Viviane Champalaune is a 26-year-old woman who likes the sun and decided to live in Nice instead of Paris. With her partner, Sylvain Briant, a 28-year-old guy who also prefers to live on the Riviera, they built a ‘webmarketing’ agency named Wizz-U. And when they discovered the potential of blogs, they decided to create a service named Blogmarketing. In fact, they want to help companies which don’t have the time to run their own business blogs. And as this kind of service is still in its infancy in France, I’ve asked Viviane if she could give me more details about it. You can find below our exchange conducted via e-mail (in French).

Sources: Conversation between Viviane Champalaune and Roland Piquepaille, November 2006

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After weeks or months of preparation, you think you’re ready to launch your business blog. You’ve found the theme, you’ve assembled the blogging team, the software platform has been tested internally and everything looks good. But think twice before officially launching your blog. You might be surprised later. Before telling the world that there is a new blog in town, here are some essential rules to remember.

Aviva Directory is a paid general Web directory which has been launched in 2005 by Jeffrey Behrendt, in Ottawa, Canada — at least if I’ve found the correct information. It has recently published 21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch. Some of the tips mentioned there are crucial while others can be forgotten, mainly because they’re not specifically intended for business blogs. Their first tip can be applied to all kinds of blogs, but it is particularly important for corporate blogs.

Connect with your readers through an about page and welcome message. One of the best ways to make a lasting impact is to connect on a personal level with your readers. That means letting them know who you are and what your background is.I totally agree with this one. And you should do it. It’s always frustrating to have to click on a dozen of links before finding who writes a blog — if you’re interested of course.

It’s interesting that Aviva Directory — which is not a blog — doesn’t show the same transparency that it claims is essential: try to find who’s behind the site and you’ll see what I mean. But let’s move to an even more important advice.

Don’t get seen naked: Never launch a blog with fewer than 5 posts. In the blogosphere you typically get just one shot at impressing a visitor or fellow blogger. Too many new bloggers throw up two posts and then start working on promotion. In the world of blogging, you are selling yourself and your writing. If you can’t give people a fully dressed picture of what your blog is all about and what type of writing will be on it, then why should they throw a link your way, or subscribe to your RSS feed?

In fact even large companies forget this. This is why I’m usually waiting more than a week before reviewing a corporate blog after its official birth. But many people are not as patient as I am, and will never return to your blog if there are no valid or interesting contents.

The next tips are related to your RSS feeds. But let’s look only at the first one.

Make sure a link to your RSS feed is available above the fold. Though they won’t help your AdSense revenues much, subscribers are the lifeblood of any successful blog. These devotees are often the ones providing you with regular comments, and are far more likely to be webmasters themselves (meaning more links). It should be obvious to anyone launching a blog, but it’s amazing how many new bloggers do not make a link to their RSS feed readily available.

I totally agree with the importance of showing to your readers how to subscribe to your RSS feed. However, these RSS feeds come in various flavors, and the blogging platforms are not all very friendly with you when you need to find a link to your RSS feed.

But I disagree with Aviva about AdSense: this might be somewhat important for a personal blog, but is irrelevant for a business blog. What is instead important is to subscribe to your RSS feed yourself to see how the outside world can see you your blog. Will you include your full posts on only some excerpts in your RSS feeds? I’ll revisit this subject in a full note one day.

Let’s skip the tips about “social bookmarking” or “getting networked” and move to the “link building” section. The article says you should “submit your blog to blog directories and to general web directories such as DMOZ and Aviva.” I don’t know about Aviva, but if it’s important to tell DMOZ or Yahoo! that you have a new blog, it’s like sending a message in a bottle: you’ll have to wait for months before these directories accept you. And if they don’t, they will not tell you.

There is one big tip missing from the Aviva list: be sure to ping all the major blogging directories — and the search engines — when you post a new note. This is usually easily done through options available in your blogging software.

These are some essential tips but you might have additional ones not mentioned here. Do you have some other tips for launching a blog? Please tell me about them.

Sources: Aviva Directory, Ottawa, October 23, 2006

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Our world has certainly changed if Pearson, the publishing giant behind the Financial Times, Les Echos or Penguin Books, has decided to use a wiki to create a new business book. According to the Wall Street Journal in U.K.’s Pearson Tests The Group Dynamic For a ‘Wiki’ Book (paid registration required), Pearson will collaborate with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School on a book exploring how businesses can use online communities, consumer-generated media such as blogs and other online services. [Update: An alert reader — connected with Shared Insights — wrote me to say that there was a free link to the Wall Street Journal article mentioned above.] But read more…

This book will be called “We Are Smarter Than Me” and will be written by people like you and me who will submit their contributions to the WeAreSmarter.org website whose motto is “Be an author of the first networked book on business.” The site contains the chapter headings and a few starting pages. Here is how the book will be written.

For instance, a chapter titled “We Can Research It,” tells an anecdote about an Australian man who started a mail-order brewery based on votes by 20,000 cellphone users on what makes an ideal beer. Other participants can then edit the contents or add anecdotes.

The wiki leaders expect business consultants and executives to contribute to the book site, which, like Wikipedia, doesn’t pay writers for their work. The site is open to anyone, but does ask contributors to supply information. WeAreSmarter expects to close submissions to the book wiki by the end of the first quarter next year and turn it over to paid ghostwriters to turn it into a 120-page business book aimed at the fast-growing airport bookstore market.

The contributors will not be paid but the book will not be free. It’s expected to be sold for $25.99. And all profits will be given to a charity chosen by the contributors.

The WeAreSmarter.org gives more details on the goals of the book.

The central premise of We Are Smarter Than Me is that large groups of people (”We”) can, and should, take responsibility for traditional business functions that are currently performed by companies, industries and experts (”Me”).

And here is an example taken in the real world.

Procter & Gamble is recruiting 600,000 housewives to help market its products through word of mouth. In return for much greater reach and impact, the company is giving up control of the marketing message, relying on its community of customers/marketers to craft their own message in the most appropriate fashion.

If you’re not familiar with this Procter & Gamble’s project, please visit its Vocalpoint website (free registration).

The initiators of the project have planned to invite members of their communities, which are much bigger than I would have thought: Wharton Business School (675,000 invitees), MIT Sloan School of Management (400,000 invitees), Pearson (500,000 invitees) and Shared Insights (250,000 invitees).

For more information, you might want to read this press release, “More Than a Million Invited to Write and Edit First Collaborative Book on Management Best Practices.”

But how many of these people will contribute? Let’s go back to the Wall Street Journal for an answer.

One of the big challenges will be finding ways to motivate the professional experts, many of whom make money by writing books themselves, says Mr. Malone of MIT. “The question is, can we create an incentive structure so they’ll put in some of their best thinking, or will this just be incidental thinking?”

All participaants will have to sign a Creative Commons license to avoid the issue of many individual copyrights.

Now, let’s wait until next year to see if the wiki process can be successful for such a project.

Sources: William M. Bulkeley, The Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2006; and various websites

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Two weeks ago, Northeastern University, Massachusetts, released the results of a survey about what makes a successful corporate blog? This study was done in collaboration with Backbone Media Inc. and looked at the factors that contribute to a successful business blog. Not surprisingly, these factors include transparency, lots of time and a company’s ability to engage in a dialogue with its customers. Another key factor is the blogger’s writing style who has to be at the same time entertaining and personal. But read more…

This “Blogging Success Study” has been conducted by Northeastern University Professor Walter Carl and his students.

The research team interviewed twenty corporate bloggers from companies of varied size and industry, and asked each blogger a series of standardized questions. Only bloggers who had been blogging for over one year and considered their blogging efforts successful were eligible to participate.

The team selected blogs from Adobe, Marqui, Microsoft and Stonyfield Farm among others. Here is a link to the — long — full report.

After doing all the interviews, the research team identified five factors for success.

• Culture: If a company has particular cultural traits worth revealing or a bad reputation it wants to repudiate, blogging can be an attractive option.
• Transparency: Critical to establishing credibility and trust with an audience. People want to see an honest portrayal of a company.
• Time: It takes a lot of time to set up, research and write a quality blog. Companies need to identify a person who has the time or whose schedule is freed up to make the time.
• Dialogue: A company’s ability and willingness to engage in a dialogue with their customer base about topics that the customer base is interested in is critical to its blogging success.
• Entertaining writing style and personalization: A blogger’s writing style and how much they are willing to reveal about their life, experience and opinions brings human interest to a blog, helps build a personal connection with readers and will keep people reading.

Here is a quote from the full report about this personalization factor.

The bloggers in the study suggested that bloggers should write to entertain their readers and not just to give an opinion or inform. Success in part then can be said to come from the personality of the blogger. The personal writing style of a blogger will influence the interaction and reading habits of the audience.

And this “personality” can stem from humor, unique personal experience or passion expressed for their topic. The more entertaining a blogger is, the more captivating and riveting the content, the higher the chance for blogging success. In addition, attempts by a blogger to conduct a dialogue with their readership, other bloggers and the community at large will have a positive effect on the success of a blog.

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I also want to emphasize that it takes time and dedication to build a good business blog. Of course, you need time to write posts, but you also need time to reply to comments from readers, monitor other blogs, keep up with the latest industry news and build relationships with other bloggers within a community.

This study also looks at key issues which need to be solved before launching a business blog. These include having clear blogging goals in advance and practicing with an internal blog before going external.

As I noted above, there are no big surprises in this study. But it’s still good to hear that a business blog needs some real effort — and money — to be successful.

Sources: Northeastern University news release, November 2, 2006; and various websites

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As Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence for HP, Eric Kintz leads HP’s marketing strategy worldwide. He’s also the author of The Marketing Excellence blog where he openly discusses industry trends and writes about the future of the marketing function in the high-tech industry. Despite his busy schedule, Eric was nice enough to answer my questions about blogging at HP and elsewhere. Below is this long interview conducted via e-mail.

Roland: IBM, Sun or Microsoft had legions of bloggers a long time before HP. Who took the decision to catch up these other companies and to start the blogging initiative at HP?

Eric: The way you’ve phrased your question is a bit leading. Most tech companies had legions of bloggers communicating with their peer groups. HP was no different. Employees from HP hosted blogs both internally and externally. In 2004 HP decided to provide a formal space within HP.com for those conversations to take place. I believe IBM made a similar decision later in 2005.

On HP’s side, we opened the formal blog platform because our business leaders saw an opportunity to extend the conversations they were having with customers to a much broader distribution. Our enterprise businesses took the lead with a number of executives launching their own blogs on hp.com. From there, platform use expanded to other business groups within the company.

Roland: As this is your job, you’re writing mainly about marketing: how people react to your posts inside and outside HP? Are you pleased by their comments?

Eric: I have been surprised at how positively people have reacted to my blog both externally and internally. Externally I think bloggers have been appreciative of the fact that I have blogged about the future direction of marketing and how HP is responding to these trends vs. blogging about how great HP is. They also have appreciated that I was willing to engage in the blogosphere and learn from other bloggers, this is a humbling experience and I learn every day.

Internally, my blog has spread through word of mouth and has given me the opportunity to connect throughout the world with HP people who have a passion for web 2.0 and are driving innovation in all corners and levels of the organization. Here is one recent example of a HP viral marketing campaign that I discovered through my blog. I have also connected with HP Labs and discovered the great research they were conducting around word of mouth and social networks.

Roland: When did you start your blog? And can you give me some numbers (posts per month, number of visitors from inside and outside HP)?

Eric: I started my blog in April and my traffic has been increasing every month since. I have approximately 10,000 visitors every month, mostly from outside of HP. I post on average once a week, which allows me to focus on going deeper in the topics/insights vs. just reporting news or what other bloggers say. My blog was recently recognized as the #3 CMO blog by the Daily Fix Blog published by MarketingProfs.

Roland: Has this blog changed your work by reducing the ‘distance’ between you and your customers?

Eric: It has not changed my work per se, but it has allowed me to keep up to speed in a much more effective manner with the most critical marketing innovation developments by writing about new concepts, putting them to the test of the blogosphere and engaging with fellow bloggers.

One of the most interesting and rewarding experiences was getting recently together with leading marketing bloggers and sharing thoughts around the opportunities and challenges of blogging –- we wrote a joint post and cross-posted on all our blogs and it was really well received.

Roland: How many HP executives have a blog now?

Eric: Nine executives have a HP hosted blog but many more have their own blogs outside of the HP platform. A great example is Phil Mckinney, the Chief Technology Officer for our PC business[, who writes the Killer Innovations blog.]

Roland: And how many HP employees blog outside from the official platform?

Eric: It is difficult to say as many have personal blogs talking about their family or hobbies. Clearly many employees have their own blog outside of the HP hosted platform; I think it is a great thing as it helps employees better understand what blogging is about and how they can use these new communication platforms in their work.

Roland: Is there a corporate blogging policy?

Eric: Yes, we do have a corporate blogging policy and guidelines in place. I strongly recommend that every large company have one, even if they don’t want to start their own blogging platform. The blogging policy is structured around 6 key guidelines and best practices to help HP employees make the most of blogging’s potential.

Roland: Time is often an issue with blogging: how do you find the time to do it? and how much time do you spend between reading, researching and writing? Is is part of your official job?

Eric: Time is clearly a very difficult issue, which I personally struggle with a lot. I tend to write on planes or in the evening. I usually take a few weeks to write a post, coming up with the initial idea though reading or by connecting with somebody and develop my thoughts over a period of time. Each post takes approximately 2-3 hours to write if you add up the various pieces. Blogging is not part of my official job but driving marketing innovation is and I view blogging as an enabler of that responsibility.

Roland: Besides writing about marketing issues, do you use your blog to stay in touch with other French people living in Silicon Valley?

Eric: Not really… Most people do not know that I am French! Shhhh… But it’s a great idea!

Roland: Besides that, are you happy to live in the U.S? And do you plan to return to France one day?

Eric: I really enjoy living in California. It has an amazing combination of business innovation and great outdoor lifestyle. I would have a hard time living elsewhere…

Roland: Are you hooked to blogs? Could you stop blogging tomorrow?

Eric: I am definitely hooked; I have come to realize how much quicker I get the information I need and learn about new trends. More and more mainstream media journalists get their news from blogs and it is already old news when I read it in the newspaper. I think I could stop blogging but I cannot stop reading blogs.

Roland: Do you plan to use sometimes your blog as a promotional tool, like Jonathan Schwartz does implicitly for Sun from time to time?

Eric: Do you mean for example when Jonathan blogs about publicity stunts (read my answer)? :) I do blog about HP initiatives when I think that we are doing something cool in marketing.

Roland: Where is going HP now that IBM sold its PC division to IBM? Do you want to be #1 and replace IBM?

Eric: According to financial analysts and some media, HP may well be the largest technology company by the end of this year. [For example, you can read “Tech Has A New Top Dog” (BusinessWeek Magazine, June 19, 2006 issue).]

Roland: Finally, do you have a message to deliver to my readers?

Eric: Learn more about the blogosphere (personally and as marketer), understand its power as well as its shortcomings. Is there too much hype? OF COURSE! However remember the hype surrounding the first wave of dot-coms, remember the craze, remember the crash but remember also that Google came out of this period and changed for ever the landscape of advertising.

Roland: Eric, thank you for taking the time for this conversation.

Sources: Eric Kintz, September-November 2006; and various websites

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It took me a while to reply to François Lamotte, from Shoob, who wanted to know how various bloggers were writing their posts. He asked us to define five key points — or principles. Personally, I have only one principle when I write, be it a report, a presentation, a personal e-mail, a postcard or a post on a blog. And it is only three words long: respect the reader. Of course, writing a blog and an academic paper are two different things. So read more to discover my personal guidelines. UPDATE (November 8, 2006): you can read the French version of these guidelines in “Comment blogue Roland Piquepaille?” published by François on Shoob.

Choose an interesting subject

For my blogs about emerging trends (ZDNet or Primidi), I usually select a subject which has not yet be treated by the mainstream media or blogs with large readership. And I’m choosing only one subject daily on more than a thousand articles that I read — partially or totally.

For the ones focused about why companies should use blogs (Blogs for Companies or ITtoolbox), my selecting process is slightly different. For example, if I want to write about the latest corporate blog launched by Intel, I’m waiting until there are enough posts to see if the blog has a future or not — according to me. Being the first to write about this blog is not interesting for me — and my readers (read this for more details).

In both cases, as I’m publishing “knowledge blogs,” I usually avoid to write about subjects which already have abundantly commented on.

Find references and pictures

Even if some bloggers say they’re dead, press releases still exist. And the mainstream media also are still alive — and well, at least for some. But often, and probably because they have to face the competition of some influent bloggers, news releases and press articles have a tendency to rush. Sometimes, they mention a researcher’s name or the name of the journal which published his latest work. When I decide to publish a post about a specific subject, I’m looking for the exact references and even previous publications from this researcher or his lab. I’m also searching for illustrations which will allow the reader to better understand what are the concepts behind a specific research work.

Check all the facts

Even if you’re reading very well established newspapers or magazines, it’s better to look at possible mistakes and to double check if their numbers are right. Like when the French news magazine L’Express wrote a few months ago that IBM had 130,000 employees: at this time, IBM employed 330,000 persons (read this for more details).

When I decided two days ago to write that an American astronomer was envisioning to build a ’sun umbrella’ to protect us from the global warming consequences, a project which could cost as much as $2,5 trillion, I searched for several confirmations. First, I wanted to know if I was not dreaming, and then, I really needed to validate such an incredible information. After checking if the information was true, I wrote a note which has now been picked in a way or another by influential blogs, such as Engadget, Defense Tech or Slashdot (read this for more details).

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Pay attention to presentation

If an interesting content is essential for a blog, the way the information is presented is also crucial. Even if a blog post is considered as less formal than a report to your CEO doesn’t mean that you have to ignore grammar rules. Below is a non-exhaustive list of what I’m checking before publishing a post on my blogs.

• Find a “good” title for the post (read “How to find a good title for a note“)
• Summarize the note for inclusion in various news feeds
• Spell check the text (read “Check Your Text for Formal Errors“)
• Check syntax, grammar and punctuation
• Check that all the links mentioned in the post are accessible — at least when I’m publishing the note
• Mention all the sources for the post
• Indicate the “weight” of some documents (animations and videos for example)

And always think about the potential reader

I guess you already have understood that I’m thinking about you when I’m publishing a note. Even after 4 1/2 years of blog writing, I’m still only publishing about things that passionate me — and which might interest you. This process led me to have friends all over the world. And if one day I’m getting bored, you’ll feel it. And I’ll stop blogging.

Sources: Roland Piquepaille, November 6, 2006; and various websites

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