The Business of Blogging: the Good, Bad and the Wonderful

1
The Business of Blogging the Good, Bad and the
Wonderful

• Pranam Kolari
• Ph.D. Candidate, UMBC
• CAS Ph.D. Fellow, IBM Toronto

Tim Finin, Yelena Yesha, UMBC Kelly Lyons,
Stephen Perelgut, Jen Hawkins, IBM Toronto
2
Blogs have shown astounding growth
Source Technorati State of the Blogosphere
Report (http//www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/00043
6.html)
3
Blogs are a global phenomenon
Source Technorati State of the Blogosphere
Report (http//www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/00043
6.html)
4
Blogs continue to capture user interest
5
(No Transcript)
6
Enterprises the Good

• Unlike other forms of communication blog posts
  are public and now constitute the influential
  social media
• So whats in it for business? Lets take the case
  of IBM
• the Good
• Buzz Monitoring
• Marketing Feedback
• Public Relations Monitoring
• Competitive Intelligence

7
Buzz Monitoring Word Of Mouth

• Name mentions guide branding strategies
• Product mentions guide product and feature
  releases

PHP Integration Kit for J2EE WAS
IBM Chip Clocks 500 GHz
PC celebrates 25 years
IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad goes in flames
8
Opinion Mining
9
Marketing Feedback

• IBM launched their SOA campaign in
  September/October

• BPM/BAM
• SOA Videos
• Launch movie

• Effectiveness of marketing campaigns through blogs

10
Marketing Feedback

• WallstreetTech Check out this trailer for
  the launch of SOA from IBM - advertising may
  never be the same again.
• eBizQ Check out this fun "movie preview" from
  IBM about their new SOA product launch next
  week.

• Monitor blogs that mention IBM and SOA
• Follow pulse, and tune strategies

11
Public Relations Management

• Monitor direct to consumer products like
  (Lenovo/IBM)ThinkPad, Lotus etc.
• passersby stared aghast or fled crying
  terrorist, the ThinkPad (which was quoted to be
  an IBM, not a Lenovo) apparently had a number of
  death throes as the fire went through various
  phases, until eventually
• I love my ThinkPad, which I got inexpensively
  off of IBM's refurb site.
• Does Lotus Notes Mean Career Suicide?.
• Monitor initiatives e.g. IBM academic/university
  relations
• found some famous companies such as IBM, Intel
  and Micron in the fair Good, this means
  opportunities this university is really small
  so not many students in the gathering I never
  saw a line except (for) IBM

12
Competitive Intelligence

• Analyze what (good, bad) makes your competitor
  buzzy

13
Players in this space
14
Enterprises the Bad

• Whats in it for us?
• the Bad
• Public Relation Problems
• Competitive Intelligence
• Compulsion to Blog
• Updating Blogs
• Computational Issues

15
The Dell PR Episode

• Jeff Jarvis with Dell Summer of 2005
• June 21, 2005 Dell lies. Dell sucks.
• Almost all entries went with Is someone at
  Dell listening. Everyone except Dell were
  listening!
• Ended with escalation to Chief Marketing Officer,
  Dells PR department now monitors Blogs

• Listen to your customers.

16
Competitive Intelligence

• Your competitors know why you are good, and bad
• Be proactive, mine for intelligence

17
Blogger Limitations

• Blogs do not cover all demographics
• Mining blogs work best in direct to consumer
  products/services
• Blogger attrition is high
• Dont post on compulsion

18
Computational Limitations

• Tools are not yet mature
• Visualizations still locked into the inertia of
  traditional web search engines
• Sentiment Analysis for automatic opinion
  extraction still in early research stages
• Spam Blogs skew blog analytics
• E.g. navigate through blog search results for
  IBM laser printer on a popular blog search
  engine

19
Enterprises the Wonderful

• Whats in it for us?
• the Wonderful
• Business reaches out to consumer
• Engage In Conversations
• Influence Discussions
• Use Blogs among employees (internally)
• Identify Thought Leaders

20
Engage In Conversations

• People blog to be heard
• Be the first to address consumer issues
• Comment and clarify on consumer blog
• Request personal communication
• Be the first to acknowledge consumer raves
• WOMM marketing
• Acknowledgement is important

21
Engage In Conversations

• My post wasnt negative, but all subsequent
  references from me were positive

22
Employee Blogs Generate Buzz

• Employee Blogs hosted (and endorsed) by the
  enterprise
• Product Information and Updates
• Feature Feedback
• Typically authored by CEO/CFO, Dept Head,
  Architects
• Employee Blogs acknowledged by the enterprise
• bridge enterprise with the blogosphere

23
Influence Discussions Generate Buzz

• Employee blogs generate interest in IBMs SOA
  Launch Video, then picked up by the blogosphere

24
Use Internal Blogs

• Blogs hosted internally by an enterprise
• Fosters collaboration
• Identify experts
• Community dynamics
• Bottom-up initiatives
• Project Blogs
• At IBM
• HackDay an IBM wide event, developed through
  initiation on a blog

25
Internal Blogs Collaboration

• IBM has around 2000 active internal blogs
• Conversations extend across geographies
• Dialogue leads to collaboration

COMMENT
POST
26
Internal Blogs Buzz/Experts

• Rank blog postings by employees
• Employee concerns
• Internal Product Feedback

Screen-shots deleted in this version
Screen-shots deleted in this version

• Mine tag usage
• Who are the experts?

27
Internal Blogs - Elsewhere

• Google, Yahoo, Ask
• Product releases
• Microsoft
• Sun
• Employee blogs, not well structured
• Adobe
• Feature feedback

28
Trends for the future

• Blogs within the Enterprise will only grow
• New tools for internal blogging
• Ways of connecting blogs with other collaboration
  tools
• External Blogs
• Bridge blogs will grow in popularity
• Competitive Intelligence will find mainstream use
  and be open

29
Thanks!