If this past week is any indication of how anxious companies in the Valley are to embrace the blogosphere then I’ll simply say “buckle up, it's going to be a fun year.” Since returning from the holidays, the Voce team has been spending a lot of time with companies talking with them about how they might leverage a variety of online practices to better listen – and communicate – with their customers.
Whereas 2004 was a year of sideline education and observation for most communicators, 2005 is looking like the year to get in the game. At face value this makes sense, after all, the market’s maturing and with that inevitably comes heightened interest and a natural inclination to engage. Now, with that said, I’ll share a few observations based on what I’ve been hearing from folks to date:
First, everyone speaks blogonese. The blog culture and has infiltrated almost every major organization in some fashion and has at very least become a very annoying blip on the radars of corporate communicators. That being the case, I’m finding that where this time last year we had to explain that the word blog was a derivative of weblog, we’re quickly (thankfully) moving past this to explain what RSS stands for. Kidding, kidding. In a very short amount of time PR and marketing folks have grasped the fundamentals – some more firmly than others – and are now collectively turning their attention on engagement strategies (for better or worse). The good news is that with more communicators understanding the advantages and influence of the blogosphere, more energy, creativity and resources are being channeled into dedicated online programs.
Measurement remains critical. As with any other program, with more dedicated resources comes heightened expectations for a measurable ROI. At the moment, there is no silver bullet for online measurement, it remains a hodge-podge of homegrown solutions and third-party vendors, but that’s really no different than traditional media measurement. I do, however, expect that this year we will see stronger measurement services come to market which will further appease the need for meaningful and actionable metrics and online analytics.
Influencers, influencers, influencers. I think one too many marketer read Newsweek’s piece on Alpha Bloggers last month, so the buzz word de jour is “influencer.” Honestly, call it what you want, IMO it’s more important to understand that influence happens in concentric circles and that the heart of any good influencer program is identifying who the influencers are at various levels, not just those that live in the center. It’s also important to understand that influence takes many forms – it’s not limited to the sum of one’s output (e.g., a blog post). For example, the savvy communicator would leverage social networking services like LinkedIn or Friendster to better understand an influencer’s offline network. While immeasurable at the moment, opinions and attititudes shared in the real-world are just as influential as those shared in the virutal one.
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