Steve Rubel reports on MSN’s fake blog campaign: MSN slips with fake blogs. Must be the one Scoble was so upset about last week. Apart from being pretty lame and missing most of what makes a viral campaign really work, just more proof that John Dvorak is right, and again, from Scoble: Dvorak says Microsoft’s marketing sucks.
From FusionBrand: seven rules for highly effective blog PR
From BL Ochman: An open letter to PR people from a recovering publicist
As companies start moving into the blogosphere, can the lawyers be far behind?
Seriously, there are a number of legal issues around copyright that bloggers should be aware of. Take a look at Toby Bloomberg’s post: Corporate Blogs: Legal Red Flags.
Her post introduced me to Charles M. Smith, Pheedo’s COO and legal counsel, and his terrific post on “Who owns blog comments”
Finally, on another note, another thanks to the Diva for telling us about Alf Nucifora’s blog and in particular his post on etiquette: Boorish Business Behavior
Lots of talk about Robert Scoble’s comment last week about RSS and marketing and I quote (emphasis his):
"Sorry, if you do a marketing site and you don’t have an RSS feed today you should be fired.
I’ll say it again. You should be fired if you do a marketing site without an RSS feed."
Tom Murphy, on his PR Opinions blog, more or less agrees that RSS is a good, perhaps necessary thing, but he is not as vehement as Scoble: it isn’t a fire-able offense: Fired for no RSS…. don’t be silly. One thing I like about Murphy’s posts, he often adds links to additional resources. Check them out.
Of course, Scoble himself checks in to provide additional perspective on his opinion and reports on two Jupiter analysts (Eric Peterson and Michael Gartenberg) who disagreed with him.
I agree with Scoble: they are missing the point. It isn’t about RSS. It is about making websites more active and relevant to your customers and prospects. If you DON’T have something to tell your customers at least once or twice a week, ask yourself WHY. Maybe they have things they’d like to tell each other?
For me, RSS, like weblogs, is just a way to communicate. And if your audience is reading blogs and sites in RSS aggregators, you had better be providing SOMETHING in an RSS feed. It doesn’t have to be your whole site, but at a minimum, publish an RSS feed of your latest news.
Personally, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am when I visit a new blog or website and find it DOESN’T publish an RSS feed. The only way I can stay on top of everything I read is my aggregator, and I know I am missing good stuff!
Think about it.
Not too long ago, I posted in some detail about why corporate websites suck. Today I thought I’d move to the other side of the coin, and give you my definition of a good website.
But before we get to the good, let’s review what I mean by bad. I am primarily talking about business-to-business (B2B) websites that purport to be communicating with prospects and generating leads from the website. The reason they are so awful? They forget to sell!
They forget that the main lead generation tasks of the website are:
· to provide the prospect with information about that product that is relevant to his needs and;
· to provide a clear path that moves the prospect to the next level of engagement with the company (download a trial, purchase, order a white paper, sign a petition, whatever).
Instead what you usually find is a jumble: lots and lots and lots and lots of product information (especially in high tech, where product marketing seems to be paid by the word); investor relations; tons of logos of partners and press, often with no clear understanding of just WHY these logos are there; maybe a customer support site; a news section etc. etc. etc. Plus lots of flash, PDFs and Powerpoints.
You land on one of these suckers and you just don’t know where to go. Except NOWHERE.
Even the “worst” business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce site (direct consumer sales via Web) does a better job of communicating its value proposition to the visitor. Because it remembers that it is trying to SELL something. And the good ones like Amazon don’t ever get confused about what they are trying to do. Amazon’s website is about selling. You want investor relations, look for the teeny print at the bottom of the page.
In fact, B2B marketers can learn a lot from looking at successful B2C sites like Amazon, LL Bean, pick your favorite. The good ones are all about selling. Anything that is extraneous to that effort gets put in its proper place. It’s there, but it is subordinate to the primary job of the website, which is to sell.
So that’s our main requirement for a good B2B website: it focuses on SELLING, not on telling. Easier said than done. Here’s my suggestion on how to do it, and this will work whether you have an existing site or are developing a new one.
Here’s the rest of my list of good website requirements, in no particular order:
Going forward, when I find them, I will post examples of good B2B websites. In the meantime, I recommend the following book on web usability. It is short, sweet and to the point: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.
Nice post from NevOn about Microsoft offering an RSS feed of its press releases. Expect we will see more and more companies following suit in the coming months. As he says, it is a no-brainer.
Great article from USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review by JD Lasica: The cost of ethics: Influence peddling in the blogosphere. It is a really good summary of the current debate about corporate sponsorship of blogs and bloggers/"paid blogging." I found the article on PaidContent.org, another site well worth checking out.
Finally from Scoble’s LinkBlog, My 10 thoughts on successful blogging by Dave Briggs, The Closed Circle weblog. Great tips for the beginning blogger, and a new blog for me to check out (see tip one).
Terrific post on Tom Murphy’s PR Opinions blog. Has some great links to resources for PR/marketing types on how to work with bloggers.
It has been said that a significant number of blogs are related to or have pictures of cats. Up til now, this blog has avoided that trend, going more "to the dogs" recently, but I saw this on Buzz Marketing with Blogs and just had to post it. Go to Susannah Gardner’s post first, which links to this website and video.
Meow!
Westminster Dog Show report
Our Scottish Terrier, Ch. Blueberry’s Attitude Dancing (Carly) won the breed and then took third place in the Terrier Group. You can see pictures and video from the show at the Westminster Kennel Club website. Breed results. Terrier Group results.
Thank you all for your good wishes and e-mails.
The Gates and Jane Pauley
While we were in NYC, we did a bit of sightseeing, and before I get back into our regularly scheduled marketing program, I wanted to share a couple of things.
First, The Gates. This has been covered all over the media, and I am sure, in many many blogs as well. I just want to add that if you have a chance to visit Central Park before they are dismantled at the end of February, it is well worth it.
Now, I am sure you have been wondering, what does Jane Pauley have to do with this? Well, on our last day in NYC, we took the guided NBC tour at Rockefeller Center. As the tour was wrapping up, a woman from the Jane Pauley Show came up to our group and said she had three spots left to watch the afternoon’s taping of the show, was anyone interested. I thought it would be neat to experience a talk show taping, so I said yes, and before my husband could really register what was happening, we were off to watch the taping of an upcoming Jane Pauley Show featuring Stacy London from the TLC show What Not To Wear.
If you are not familiar with What Not To Wear, it is a US-copy of a UK show of the same name. It is basically a snarky makeover show. The fashion experts tear into some poor victim who has been "turned in" as a fashion faux-pas by friends or family members. I’ve never seen the show, so can’t tell you much more about it.
Anyway, on the Pauley show, Ms. London dispensed her brand of fashion advice to members of the audience, did a makeover and showed us how to fit a bra. There was more, but you’ll just have to watch 
All in all, it was pretty entertaining, and the entire audience got some lovely parting gifts (but alas, not a brand new car). We were there for about two hours, which I gather is a bit long, but they had a lot of things going on in the show, resulting in a few delays. It gets edited down to a one-hour show.
So what’s the point and why am I writing about this on a blog devoted to marketing topics? Here’s the takeaway, which I think can be applied to many of the situations we find ourselves in every day:
So, that was our trip to New York. Tomorrow we will return to our regular programming.
I try to stay focused on marketing topics, but every now and then I feel the need to digress and talk about something else. This is one of those times. Tomorrow my husband and I will board the Acela to NYC to attend the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
I am privileged to be the co-breeder/owner of Ch. Blueberry’s Attitude Dancing (Carly), 2004’s number one Scottish Terrier all systems and a top ten terrier. We are going to Westminster to watch Carly.
I hope you will indulge me as I talk a bit about Carly. Among her lifetime achievements:
Carly is a wonderful bitch and I am proud to be one of her breeder/owners. Her success, however, is mostly due to two very special women: Kathleen Brown, my co-breeder /owner and Bergit Coady Kabel, Carly’s handler. I am lucky to be able to work with them.
Kathi has been devoted to the Scottish Terrier breed for more than 30 years, with innumerable champions to her credit. She is a past president of the Scottish Terrier Club of America, and is actively involved in a number of other dog clubs. Carly is the result of her absolute attention to the breeding program and her commitment to making the breed stronger and better.
Carly is a wonderful Scottish Terrier, but she has been so tremendously successful thanks to the talent and devotion of Bergit and her husband Hans. When Bergit and Carly are in the ring, it is magic. More importantly, they love Carly as much as we do.
So as we get ready for Westminster, I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you, Kathi and Bergit. And thank you, Carly.
