Compendium has the answers and is ready to share. Two significant online trends are directly impacting the present and future of Business-to-Business Marketing, and you'll want to find out how organizational blogging can dramatically impact search engine results and serve as an entry into the world of social media.
You'll also learn:
* The true values of a corporate blogging strategy.
* The key factors that influence why blogs do so well in the search engines.
* What separates corporate blogging from citizen journalism.
* The core differences between blogs and websites.
* How blogging helps people connect on a highly personal level.
What Third Generation Blogging Means to You
A Compendium Whitepaper
The secret to business success is really no secret at all-your customers have a problem, and you must be able to solve it. And if you're the most trusted, thorough, and easily accessible solution to whatever problem your customers face, chances are you'll earn their business. So, how exactly does corporate blogging fit into that equation? Blogging: A Brief History Before discussing the merits of Third Generation blogging, it's important to understand what Third Generation blogging actually is-and what it's not. Blogging has been around for nearly a decade, with the First Generation of blogging being "journalistic" in nature. These bloggers had opinions to share and stories to tell, and the blogosphere opened up a new platform for them. Most of these bloggers fit into a niche-for example, they were political activists, they understood a specific gadget, or they were "Mom" bloggers. Their readers knew where and how to find them and were genuinely interested in hearing the stories that only a select few were telling. Returning readers and subscribers were the primary objectives, and monetization was a distant afterthought. These early adopters paved the way for the next generation of bloggers who also wanted to share their views and commentaries online, this time in a corporate setting. However, content contribution was still only available to a select group of people, mainly CEO's and "thought leaders" who were attempting to gain market credibility for themselves or the products they represented by building a community around their ideas. While Second Generation bloggers aimed to be "transparent," the common consensus was that these bloggers spent a great deal of time pontificating, but added no real value to their readers or the organizations they represented. Finally, Third Generation blogging has achieved what the other generations did not: humanization and monetization. Rather than electing a select group of thought leaders to share their views, one of the key aspects of Third Generation blogging is widespread content contribution. It makes sense: employees understand your customers best, know the most effective solutions to your customers' problems, and can promote your business with the most credibility. Allowing several different voices to share information and connect with blog visitors means humanization. And while the humanization of marketing efforts seems basic - of course people want to buy from people "like them" - it is also what leads to monetization. Just as you measure your website initiatives and other marketing tactics in terms of leads and revenue generated, Third Generation business blogging can be measured the same way. Climbing the "Slope of Enlightenment"
2 | P a g e To better illustrate the current state of corporate blogging (in relation to other emerging technologies), Gartner Research published the "Gartner Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies 2009." (See Figure 1.) According to Gartner's proven system for predicting success, if a new technology has any promise at all, it quickly receives a great deal of hype and rides the "Peak of Inflated Expectations." Once the initial buzz is over, the technology slides down into the "Trough of Disillusionment." The true test of a technology's success is whether or not it can make its way out of the "Trough of Disillusionment" and work its way up the more stable "Slope of Enlightenment." When users fully understand the benefit of the technology-and the resulting return on investment (ROI)-that technology begins its ascent up the "Slope of Enlightenment," thus resulting in rapid, widespread, and continued adoption.
Figure 1: 2009 Gartner Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies The "Benefit to the Enterprise" While a technology is scaling the "Slope of Enlightenment," increased business enhancements associated with that technology are identified and become more commonly understood. Thus, the "Benefit to the Enterprise" develops. Once this happens, second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers, and increased funding is funneled to programs. The First and Second Generations of blogging didn't offer any enterprise-based benefits. Blogging efforts didn't add any measurable value, spark consumer interest, or in... [download for more]
