henrikharsbo.dk

19 Hours Of Fruitless Searching

I guess we've all tried googling without finding what we're looking for. But do you know how much time you spend doing just that? Apparently it gets to be quite a bit of time.

Danes each waste 19 hours a year searching the net in vain, reveals a study from MSN. Danish men spend 22,3 hours searching without finding, while the women in my home country are a little better at getting to what they want. They only spend 14,4 hours of fruitless searching.

Still Danes rank in the top when comparing to our neighbors. In Sweden the internet users each use 40 hours a year and in Norway the search pages are visited without luck by each user for 36 hours a year!

The study is conducted by MSN using 12.000 respondents from all over Europe. MSN is currently developing its own search service MSN search, reports Danish web site ejour

Technorati: Searching |Internet

Companies Should Listen Not Talk

Is credibility at all possible in a blog that stems from a company? That's one of the things I've been discussing thoroughly with Jacob over the past week. Personally I don't think that any company is credible beyond what benefits their bottom line. I'm not saying that most companies are liars here. Not unless you consider the messages of modern marketing to be lies ;-)

The only place where I see a possibility for balanced blogging about the services of a given company is in the cases where customers of the company start to blog about it. Once again I have to point to my favorite example: www.slavetotarget.com, a blog which has a lot of positive things to say about the American shopping chain but which also allows critical comments. Here's what an anonymous user wrote on the site this month:

»I cannot believe someone would have an I love Target website. This company has a horrible human rights record. My husband worked for their distribution center for 5 years, and finally quit after being treated like so much disposable garbage (sic!).«

The user then goes on to explain what's actually wrong with Target's handling of its employees. It's powerful stuff and together with the positive image of Target that is also being relayed on the web site I would say it gives you a fuller picture of Target as a company.

If the Target PR-department listens in on this blog (which would be the smart thing to do) they ought to come up with a good answer pretty damn soon! If they explain themselves in a reliable way this little exchange will secure them more credibility than any number of traditional company driven blogs.

If the market really is a conversation then companies should stop talking and start listening to what is being said.

Technorati: Media |Advertising |Weblogs

Stop The Blog Buzz

I've been receiving quite a few comments on my previous postings about corporate blogs. It seems there is some bewilderment as to what I mean when I say that corporate blogs don't work. Many point out that major companies like Microsoft and Novell run blogs that are quite successful (i.e. have massive readership).

Let me clarify: I don't question the success of these web pages. What I do question however is whether they are really blogs!

Take the Novell Open PR blog for instance. The blog is quite new (launched a week ago) and from where I'm sitting it simply looks like the company discovered another channel for communicating to the press. Here Novell just shoves out on web whatever it doesn't wanna put in a paper press release (it's cheaper and it's okay to misspell ;-)) This is not blogging. It's pure web marketing.

Another example is this so called blog from the company Campaign Monitor. Yup, they call it a blog and even made a nice header in Photoshop - but let's be honest here - isn't it basically a newsletter?

So what's wrong with corporate blogs you ask. Well, the term »blog« apparently has such a buzz to it that it seems every company just gotta have one. Thus they dress up their press releases, FAQ's, newsletters, support-pages and what not to look like blogs. It reminds me of the ipod design phenomenon: When the ipod first became tres cool a lot of other products suddenly acquired the same white surface, the same rounded edges and so forth... But ipods they were not!

Technorati: Media |Advertising |Weblogs

It's Personal...

»Don't write like a technician. Write like a person!« As a blogger you gotta love the advice from Kathy Sierra who explains why the conversational writing style of bloggers works so well in most communicative settings.

I applaud her for saying it, but to be perfectly honest there's nothing new in Kathy's conclusions. Most people with a background in communication know that writing conversationally beats the heck out of writing formally when you want to leave a lasting impression with your readers (most writers do, I guesss ;-)

But I would like to add this to Kathy's advice: Good writing/blogging needs to be more than conversational. If communicators really want their point to come across they have to invest themselves in the communication. Readers should be able to see that there's something at stake for the blogger and that there's a real person of flesh and blood behind the words.

I'm not implying that you have to reveal every detail from your private life online -- the Blogosphere is too full of private diaries as it is -- but I am saying that establishing a connection with your readers by way of both ethos and pathos is a great way to communicate.

Technorati: Media |Weblogs

Bulls Eye For Corporate Blogging?

For some time now I've been monitoring a site called Slave To Target.

It's a blog written by two anonymous women who say they love Target so much they want to marry it. The primary goal of the site is to keep track of all things Target. And here's the interesting bit: The blog claims that it is in no way associated with Target Corp!

If this claim is legit I'm wondering whether this type of site is not actually the closest anyone can ever come to a successful corporate blog. Having two customers blog about your offerings in a positive and praising manner must be every marketing departments dream. In fact there's a whole genre of commercials depicting real people in everyday situations enjoying a product. Well, here are two real women who spend their spare time blogging for free in favor of a store. Testimonials go home!

The key factor for this type of communication to be successful is that the corporation has no control what so ever over the blog. This way the site acquires credibility from the start.

Saying that I have to admit that this site is not a very good example of balanced blogging. In fact I find the blog much too praising of the shopping chain. The two bloggers must have some areas where they would like to see their favorite shop improve. It would make the site more credible if they included such thoughts in the blog.

But putting that aside they got me writing the name »Target« five times in this entry. Now, in my opinion that's a pretty effective and costless branding.

Technorati: Media |Advertising |Weblogs

More On Corporate Blogging

I've been discussing corporate blogs galore with Robert Basic over on his blog: Basic Thinking. Basically I think we ended up agreeing that large corporations will always have a problem creating interesting blogs beyond mere marketing.

Hope I'm not jumping to conclusions here Robert ;-)

Technorati: Media |Advertising |Weblogs