4 a week online newsroom and other MacGyver Tips.”

maclee

Lee (who is much taller in real life than expected) was kind enough to post his presentation to his blog. He shared simple secrets for quickly and effectively building a social media presence. While a lot of the tools he shared weren’t necessarily new, the reasons for using them in certain ways and the approach taken at the Mayo Clinic were what really got me thinking. Here are a few examples:

1. The Mayo Clinic has three blogs, and all are hosted at WordPress.com. They pay ~$10 a year to repoint the domain name to a mayoclinic.org site. My initial thought was, “Why aren’t they using WordPress.org and self-hosting the blog?” After all, it offers far more in the way of plugins, themes and features. (Click here for a quick explanation of the difference between these two platforms.) But Lee made a few great points. By hosting with WordPress.com, his team doesn’t have to go through the clinic’s corporate IT department. They don’t have to deal with firewalls, internal servers or just generally bogged down IT processes. Secondly, hosting the blogs on WordPress.com brings them more traffic. The Mayo Clinic blogs are often featured on the front/login page of WordPress.com, allowing many people to discover the blog that way. WordPress.com also has fairly simple analytics built in to the platform, so no one on their staff needs to go in-depth learning the ins and outs of Alexa or Google Analytics. And by repointing the domain name, they preserve the ability to eventually move to a different platform and not lose all of their search ranking.
Key Takeaway: Don’t always opt for the most advanced tool. Pick simple tools that reduce entry barriers allow you to get started.

2. With an existing “Medical Edge” radio show, the Mayo Clinic was already in the habit of content creation. It converted this show to a podcast and pushed it out through its blog. It’s also easier for busy doctors to record audio or video than it is to get them to write out a blog post. With a $150 Flip Video camera, Lee and his staff can interview doctors and researchers and post excerpts to the blog quickly and with minimal editing. There’s no need to invest in expensive A/V equipment and the training required for communications team members to use it.
Key Takeaway: Use existing content to ease your organization into social media. Find out the easiest way to get people to contribute (audio, video, writing) so that they’ll be more willing to participate.

3. “Don’t just pitch the media, be the media.” Lee agreed that this was somewhat overstated, but essentially the Mayo Clinic is creating its own content and that content is driving interest from traditional, mainstream media. The Mayo Clinic’s news blog has become a place for journalists to access information on Mayo Clinic research, publications, public health experts and patient stories. Lee’s even been successful with keeping certain posts embargoed and only accessible to journalists before releasing to the public. The content that the clinic creates and shares on its social media outposts has been picked up by national news outlets including CBS and the Wall Street Journal. Videos posted to The Mayo Clinic’s branded YouTube channel have been published online alongside news stories. Having so much rich content available in so many forms (blogs, audio, video) makes the media relations team’s job that much easier – in many cases the journalists are calling them to ask about content that’s been posted.
Key Takeaway: Create and share your organizations own original content. Make it interesting so that journalists will want to know more. Develop content in a variety of formats so that any outlet can use it.

Lee’s presentation really emphasized that social media can be pretty simple. Don’t complicate things. Pick tools that let you get started right away, use content that’s already at your disposal, and offer it up in a variety of formats that make it easier for reporters and customers to gobble up.

For more goodness from Lee, enroll in his Social Media University, Global, and become a Smuggle!

Ragan Recap: Communications, Chicago-style

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chicagoI’m so exhausted after three days in Chicago that I can barely stay awake to write this post. I took in slightly more information than I did beer in the Windy City (but not by much) and want to share my impressions of the 2009 Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference and some of what I learned in the sessions.

A few of the sessions I attended were so outstanding that they warrant their own individual posts that will come later this week (stay tuned). The others were quite solid. I predominantly went to workshops on the PR/Marketing Communications track. Here’s a rundown of some of my favorites:

ComEd: Generating positive publicity when the lights are on

ComEd Communications Manager Jeff Burdick led this session and started with a slide that said: “99.95% of the time, you DO have power!” But of course, that’s not what customers want to hear during an outage. The average customer is only without power for a total of four hours in a given year. Obviously storm and outage communication is a major issue for utility companies, but during the rest of the time when everything’s buzzing along, how do they generate interest? ComEd focuses on pitching stories about reliability and infrastructure investments, its employees, environmental projects, and corporate citizenship. ComEd targets local TV news and smaller, community-based newspapers (many of which aren’t suffering and closing at the rate of large metropolitan dailies).
Key takeaway: Look for “Riches in the Niches” and leverage unique, local angles in stories. Don’t always focus on the largest media outlets

Wells Fargo: Flexible communications in the face of merging organizations

Presented by Kathleen Golden, VP of Public Relations for Wells Fargo Wealth Management Group, this session focused on the 2008 acquisition of Wachovia by Wells Fargo and the associated communications challenges. When merging the leadership of two organizations, speculation runs rampant among employees and the media. Who’s getting what job? Who’s leaving, who’s staying? Why are they structuring the new company this way? Communicators in this situation have to have the pulse of what’s being said and address any misinformation as soon as possible. But, it’s okay to tell stakeholders that you don’t have the answers yet.
Key takeaway: Establish a process for both sides of a merger to share, receive and distribute information. Address rumor and specualtion as much as possible with the information you have on hand to diffuse any issues. Involve communications early on in the merger process.

Word of Mouth Marketing – Get customers talking about you

I was a bit disappointed in Andy Sernovitz’s session, mostly because I felt he didn’t share anything beyond what you could get from his book or blog. All of the examples he used were primarily B2C companies (Skittles, Zappos, Duct Tape), which I think generally lend themselves to more viral, word-of-mouth activities and campaigns. It can be much harder to get a bunch of supply chain managers to become rabid fans of plastic fasteners or concrete forms or raw chemicals. While Andy had some good tidbits here and there, I was bummed that I skipped some of the other sessions going on at this time (including Katie Paine’s) to go to this one.
Key takeaway: Make it easy for customers to talk about your brand. Create content that they can participate in and make their own, then share with their friends.

Calculating the ROI of your communications – turning results into dollars

Angela Sinickas offered ways to measure communications efforts and show how communicators can take credit for behavior changes that earn or save money for a company. I’m not sure I fully understood her approach, as she seemed to advocate for continually adjusting either the costs incurred or the value derived to achieve the ROI result you wanted. In the corporate communications roles that I’ve held, the finance team would pretty quickly sniff out any data massaging like that. The other issue I had was that her approach relied on having good data available – which many communicators don’t always have at their disposal. But the basic concepts were intriguing and I think I’ll refer back to her slides and check her Web site out to learn more.
Key takeaway: Only behavior changes can have a dollar-value attached to them, so measure that. Calculate communications ROI on a project basis instead of trying to do it annually for an entire department.

chicagogangOverall

As is usually the case, the best part of the conference was getting to meet so many great people. It was fantastic to have lunch with Katie Paine and see Shonali Burke at the cocktail hour. I got to meet Amber Naslund, Rachel Esterline and Ari Adler at the unconference. I hit the town with Mike Pilarz, Allan Schoenberg and Amber Porter Cox. I had my first Bell’s Beer (and my second, and my third…) and took an extra day with my good friend and travel companion Christine Hartter (who also wrote a great conference recap) to check out The Bean and the Art Institute. Verdict: Chicago is my kinda town!

Image via Flickr user amymengel (thanks to the waiter who snapped the pic above!)

No to Carrots, Yes to Pomegranates

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Shannon Paul, at her excellent and Very Official Blog, wrote earlier this week about a situation where a company tried to pitch her via a comment on one of her blog posts. The product had nothing to do with the topic she’d written about (using her grandma’s carrot cake recipe as a metaphor for sharing great content) and the pitch itself, for skincare products from a company called Yes-to-Carrots, came off as a “free billboard” advertisement. The story has somewhat of a happy ending, as the offending commenter later called Shannon to apologize. But trying to pitch via public comments shows a pretty incomplete understanding of effective blogger relations on the part of Yes-to-Carrots.

Pomegranates, however, are a different story. A few weeks ago, in my post about the changes to US Airway’s inflight magazine, I mentioned that part of the magazine included an excerpt from the new book Rubies in the Orchard, which is Lynda Resnick’s story of the founding and marketing of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. I said I had read the chapter excerpt in the magazine and was likely to read the whole book at some point. It was merely a mention in a post that wasn’t really about the book at all, but two days later I received the following e-mail:

Amy,

I enjoyed your post, Blogs on Paper at 35,000 feet. Did you pick up the Rubies in the Orchard book yet? I’d be happy to send you some POM juice to enjoy while you’re reading.

Send me your contact info and I’ll get you some juice within a week or so.

Cheers,
Jeff

I sent them my address, more to see what happened than anything else. Today, I received a package in the mail with a case of POM Wonderful juice, a personalized letter, and a fact sheet about pomegranates and their health benefits. I didn’t intend to blog about their outreach, as it’s really nothing new and bloggers are frequently targeted and pitched. But POM Wonderful’s efforts were in such stark contrast to what I read about on Shannon’s blog that in the end, I did end up writing about them again (although I’m sure they’re sad to learn that my blog’s audience is about 15 readers, including my dad). Perhaps most importantly for them, however, is that they’ve gained a customer: I really did like the juice and will probably buy it.

I’m sure Yes-to-Carrots and POM Wonderful both ended up at Shannon’s and my blogs, respectively, via a Google alert on a certain keyword (although Shannon’s follow-up post seems to indicate that her commenter may have been a regular reader). But what separates the carrots from the pomegranates was what they did with that info. POM Wonderful used it as an opportunity to send me a private e-mail. Yes-to-Carrots inappropriately posted a public comment to Shannon’s blog. As Shannon noted in her own comment, “I can’t think of an example where it would be a good idea to pitch someone in the comments.”

Even though Yes-to-Carrots did the right thing by calling Shannon to offer an apology and trying to start a dialogue with her, she stated that she might now be hesitant to buy a product that she already knew of and liked. Yes-to-Carrots potentially lost a customer because of botched blogger outreach. POM Wonderful gained a customer because they did a good job. Sometimes being a little seedy is a good thing.

Update: Jeremy Epstein, who posted the original Yes-to-Carrots pitch on Shannon’s blog, posted a “learn from my mistake” post at his own blog. Check it out - very impressive and goes a long way toward undoing the “damage” from the initial comment, in my opinion. Kudos to Jeremy!