Thomas Coustenoble

Marketers, 5 reasons for launching your own blog

There are many reasons for creating a blog, mine was simple: people. While working abroad I needed to keep in touch with family and friends, having a blog was the best way to share pictures, videos and interact (through a private/restricted blog). At that time, I've also worked with two bloggers and want to thank them for the inspiration: Ed Brill (@EdBrill) and Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo). 

As a marketer, you certainly meet with many different people: clients, partners, research and development, analysts, journalists, students...working on various activities ranging from  market analysis, product development, business strategy to digital tactics...so why not giving back parts of this journey to your community?

Here are 5 reasons for jumping into the blogosphere (for the 'how', click here (French):

• Your market/product knowledge is worth sharing (see ideas worth spreading)
• You have great content (testimonials, demos..), make them more personalized
  
• Learn from the outside, blogging obliges you to look around/to benchmark
  
• You know the ecosystem, bring it inside, by connecting the dots with your experts
  
• CMO and CIO are now friends, leverage blogging to strenghten your Web culture
  

Some say 'People are the Brand', very true in a consumer world. But in a B2B world, expertise, relationship and ecosystems matter. Brands are People. No worry, as a blogger you have no obligation of loosing your personality! Write when you want (but still on a regular basis :-), about topics you know best, to people you want to connect with...respecting some basic guidelines (such as the one we have in IBM). Try to identify your core audience in order to meet with your objectives (channel enablement, press relationships...).

In a continuous effort of change management, our Digital team (represented by @henririmbaud) has produced a short video explaining why some of us blog (initially this video was targetting IBM employees). When Brands are People...

IBM France on Twitter

During the last few months, my colleague Henri Rimbaud and the digital team have been busy in federating IBM France employees who are active on the web. Most of them who were twitting or blogging didn't really have the chance to meet yet. The video here under is not just a good way to explain the benefits of Twitter to the corporate world but also acts as a change agent within our own organization. Such communication  initiative suddenly brings more concrete elements on what it is and why people use it .

Some of the key benefits highlighted in the video: engagement with peers/customers/partners, rapid  scan of market news, identification of new projects and contacts, learning about competition, etc.). Social Media/Networks adoption/success in the enterprise still much relies on change management investments such as the following one..

IBM France on Facebook

2010 was a year of social media discovery and test for many marketers (with some deception in some cases as expectations were probably too high), 2011 will be the year of Social Media reality for Chief Marketing Officers. Yesterday, I was reading an HBR article highlighting fact that many french companies have been focusing on building relationships with fewer clients rather than broadcasting their message to the world. I thought that it was really going the opposite way of social media philosophy but at the end of the day, the most important is that companies build deeper relationships with their customers. Social Media should support that, and marketers should continue to better align their Digital strategy with specific business needs (sounds obvious but not always the case...yet)

In the last few months, companies showed more maturity, they've learned a lot and know pros and cons of Social Media. Marketers have experienced it and are now in a position to build a shared roadmap on Digital (cross functions). Most have shifted from 'nice to have' to 'must have' while building specific guidelines, consolidating brand presence on fewer platforms with some degree of integration to enterprise marketing systems (marketing automation, web content publishing...).

This week, our IBM Brand System* team has just announced the creation of an official IBM France page on Facebook. This is good new and I hope it will federate our communications, other Facebook  communities and bring our fans up to date with local news. More than this, it should be an extension of offline discussions we have with our ecosystem (clients, partners, government, students, citizens, employees...) on topics such as Smarter Planet. It also opens up new opportunities for our brand to continue to build interactions with students: our Human Resources team has also participated to this project by creating a 'Join us' section. This is also a great way to get different teams working together on building your brand. It has to be coordinated with specific objectives so it can be monitored, improved and deliver concrete benefits to your organization.

*IBM Brand System?

“Picture a framework with five columns. From left to right the columns are labeled what it means to look like IBM, to sound like IBM, to think like IBM, to perform like IBM and ultimately to be IBM…To really activate the System, you go from managing outward expressions and manifestations of the company — visual identity, naming conventions, messaging, design and the like — to the behavior and performance of people. This Brand System is necessarily inclusive of corporate culture.” Jon Iwata (IBM SVP Marketing and Communications) from John Bell's post (Ogilvy)

10 lessons learned from author Clotilde Dusoulier

Last friday we had the chance to welcome Clotilde Dusoulier (follow her on Twitter), the author of the famous blog Chocolate & Zucchini (all things food-related -- thoughts, recipes, cookbook, restaurant experiences...). Some of you may wonder what's the linkage between  food and IT! Overall, I have to say that it was a true inspiring moment for our Marketing and Communication team. Here are my 10 leassons learned from her presentation:

1. Blogging is fun but requires an investment on the long run and hard work
2. Blogging is not technical but better if you have a knowledgeable friend on Facebook
3. Tone is as important as design and editorial line. Hard to copy and differentiating
   
4. Connecting the online and offline worlds are key to build loyalty, enrich experience
   
5. It's not about 'fans' or people who 'like', it's about engaging with your audience
6. Innovation requires experimentation and risk acceptance
7. Inspiration comes with passion for what you do and people you meet with
   
8. Keep an eye on disruptive technologies, wait for the mainstream to deploy
   
9. Recipe and elements are important but be ready for change in the execution
10. ...cook seasonal vegetables/fruits to lower your carbon footprint ;-)

So there are much more connexions than what we think between consumer and business blogging, between major companies and individual entrepreneurs or even between food and IT. We can't wait reading her next book and meeting with other forward thinkers such as Clotilde. Now I really have to try her Chocolate & Zucchini cake recipe, anyone free for a cooking session next week?