Masood Mortazavi's Weblog

Wednesday May 04, 2005

[ Web ] Weblogs, Advertising and Patients

Brian Steinberg's "Advertising" column in the Tuesday edition of The Wall Street Journal reports on the blog movement among corporate marketers. (Subscription is required to access the online edition of The WSJ.)
"Piaggio Group, the Italian manufacturer of Vespa scooters, intends to launch two blogs written by U.S. Vespa owners," writes Steinberg.
Steinberg's report also includes some good corporate blogging tips from Michael Wiley, director of new media in the communications department of General Motors, who serves as an executive editor on GM blogs:

Be authentic: Don't turn it into a hollow public relations exercise. ("A lot of what blogging is about is authenticity, getting beyond corporate speak and PR, and really creating a conversation," Mr. Wiley says. "Not being thin-skinned and accepting the negatives, that's key.")
Keep things on topic: Corporate blogs are not about customer queries and commentaries on stock movment.
It takes work: Monitoring corporate blogs could turn into a real head-ache for executive editors and directors of corporate blogs.
Know your limits: Not everyone will get a personalized response. After all, we all have our day jobs to work on and worry about.

I am not sure if I am keeping to any of these tips on my weblogs but Wiley's advice deserves attention.

Blogs continue to be a hot topic for business journals.

Businessweek devoted a recent issue to corporate weblogs, and the daily barrage continues in The WSJ. For example, in today's issue, the Journal carried two articles on weblogs—one focusing on how T-shirts are becoming a hot item peddled by webloggers and another on "Blogging From Your Sickbed," a report on how patients are turning to weblogs to share treatment details. Examples: diabetesmine.com, www.beaverislandarts.com, prostate-help.blogs.com, www.thecancerblog.com.

Advertising, Blogs, Marketing, GM, Vespa, Patients.