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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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A demo corporate blog

There are good corporate blogs and bad ones. Niall Kennedy has seen enough of both to cobble together a demo blog to display the way a business can launch an effective blog dedicated to a product. He selected a real company and product—iRobot’s Scooba—and has developed an impressive blog to show what the company could do and to serve as a model for others considering a blog as part of a marketing effort. (Interestingly, this concept integrates quite well into a larger marketing strategy, contrary to Shel Israel’s contention that blogs don’t fit into an integrated marketing strategy.) Says Kennedy,

Corporate marketing teams are often a bit afraid to enter the world of corporate blogging. They read reports of mobs of bloggers attacking CBS or Kryptonite and fear for the lives of their brands in the wild frontier that is the blogosphere. Companies are also afraid of creating a huge mistake such as the Juicyfruit blog. I wanted to create a good example for corporate marketers to show how a company can try to connect consumers with information about the products they care about.

Kennedy’s the community manager at Technorati, so he certainly has the creds to build this site that includes a variety of categories (e.g., announcements, interviews, press coverage) and enough varied types of posts to open a few eyes and minds to the medium’s potential.

 

11/19/05 | 10 Comments | A demo corporate blog

Comments

  • 1.Interesting concept. It seems this might have a limited shelf life for products, as you would at some point run out of material (unless there were regular feature upgrades). Is there any data yet on how consumers respond to product blogs?

    Then there's the issue of getting something like this past Legal *shudder*, who seem hell-bent on not letting blogs, discussion groups etc. become standard ways of communicating with employees or customers.

    Michelle | November 2005 | Providence, RI

  • 2.It's not that good an example. Comments are turned off!

    Niall Cook | November 2005

  • 3.Via friend Shel Holtz (apparently, Holtz got a little Kryptonite on his recent vacation; at any rate, he's finding the gems):Niall Kennedy has seen enough of both to cobble together a demo blog to display the way a business can

    http://allanjenkins.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/11/ | November 2005

  • 4.Shel,

    Thanks for the post. I've run into a number of clients who are struggling with the idea of how to integrate a blog with their regular marketing program. Great example or not, this is a tangible example of how it can be done.

    I've added this post to my list of blog entries to review for Friday (11/18) on my "Much Ado About Marketing" blog.

    Thanks again,

    Mike Bawden
    Brand Central Station

    Mike Bawden | November 2005 | Bettendorf, Iowa

  • 5.What is the Juicyfruit blog mistake?

    Judy | November 2005

  • 6.I thought about the comment issue, Shel, but I don't see how he could have done this with a demo blog using a real product he had no authorization from the company to use. I suppose he could have faked and then turned off commenting, but I'm not sure that would have been a better solution.

    Shel Holtz | November 2005 | Concord, CA

  • 7.Judy, you can read about the JuicyFruit blog in this entry from BoingBoing.

    Shel Holtz | November 2005 | Concord, CA

  • 8.I'm just waiting for the cease-and-desist letter. ;)

    It was interesting, but why use a real product? Why not do something from "Back to School" and have it a blog on Widgets? Would seem to be safer.

    Jeremy Pepper | November 2005 | Phoenix

  • 9.I chose a real product from a real company so readers could identify with the idea and the specifics involved. Everyone reading the page to learn about corporate/product blogs is familiar enough with a vacuum cleaner to start thinking about different posts they might create for the same product.

    I contacted iRobot Corporation to let them know I had created the blog based on facts produced by the company, and I offered iRobot the domain and even the entire weblog if they would like to talk about the Scooba from their own point of view.

    I agree that blogs should have open comments and easy methods of private contact for readers. I did not include comments in the sample blog because I did not see a need for others to comment on my example worth the extra effort of maintaining that feature.

    Niall Kennedy | November 2005 | San Francisco, CA

  • 10.I guess iRobot declined - the demo blog link is now to a page advertising some kind of diuretic!

    maggie fox | January 2007 | toronto, canada

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