Corporate Eye

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Archives for December 2008

Is Your Corporate Blog of Value?

Today, I’m going to let you all in on a little secret that many of you may already know, and some of you may find surprising. This is for all of those corporate blog writers and content providers who maintain your company’s website:

No one is reading your blog!

You’re likely shocked, I’m sure, but that is just the plain truth. No one is interested in reading your blog and you may even find that it’s hard to drive traffic to your site. Why am I making this unveiling? You see, when readers scan, peruse, search and Google sites for information, they’re looking for relevant, concise and timely content. They’re looking for information that they can use to apply in their own businesses, practices that have been used over and over, and even case studies that have been shown to provide value. In other words, if your blog doesn’t provide anything of essence or value to your reader, they won’t be back and they will likely click away faster than the time it takes for your web page to load in their browser. Fast.

The Reader Doesn’t Know

What is it that your corporation does or what product do they specialize in? How does your corporate service or product affect the community? How can it make a difference in the life of the reader who’s scanning your post(s) right now? The whole reason that a reader would visit your blog would be to:

1.) find out new information

2.) confirm information they already knew

That’s it. Those are the only two reasons that a reader bothers to read the first few lines in your blog entry. They are skimming for value and want to see if you can enhance their knowledge base in any way. If you do manage to keep their attention, great. If not, well, clicking they will be. It’s unwise to confuse the reader with irrelevant or inapplicable material. While you may think that the television commercial that your corporation made was fantastic (and it may well be), you can enhance the spotlight on this by creating something of value to your reader and share your good news at the same time.

Create Value?

Yes, you can and should create intrinsic value in your blog or website that will make your company a potential household name. For instance, consider maximizing the coverage of that television commercial your company made by offering a free signed copy of the CEO’s book to the first 50 commenters on a blog post. Or, how about establishing a (small) grant as an incentive to a young, budding entrepreneur with an untapped idea. His motivation? Write an essay on how he thinks your company can help make him successful. Post this social activity on your blog or website and let the communities work their magic. Once the Tweets begin and your article appears on Digg or StumbleUpon, you’ll wonder why it has taken you so long to catch on to this idea! It is so advantageous to use the power of media to bring attention to a business.

Jeremy Woolf of the Public Relationships blog wrote this amazing post on how effective (and ineffective) the power of blogging can be if it is not properly strategized. He shed some valuable insight as to why blogs fail. The one that caught my eye almost immediately was because blogs aren’t being read. Bingo.

Per Jeremy:

It appears that in many cases, we’ve simply brought with us the tactics that failed to win the hearts and minds of “old” media to the blogging “new” media. We’re not reading their posts. We’re failing to develop relationships. We’re spamming them with marketing gobbledegook. We’re also assuming they work the same way as journalists.

Good call Jeremy. We’re so busy trying to sell our product, we’re not focusing on relationship building and nurturing. How true is that! So essentially, you get a mix of people, all trying to move their product and not listening to the pitch of the other. They are so consumed with meeting quotas and making sales, they’ve lost the art of good old-fashioned networking. Corporations are especially prone to this type of environment because of the very nature of the way they deal with individuals – usually at arm’s length. Corporate environments have to work even harder to build and gain relationships and often have to go to greater extents to nurture them. Although a challenge it may be, it can be done.

Is your corporate blog connected or in just in existence? What do you do to bring your reader in, share solid, relevant information, provide a foundation to encite learning and community?

Or do you exist just to exist?

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Walmart Faces Lawsuit After Black Friday Tragedy

If you haven’t heard the story already, here’s a recap – a New York Walmart store held the retail giant’s Black Friday promotion as advertised.  In fact, the event was heavily advertised as a day when Walmart stores would open before the sun rose, and quick and savvy shoppers could get their hands on many hot items at very attractive discount prices.  The goal of the ads was certainly to create a sense of urgency and boost store traffic.  The result – one death as a Walmart employee was trampled and four other people were injured and taken to the hospital when desperate bargain shoppers broke through the electronic doors as the store opened.

Apparently, this is not the first time Walmart has been involved in this type of trampling incident, but it does appear to be the first that ended up with a person dying.  The question is whether or not companies like Walmart, which have trusted brand names and the deep pockets to afford wide-reaching ad campaigns to which consumers respond, are responsible for the New York Walmart employee’s death.  [Read more…] about Walmart Faces Lawsuit After Black Friday Tragedy

Consumer Sensitivity in Media Relations

Do you think large companies purposefully run ads that they know are offensive in vain attempts to get traffic or social communities humming their name? Do you think they know when they’ve made a no-no, or do they simply recoil in shock that they are 1. embarrassed or 2. busted?

Large companies have a social responsibility to the community to protect ideas and values, do they not? Are they just free to print, say, distribute anything that they want to all because they can? Don’t they have to be responsible, to answer to someone for their actions? Surely so.

Large (and small) companies do have a responsibility to consumers to protect ideas and values. Because they are in the forefront of marketing strategies, because they (often) have household names and because their products have mass appeal, they do have a social and business responsibility to answer to what they say, to whom they say it and how they say it.

Pepsi Max just recently came under fire for running a highly controversial ad depicting a lonely one calorie figure who was suicidal because he was so alone. The calorie held a gun to its head and shot himself, splattering blood everywhere as he stood poised within a noose ready to hang himself. I found the image to be quite graphic and rather offensive given that I am an avid diet Pepsi drinker and the one calorie drink is rather appealing to me. What offends me about is the implication that the one lone calorie is so miserable and so lonely that he’d rather take his “life” than be by himself.

The social communities are definitely humming Pepsi’s name from the article and comments on YumSugar, to John Hoffoss’s opinion blurb, to David Burn’s passionately written blog post on the matter and hosts of other opinion pieces on why Pepsi did not do such a good, warm-feeling outreach campaign with this ad.

While there are a lot of opinions on both sides of the discussion about the ad and its effect on consumer’s, it’s apparent and agreeable that this is a highly controversial subject. I for one think that Pepsi should not have circulated this ad at all. Having the ad run as its photo image depicted seemingly sends (to me) the message that suicide is a dark funny, perhaps light-hearted thing. Just my opinion.

But the one thing that I cannot deny is the press that this ad has gotten. People in chat rooms, forums and blogs are all talking about how “awful”, “disgusting”, or even how “funny looking” the ad was. You cannot deny, whether controversial or not, that Pepsi created a buzz about their product that could last anywhere from a few hours to a few months. Admittedly, the media package did its job in creating a buzz and talk about its product. But, I still object only to the way they did it.

Anyone else agree with me?

GE Reports – Investor Relations Branches Out

When it comes to communicating with shareholders, many IR departments walk a fine line between the demand for more insight from shareholders, and the concern of legal and regulatory issues.

One of the issues with additional communications on the Investor Relations page is that its very placement suggests a formal and authoritative nature. One company is eliminating that problem by communicating with shareholders and customers alike via a separate website with its own domain name. This is a corporate blog, clearly linked from the main investor landing page.

GE reports

GE Reports is hosted at www.gereports.com. The link from the main site is in itself commendable, and the benefits of the additional site are numerous. The site is not specific or limited to investor communications. Instead, the site provides GE with a forum to publish its take on virtually any matter that arises.

The beauty of this idea is that it allows GE to not only respond to issues raised by the media or others, but also to express opinions and ideas proactively. In this way, GE can comment on both potential trouble and potential success in a way that helps to shape the discussion on such topics.

While a good idea in general, our concern here is with the value of such a site to Investor Relations departments. This value comes in many forms, both overt, and implicit. For example, the top post on this day notes the upcoming investor meeting for GE Capital including the fact that both a webcast and the materials will be available online. Such information not only reminds both investors and non-investors alike about an important upcoming event, it also demonstrates the company’s commitment to its investors.

GE Reports Answers

GE reports

Perhaps the easiest way to see the enormous potential benefit of such an endeavor comes in the form of the Q&A that is posted regularly. The most recent had three questions posted. The first question was whether or not GE’s cash flow from operations minus asset sales is negative (and has been for years). I have heard this on occasion too. (I do not own GE stock, nor have any relationship with the company.) In the regular IR section of the official website, dispelling a rumor like this comes with some pretty thin ice to skate on. But here, a quick answer regarding GE’s cash flow is not only possible, but expected. (However, I am slightly disappointed that the answer did not directly answer the part of the question about asset sales.)

The next question asks about forecasting GE’s dividend after 2009. Again, this is a hot button issue that has many current investors nervous. The answer is a quick no, but more importantly it provides a link to a story about GE’s dividend, albeit the 2008 dividend. Such opportunities to steer investors in the direction of information that the company has already produced are tougher to come by on the more static IR pages since it requires anticipating not only the questions investors will have, but how they will be asked as well.

Good News

Finally, the GE Reports site gives the company the opportunity to highlight good news. Bad news is, as we all know, preferred by the mainstream media, and thus propagates on its own very well. Good news on the other hand is often considered “not news” and thus not disseminated on its own as well. A potential investor looking for how GE has been doing recently can read through multiple articles highlighting various company achievements and milestones. Of course, care needs to be taken to avoid becoming nothing but a cheerleading site, or investors and customers alike will quickly determine the site to be less useful for real information.

Best Practices

Obviously, setting up such a site isn’t something that is done on a whim, but this type of information source is clearly an advantage when done properly. Consider that press releases and regulatory filings cover much information, but to audiences who may not have the same interests as others. A report, or up to date information site like GE Reports can help your company reach yet another group of people. The upsides for both public perception and investor confidence are well worth the cost of looking into the concept further.

The Amazing Reach of Apple iTunes

I have to admit that I had no idea Apple iTunes was so big internationally.  In the comScore Consumer World Metrix Report, I learned that nearly 25% of Japanese Internet users accessed Apple iTunes during the month of August 2008.  That’s one out of every 4 people who use the Internet in Japan or 13.5 million Apple iTunes users.  Now, that’s a significant statistic.

Globally, the reach of Apple iTunes is at 11.2%, so clearly, there is something to be said for how Apple markets its products internationally.  Other countries reported similar Apple iTunes reach statistics. 

Check out the Apple iTunes stats from comScore below: [Read more…] about The Amazing Reach of Apple iTunes

Corporate Identities Grapple With Disclosing Financial Information

Talk Money…Don’t

One of the things that our parents taught us when we were young was to never discuss the family’s business with anybody. Especially the family’s finances. No one needed to know how much money Dad made a year or how much Mom’s bonus check was from her employer. It just wasn’t anybody’s business.

Corporate living taught us that it was taboo to discuss pay, raises, bonuses and anything financially related to our jobs. It was just something that you did not do. And, in certain corporate clients, discussing financial matters could get you severely reprimanded, or worse, terminated – – and rightfully so. Considering that if employees #A and #B were hired at both the same time, for the same job and had the same skill set, but employee #A made $15,000 more than employee #B, it would stand to figure that one of these employees may be highly disgruntled and make his employer’s life miserable. Which is why you just do not discuss money.

Given the current economic state of parts of the country and of corporate entities, companies are starting to rethink the posture of not talking about their financial picture. Layoffs are in abundance, companies are shutting down, filing bankrupt and losing revenue at rapid paces. All of these activities greatly upset consumer confidence and is a big contributing factor when they are deciding to spend or not to spend.

Companies ideally want consumers to have a healthy, robust image of their company or product and want them to feel good when they consider spending their money with them. The bottom line is that businesses and consumers are hesitant about spending money if they don’t think the company is secure or stable. With issues like the Enron situation and the plight of the auto manufacturer’s, people think twice before writing out their checks…or even trusting someone else.

Your Company’s Disclosure

Sharing your corporate’s financial picture may be something you want to consider in an effort to appeal to your customer base. A good idea? Sure it is given that it could quite possibly work in your favor rather than against. In a news article, Fidelity decided to disclose their financial information to their readers and consumer’s, hoping to dissuade any negative feelings or misinformation about the company’s financial health. A bold move on their part, Fidelity hopes to alleviate some of the angst that consumers may be feeling and try to instil in them a sense of calm and assurance in Fidelity’s financial matters. Here is a blurb taken from their mission statement that pointedly outlines what they do:

Fidelity Investments is an international provider of financial services and investment resources. In addition to more than 300 Fidelity mutual funds, the Company also offers discount brokerage services, retirement services, estate planning, wealth management, securities execution and clearance and life insurance, among others. Fidelity Management & Research Company (FMR Co.) is the investment advisor to Fidelity’s family of mutual funds. In May 2007, the Company sold 91% of its American Depositary Receipts (ADR) in PetroChina.

With a company like Fidelity with many diversified interests and investment areas, they are aware as any other corporate entity that any of their areas of interest can take a turn quickly and cause consumer concern. What Fidelity has done to assuage this is to be proactive in assuring their customers that they are fiscally sound and operating efficiently. A plus for Fidelity Investments and a plus for corporate entities who follow the same path. Fidelity has stated that they will post publicly the company’s financial state and offer links and information on their actual company’s figures.

Can you do what Fidelity has done with your corporate site? Should you do that with your corporate site? How would you handle tough financial questions about your company’s financial health, especially those that prod and insinuate?