Results driven blogging for B2B brands

Results-oriented blogging

Alison Bolen (@alisonbolen)SAS

Presentation overview

• SAS Background • Growing a corporate blogging

program with a content strategy in mind

• Content planning for multiple blogs• Balancing content strategies across

a large number of blogs• Coaching bloggers about content

strategy• Measurement and results

Background: SAS social history

• 1976: First SAS Global Forum

• 1996: SAS-L launches• 2004: Internal blog

program started• 2006: SAS communities

launch• 2007: First external blog

launched• 2011: Transitioned to

WordPress platform

Background: Marketing Editorial Team

• Part of the larger External Communications team, which includes PR

• 8 full-time “brand journalists” edit & manage: Blog network with 28 blogs Two quarterly magazines 3 Knowledge Exchange microsites ~ 200 customer success stories (annually) 2 monthly e-newsletters 12 quarterly e-newsletters Social media program management

Strategy: Map goals to corporate goals

• Become primary source for SAS news & info

• Establish SAS employees as trusted advisors

• Facilitate an ongoing dialogue with customers

Translated: PR, Marketing & customer support

Strategy: Understand content ecosystem

support.sas.comwww.sascommunity.org

Customer support blogs

Soc

ial M

edia

Research solutions

Evaluatevendor offerings

Knowledge Exchanges and blogs

Implement and assess

www.sas.com

Primary goalsProperty

Non-SAS domains

Identify the problem/opportunity(Priority SAS topics)

Negotiate and purchase

* Increase awareness & credibility of SAS thru thought leadership* Limited lead gen

* Surface relevant solutions to CBOs* Exploration, “stickiness”* Lead nurturing

* SAS awareness* Engage prospects* Establish credibility

* Lead capture

* Customer support resources* Provide content to support cross/up sell

Strategy: Align with broader content strategy

For content to be relevant and valuable, it must be:

• Persona-based: developers vs. business end users• Aligned with the steps in the buying process:

remember your funnel• Business problem-focused: align with marketing

business objectives Metadata is the enabler:

Target audience Topic Industry Offering Stage of the buying cycle

Strategy: Find the right content

• Where do stories live? Word documents Power points Videos Live events In the minds of employees

• Where does knowledge live? Sharepoint White papers Wikis Internal blogs In the minds of employees

Strategy: Find the right people

Gary Cokins, Closing the Intelligence Gap

Chris Hemedinger, The SAS Dummy

Planning: Monthly assignment

• All posts due on 15th of month

• Publish most timely posts first

• Publish breaking news items and fillers throughout

Planning: Quarterly focus on one topic

• Quarter 1: risk in insurance

• Quarter 2: customer intelligence for insurance

• Quarter 3: combat fraud in insurance

• Quarter 4: business intelligence for insurance

Planning: Three themes every week

Mondays: Getting started articles. “Topics that I know that I know.” Exploit this knowledge to publish a quick post that requires minimal effort.

Wednesdays: Topics that I am trying to learn, such as sampling and simulation and efficient SAS programming. Share what you learn motivates you to get it right.

Fridays: Posts about data analysis. Often inspired by reading other blogs or by having a robust curiosity.

Planning: Divide by areas of specialization

16 Think Tank team members for healthcare

Authors specialize in specific areas

Assignment to blog on your topic area at least once every other month.

Balancing: Display commitment

• SAS Voices blog acts as a testing ground for new bloggers

• Internal blog network of 700+ bloggers also act as testing ground

Balancing: Group blogs REQUIRE editors

No assignments and nobody in charge = NO CONTENT

Rethink your idea of editor. Does not have to have “communicator” in job title

Job responsibilities: content chaser, people wrangler, idea generator, post polisher, etc

Balancing: Plan across blogs as needed World Statistics Day:

12 posts SAS 9.3 Launch:

10+ posts Conference editorial

calendars: plan ahead to avoid overlap

Consider event assignments by theme

Blog home page shows posts from all bloggers

Balancing: Combine or retire as needed Combine when unable to

blog often: Executive blogs

Combine when topics too similar: Social media and Customer intelligence

Retire when not being updated consistently

Retire or transition when employee leaves role

Coaching: Workshops & training

• Monthly blogger meetings to teach SEO, WordPress tips, writer workshops, etc

• Quarterly blogger engagement training• Social value workshops to introduce benefits of

blogging and other social content strategies to new users

• Storytelling workshops being developed• Resources on intranet include blog FAQ site, blog

discussion group, video tutorials, a blog about blogging, social media guidelines

Coaching: Advise; don’t micromanage

• Be patient with different learning styles• Don’t pre-judge• Don’t expect too much: Not all 200 bloggers will

follow every piece of advice• Don’t take it personally when others ask, “Why

don’t the bloggers do _____?” Photo guidelines SEO Individual tips about titles, paragraph lengths, etc

Results: Customer support

• “Sorry for the confusion, and thanks for the details, I could not have done it without you.”

• “Great post. I might have to steal this line of thinking next time I walk into such a project.”

• “Before you ever code a function or statistical procedure, look and see if SAS already has a pre-written one. It is almost certain they do.”

Results: Marketing success examples

• Bloggers invited to speak at customer and industry conferences.

• Blog posts picked up by industry journalists and magazines.

• Blog posts lead to a sales engagements.

Results: The new PRSocial media monitoring finds an MIT Tech Review article that mentions the use of SAS for social media analytics.

I arrange for an interview & blog post

IT World Canada – and others – interview same customer after reading SAS blog post.

Results: Top news source on sas.com

Results: Next steps for measurement

• Use of SAS Social Media Analytics to better understand sentiment and influence to increase by end of 2011.

• New CMS system will be integrated with WordPress blog system in 2012

• SAS Customer Experience Analytics will analyze traffic run on CMS and WP sites by 2013

Questions?

Alison Bolen • @alisonbolen• blogs.sas.com • alison.bolen@sas.com• 919-531-9057

Copyright © 2009, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.