Blogs Or Forums? Which For Your Company?

Prospective clients who come to Durbin Media Group for Blog Consulting often ask if there's a difference between a blog and a forum. In the most extreme cases, I have to spend half an hour explaining the difference, and convincing the client that spending $10,-20,000 developing a forum isn't a good online strategy (and by the way, why not just add a free wiki instead of spending money developing something proprietary?). When you ask questions to get to their desire to have a forum, it usually boils down to the hope that readers will talk to each other, allowing the client to make money without having to put in any effort themselves.

This is why most forums don't work well online. You get what you pay for, and in this case, you paid for the technology, not the content. Most times, you end up with a nicely designed forum with nothing of interest to read.

Part of the problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the internet community works. Allow me to make a broad and inaccurate statement.

There are two kinds of people who don't get social media. Those who think social media is worthless, and those who think social media is magic.

Those who think the internet is worthless tend to focus on the amount of wasted time spent online. They can't see ways to make money from people "blogging," or spending time on Second Life, or recording podcasts. For them, if it's not improving productivity, it's worthless. I try to spend as little time as possible talking to clients like these. If they don't see the value, or want to see value, it's not worth it to try to convince them.

Those who think social media is magic assume that social media is this easily set-up and easily manipulated traffic engine that allows you to put in small amounts of time and money, and 'POOF',

...you make a lot of profit and retire.

Some of you are chuckling, because you know what I'm talking about. There is no shortage of people who think the can start a blog, have other people write on it, and then charge money to advertisers once you get thousands of people reading. It's a different problem than the forum issue started above, but from corporate marketers to entrepreneurs, the lure of easy money has parted many internet speculators from their capital. Blogs are just a new way to do that.

When the blog fails to produce, some go back to saying the internet is worthless. Others start looking for that next easy score, convinced it is just around the corner.

Here's the truth. Everything in life is hard work. The world of social media and blogs is not a fairy kingdom of pixels and profit, but a complicated mix of communities, columnists, spam and technologists. The blogosphere is a mirror of the real world, which means that it functions in much the same manner as the real world. There are winners and losers. Some people hit it big with little effort, and some slave away for years for no reward. From the outside, that looks accurate, but from inside, it's easy to see why some blogs are successful and some are not.

In general, bloggers who blog find a level of success equal to the time and effort they put into it, or they stop. Those who sample, or who try to extract value without putting in effort, ultimately fail (and then blame the medium).

So what should you do, as a company? Should you start a blog or a forum? What is the difference, and what should you look for from each? Luckily, Douglas Karr has answered that for us.

An Open Letter To Wells Fargo Business Line Of Credit

It's a small victory, but one that I hope is replicated across millions of bloggers in millions of retail situations.

My post on our experience with the Wells Fargo Business Line Credit Services has reached the first page of Google. Basically, a Wells Fargo banker called to offer us money, and when we agreed, tried to charge us an interest rate double what they promised. When I called to correct them, they said I needed a reference number to fix the problem.

I sent them a check for the full amount instead. I've heard from the grapevine that Wells Fargo monitors the online world, so I offer up this olive branch. Call me, look into the matter, and I'll write glowing things about your customer service. We don't owe you anything now, so you don't have to waive anything (though I did pay $77 in fees for the few days I had your money) or change policy. You just have to acknowledge a mistake (we all make them), and we're good.

If anyone wants to help me with this, link this post with the anchor text "An open letter to Wells Fargo Business Line of Credit." Also let me know if you have by sending me an e-mail at jdurbin at durbinmedia.com or leaving a comment.

Blogging Platform Comparison: Wordpress Not So Bad

This blog currently sits on a Blogger template. When we first started this blog (almost two years ago), we picked Blogger because it was a simple HTML template. You can make Blogger do anything you want it to (in this case, we matched it up to the navigation of the durbinmedia.com site).

A second reason to use Blogger is they allow you to FTP to a path on your site, which means your blog can be http://yoursite.com/blog. For SEO reasons, it's nice that everytime someone links your blog, they're linking your site. Blogger's limitations are well known. They own your site, so they can do what they want with it, which can include being taken down if they think you're spam, of just bugs, or upgrades, or any other issues.

So we build Blogger blogs, but only for clients who fit those narrow specifications. A path, not a lot of reason to customize site management, and to be frank, less money.

Typepad:
Our main choice is always Typepad. From experience, I can tell you that Typepad shows up in Google faster. The design is clean and easy to use. The site management, including comments, categories, extended posts, trackbacks, widgets, and technorati tags makes it the perfect choice for marketing, small business and PR experts who want to focus on content, community, and message rather than the technical aspects of making the blog. Typepad is less buggy, and not easy to break. That's a great reason to choose it.

Wordpress:
Wordpress is also easy to work with, and I do use it for one client. My concern has always been the look of the interface and the potential for plug-in conflicts. Because it's open source, you have to know a little more than you do with Typepad. I imagine Wordpress is easier for a company than Movable Type, but our main clients aren't looking for another technology platform - they're looking for foolproof content management.

But I'll give Wordpress this. Their import tool from Blogger is incredible. I was having problems converting the template for a client directly into Typepad. So what I did, was sign on to my Wordpress account, and import the files into Wordpress. It took seconds, with no damage to the Blogger entries (titles too!). Of course, no pictures, but no one does that. I then turned aroud and saved the file to my desktop, where it was easily uploaded into Typepad.

That was pretty cool. So maybe I'll give another look to Wordpress.

Although we'll still be converting this blog to Typepad and mapping it to the brandstorming name in the next few weeks.

Top 5 Things I've Learned In Training Corporate Bloggers

Ahmed over at Performancing.com asks the question of how to train bloggers. Franki and I run a Blogger Boot Camp, and we've held several dozen personalized classes training all kinds of folks the ins and outs of blogging and social media. What I have taken away from those classes?

Select your Clients Carefully

Blogger Training has been the most difficult sale I've ever made. It's not closing the sale - that's the easy part. The hard part is determining who would make a good blogger and who wouldn't. If you build someone a website, you get to walk away when done. If you train a blogger, you're with them for life. Maybe not on a contractual basis, but blogging is about building networks, and the only way to be successful is to have your students (clients) be successful. Each success brings you a valuable ally (and SEO resource). Each failure points to the conclusion that your training isn't all it's cracked up to be. With that in mind, here are my top five observations about training corporate bloggers.

1) Look for curiousity. If they aren't passionate about learning, don't sell them a training package.
2) Look for basic internet skills. It's difficult to teach the intricacies of social networking if they don't know what hyperlinks and address bars are. If you do find yourself with internet-challenged individuals, take the time to work on their overall knowledge. It's worth it to them, and helps them fit into online communities later without embarrassment.
3) Never charge too little. When I first started, I let clients accept projects that weren't at full price. Very few of those people are blogging today. The problem is simple one of time and interest. If you gave them a watered down program to fit within their budget, they rarely learned enough to generate the benefits you sold them on.
4) Respect your client. It's their time and their money, but clients have a business to run and jobs to do. Your job as their trainer is to work blogging into their day, and leave the with discipline to use blogging to magnify their efforts and improve their results without turning them into full-time bloggers. To do that, you have to understand and respect them.
5) No one fails at blogging until they give up. If you have done a good job planning and executing a blog strategy, you will be successful. The only failures I have seen are people who have given up, and they tend to give up immediately. If I can get you writing for three months, you'll generate benefits, and stick with it from them on. That's something to be proud of, and should be part of your sales pitch. Blogging is a long-term marketing strategy, not a short term PR or sales fix.

Recently, we've begun offering blogging services to companies when it's clear they don't have the internal staff to do it on their own. I initially resisted this path, but the truth is some people can use blogging, but don't have time. It's a fine line, because you don't want to outsource the blog (it defeats the whole purpose of community), but if they don't have staff, you're left with no option. The solution is to find, hire, and train a dedicated blogger whose job it is to work with the company on their goals. They have the knowledge of an employee with the freedom of a consultant. It's a good solution, with just one problem.

Now you need to hire and train more bloggers. This is a good topic. I think I'll share more in later posts.

GIMA Panel On Interactive Employment Tonight

I'm on a panel in just about hour discussing the state of interactive employment in St Louis for the GIMA (Gateway Interactive Marketing Assocation) at Maggiano's at 7. If you're returning from the event, and want to know about Brandstorming.com, then you've come to the right place.

Brandstorming.com is the corporate marketing blog of Jim and Franki Durbin. WE;ve been bloggers since 2002, but started this site in early 2006, when we rebranded Franki's interactive marketing firm on account of getting married. The blog has grown to over 25000 unique visitors and 200 subscribers this year, and is represented in the AdAge Power 150 of Marketing Blogs (though down at 300-something). Brandstorming and our staffing site, StlRecruiting.com has been featured at staffing conferences across the country discussing the unique role of blogging and social media in online employment.

StlRecruiting exists to explore our view of the marketing and branding around us. Though we occasionally discuss our projects and social media in general, most of the site covers the great campaigns we see. If you are a local brand marketer, we'd love to interview you, talk about your company, and if we like you, even post a few jobs. If we like you.

Jim Durbin and his wife, Franki, own Durbin Media Group, a social media marketing firm that specializes in blog consulting. With clients on both coasts that represent Household names and exciting startups, Durbin Media Group is one of a handful of social media firms with real world experience and results-oriented marketing.

In addition to StlRecruiting.com and Brandstorming.com, Jim and Franki blog at LifeInAVentiCup (Franki's Lifestyle blog), and a series of local blogs like KCRecruiting.com and SeattleRecruiting.com.

For more information on our firm or to hire us, contact us here.

Bloggin Strateges For Companies: Stop Suing Bloggers

Beyond Madison Avenue is the blog of Talent Zoo, a marketing executive search firm who has taken great strides into the blogosphere. I had the chance to speak to Rick Myers a few weeks ago, and it reminds me I hadn't written about them.

Well, their site today turned me onto a story today. They write about Apartment Therapy, who apparently is being sued for reviews and comments left about a pair of stores in New York.

Two shops in particular (which I won't bother to publicly pillory, scorn and otherwise humiliate [much as I'd like to], since they'll probably get their lawyers on us again), have tried to get us to delete negative comments, take their listing down and have harassed two readers by discovering and posting their full names and serving another court papers at their home (this reader included their full name in all their comments and was well known to the store).

This is exactly the type of thing the blogosphere should respond to. The company is attacking, not only the blog, but demanding personal information from them to go after commenters for posting reviews about their product. This is a common tactic to tone-deaf companies who think their lawyers can intimidate small companies and individuals. It reminds me of the kerfuffle over JL Kirk, an employment company that charges candidates for the privilege of representing them. That company sent in the lawyers, and the blogosphere responded with a couple hundred links that shot the company (and the lawyers) to the top of the search engines for negative comments about the company.

in this case, Apartment Therapy is playing the role of mediator, not releasing the names of the companies to the hounds, but also registering their dislike of the process. Lucky for those two companies.

The answer from Danny at Beyond Madison Avenue is not to sue, but to use the criticism as a launching board to improve the product.

Now, I could sit here an wax poetic about the problems with our legal system and ask why we live in a society where companies are free to bully the little guy in hopes of scaring them with lawyer fees. But I won’t. We all know that in a post "I got paid for spilling hot McDonalds coffee on myself" world, lawsuits are just a way of life. What I absolutely can’t understand though, is how companies could see this as anything other than an opportunity.

Your company has just been publicly berated for…something…a lack of service, treating a customer poorly, whatever. Now, obviously your first inclination is to go after the person speaking out against them. Spend a grand or two, search out their real names, and slap them with cease and desist letters that probably cost $100/word from your corporate attorneys.

Popular Bloggers are not unreasonable people - certainly not the ones that build and maintain an audience. For a company to sue Apartment Therapy for reviews of their stores shows an ignorance of the nature of social media, and a contempt for their customers. Are they pushign out cease and desist letters to customers that are complaining to friends and family? It's the same story, but published online.

So here's a big thumb in the eye to companies who rely on lawyers who are ignorant of the world of the blogosphere. You may be able to intimidate small companies, but you can't intimidate all of us. You'd be better off spending your money and your time addressing the problems that bloggers your customers uncover.

Newspapers And The Advent Of Blog Marketing

Sometime last year, I e-mailed an idea to Emmis Communications on how the could use blog marketing to upsell advertisers. The answer in a nutshell, was good idea, but we sell radio advertising.

What was it Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman? Oh yeah. "You people work on commission, right? Big Mistake. Big. Huge."

The idea is simple. Radio Stations have already been passed by the internet as the place to spend money. Newspapers were losing ground rapidly, but it could be they are catching one. Their audience is growing online, even while their revenues are subscribers and stock prices are plummeting.

Call me crazy, but I think newspapers are going to get it. They already have, in the Direct Mail world. $1 billion in postage, and they are the biggest users in the local market for the US Postal Service.

Imagine what happens when newspaper begin to leverage their greatest asset - their advertisers, and begin to move into the online advertising world. And if they don't, well, the blog networks aren't getting any smaller.

If you want to discuss this idea, e-mail me and I'll give you the rest.

Durbin Media Group Clients

If you read Brandstorming for our great words of wisdom, or perhaps if you're one of those folks who come here for the images, then this next bit might not entertain you.

We've launched several client blogs, or to be more accurate, our clients have launched several of their own blogs, and I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight them in case they are in areas that might interest you. These are all first-time endeavors, so do be kind, but they've also completed Blogger Boot Camp, our training course, so there's no excuse for not knowing proper etiquette, proper posting and attribution, and oh yes, interesting (to their target market).

So first off we have the site, Situational Marketing. This site, run by Blast Companies is their attempt to connect to the world of marketing with their popular products, Consumer Decoder and Voterblast. Blast Companies is run by the estimable and excellent Chris Torbit, who is an entrepeneur, a good guy, and a father of three children under the age of 5. Don't ask me how he has time to run a business. The site is focused on the ability of companies to communicate with their customers. Their killer pitch is a new program that allows customers to choose how they wish to be contacted. It's the ultimate in self-service communication.

Next, we should take another look at Rehabcare, the campus relations blog run by Barbara Wallace. The blog is intended to communicate to the occupational, physical and speech therapy that Rehabcare wishes to hire. Barbara's team writes the blog, discussing issues important to the students about their career, but also adding in information on where they are going, what they are doing, and what to expect. From volleyball pictures to celebrating National Physical Therapy month, Rehabcare has you covered. They also have a great tuition reimbursement program (thought I'd throw that in).

KeenHire is the brainchild of Margaret Graziano, a noted speaker and employment guru who preaches the good word on behavioral interviewing and personality assessments. Her blog is very much in the beta stage, but can be found at keenhire.typepad.com. Her main website is about to be updated, and the blog will then be found at blog.keenhire.com. Margaret's goal with the blog is to amplify the marketing and networking efforts of KeenHire. She wants to provide a place for her clients and friends to go to learn more about how to hire people more efficiently, and the blog will also help her learn more about how the internet is changing the way we look at employment.

We also recently completed a website for Kim and Jan Hibbs of HibbsHomes.com. Kim and Jan are custom home builders in the St Louis area, and they were looking to bring more of their business online. The site is for contractors, clients, and the general public, and we expect to hear a lot more out of them in the future.

And then we have Flektor, which is the video and photo-editor and polling widget company recently acquired by Fox Interactive Media. One of our bloggers is helping write the Flektor Blog, which we use to promote the videos (Fleks) that are created by users, but we're also reaching out to the broader blog community to look for creative ways to use the software.

Flektor is currently powering a polling widget for the MTV/My Space Presidential Dialogues, and we play a part in contacting local bloggers before the dialogues to alert them to the event as each is announced. Later on, we hope to convince people to use the polling widget to embed questions in their own sites, as well as using the Flek-creation tool to make political, marketing, and personal media.

Other clients we are working on include FeeFiFoto.com, NetShare.com and some other names we hope to reveal soon.

If you are looking for a social media consultant, or someone to explain more about blogs, podcast, RSS, social networking, or how to improve your online profile, come check us out at the Durbin Media Group website. And don't forget to let us know if you're going to be at BlogWorldExpo.

Meet The Brandstorming Team

Brandstorming is the business weblog of Durbin Media Group. Franki and I are social media consultants who help businesses and individuals improve their online profile.

Basically, we make you look and sound good online, with web design, blog marketing, and social media training.

In the last year, we've had 25,000 unique visitors, and we wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading our blog.

Both of us contribute to the blog, though Jim has been posting the most recently. Franki has been building a small empire over at LifeInAVentiCup.com a lifestyle blog that covers things she loves. I also blog at StlRecruiting.com, where I cover staffing issues in St Louis.

We've been on the Blogger platform with this blog, but are going to be converting it over to Typepad soon. We'll give you plenty of notice, and change the feed soon.

Speaking of feeds - if you are a regular reader, we'd love to hear from you. Blogging is just writing until you make a connection with someone else, and we would really like to connect with those of you who have subscribed to us through Feedburner.

Send us a note and introduce yourself, and we'll see what we can all accomplish together. Jim is jdurbin@ and then the durbinmedia.com. Franki is just franki@ and then the durbin media.com

Say hello - or leave a comment - and send us your blogs. We'd love to be reading you.

-Jim and Franki.

NAPS Conference in San Antonio

Thursday, November 1st, I'll be speaking at a conference with Shally Steckerl and Margaret Graziano on a number of topics for Executives. This is the flyer for the event. If you are going to be in San Antonio, or wish to join the conference, now is the time to sign up.

You do need to sign up separately. Contact Mgraziano@keenhire.com or call 1-888-KEENHIRE to register. We'll cover the topics of behavioral interviewing, personality assessments, sourcing, and social networking, and we'll be available afterwards to chat. Register for the full NAPS conference here.

Speaking At The NAPS Conference In San Antonio

For those interested, I'll be on a executive briefing panel in November for the NAPS conference in San Antonio (National Association of Personnel Services) on November 1. Margaret Graziano, of KeenHire.com is sponsoring the panel to kick-off the conference, and we'll be joined by Shally Stackerl to discuss behavioral interviewing, sourcing, and the use of social networks in hiring.

If you're going, you have to be signed up for this panel. it's 7:00-8:30 on the first day of the conference, and can be found here at RecruitingLife.com

Less than 150 seats remain, and this will be the largest NAPS event so far.

More Reasons To Love Trader Joe's

I have to admit. The more I shop at Trader Joe's, the more I like it. Franki and I started shopping at Trader Joe's because the Uncle Sam cereal was two bucks cheaper than our regular grocery store and the eggs were 80 cents cheaper. The more we shopped, the more our grocery cart grew. Steak sauce. Rice pudding. Whey protein. Decaf Green Tea. Frozen Spinach. Dried Blueberries. The more we looked, the better the prices were, and the more we switched from one grocery store to another.

I found another product - McCann's Irish Oatmeal. I've been a Quaker Oats guy for the last six months, adding cinnamon and raisins, or Splenda and blueberries, but with the new oatmeal that comes in a tin, of all things, I'm hooked.

It's just oatmeal, but it's cool, and I enjoy the fact that I'm paying less and getting more. Of course, I have to boil it 30 minutes, but you have to do that for all good oatmeal anyway.

It's not just the food. Trader Joe's makes shopping fun. The people are friendly, the atmosphere is cooler, and I really feel like I'm a valued customer. The only place that comes close is the meat counter at Schnuck's up in Hilltop Village. While Whole Foods, or Whole Paycheck, as it's often referred to, preaches at you with their marketing and then makes you pay for it, Trader Joe's welcomes you with open arms.

If only they had a better beef and chicken selection, they might become our sole grocery store.

And if I may, it still really ticks me off that I feel compelled to tell you this is an unpaid endorsement of Trader Joe's because some people feel that getting paid to post is a good idea.

Blog World And New Media Expo: Attending

Franki and I talked about it over the weekend (we had fivehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif hours in the car on the drive up to Chicago to see the Gates of Paradise and the Farnsworth House), and we've decided we have to go to the in Las Vegas.

It's too big - far too many people I read are attending, and it's reached the status of "everyone who is anyone is going."

So we're going.

If you are going also, we'd love to meet you. Our goal is to connect with as many bloggers as possible in all disciplines. Think of it as social networking offline. Please leave a comment or send me an e-mail, and we'll make sure we meet up.

The event is November 7-9 in Las Vegas.