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Posts tagged: Blogs

Study: Fortune 500 Blog Stats-missing 84%?

Posted on April 23, 2009

It’s almost unbelievable – only 81 out of the Fortune 500 companies have public-facing corporate blogs.

Is it me or does 16% sound impossibly low?

This stat is a key finding of a new research study, “The Fortune 500 and Blogging: Slow and Steady” conducted by Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Research Chair of the Society for New Communications Research and Chancellor Professor of Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Eric Mattson, CEO of Financial Insite Inc., a Seattle-based research firm.

Other Key Findings in the Fortune 500 Blogging: Slow and Steady Study include:

  • 81 of the Fortune 500 or 16% currently have public-facing blogs.
  • This compares with 39 percent of the Inc. 500; 41 percent of the higher education sector and 57 percent of the nation’s Top 200 Charities.
  • 28 percent of the Fortune 500’s blogs link to Twitter accounts. (Other Fortune 500 companies have Twitter accounts, but they are not linked to their blogs)
  • Five of the top ten companies have public blogs: Wal-Mart, Chevron, General Motors, Ford, and Bank of America.
  • 90 percent of the Fortune 500’s blogs have the comments feature enabled.
  • The computer software/hardware technology industry has the most blogs, followed by the food and drug industry, financial services, Internet services, semi-conductors, retail and automotive respectively.
  • Ten percent of the Fortune 500’s blogs link to podcasts; 21 percent incorporate video

Source: Society for New Communications Research press release

Study Screen Shots: Number of Company Blogs By Industry, Comparison by Sectors

Two graphics in the study jumped out at me: the number of companies by industry and the comparisons by sector. Only four insurance companies blog? It would be interesting to take the study a step further and break out the number of companies by industry and then match them up. If there are eight insurance companies in the Fortune 500, then is 50% a good participation rate? That’s a subjective conclusion, and it is really meaningful? Still, if you’re a consumer or an investor who’s shopping and you compare companies – would the ones with active community relationship centers aka blogs win out?

It would be interesting to break out the Inc. 500 company blogs in the same way and then compare them with the Fortune 500. One last measurement: financial performance. While publishing a company blog does not guarantee an exact return on investment, a well-produced communication vehicle on a blog-based publishing platform that allows commentary opens up new channels for innovation, customer service and research. As a corporate communications consultant who’s contributed to a variety of internal and external publications, including managing the launch of the intranet at Sears in 1998, I get excited about what happens when communications connects companies closer to their customer communities. Perhaps other Fortune 500 companies are more interactive in other forms of social media.

corporate blogs by industry

Click on the images to view full-size.

2009-blogging-sectors

2008 Fortune 500 Companies with Blogs (n=81)
(As of March, 2009)
Rank Name of Company
Source: Fortune 500 Blogging: Slow and Steady Study

Typically, we don’t post long lists here. I’m making an exception this time to ask you to comment on what you think about Fortune 500 company blogs. Do you read them? Which ones do you like? Why? What would you change?

1 Wal-Mart Stores
3 Chevron
4 General Motors
7 Ford Motor
9 Bank of America Corp.
12 J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
14 Hewlett-Packard
15 International Business Machines
17 Verizon Communications
23 Procter & Gamble
27 Boeing
34 Dell
35 Johnson & Johnson
41 Wells Fargo
44 Microsoft
46 United Parcel Service
49 Time Warner
55 Safeway
58 Sprint Nextel
60 Intel
65 Motorola
66 Best Buy
67 Walt Disney
68 FedEx
71 Cisco Systems
72 Johnson Controls
75 American Express
80 Alcoa
82 New York Life Insurance
83 Coca-Cola
88 Tyson Foods
106 McDonald’s
111 Emerson Electric
113 Wyeth
115 Electronic Data Systems
119 Goodyear Tire & Rubber
120 Manpower
129 Delta Air Lines
137 Oracle
144 Xerox
150 Google
153 Nike
163 Avnet
170 Computer Sciences
171 Amazon.com
175 Progressive
181 CBS
184 Sun Microsystems
185 Texas Instruments
189 Toys ‘R’ Us
197 Marriott International
201 EMC
214 General Mills
217 Medtronic
238 Eastman Kodak
240 DISH Network
242 Principal Financial
267 Southwest Airlines
299 Nordstrom
300 Alltel
305 Monsanto
313 Virgin Media
321 KeyCorp
326 eBay
346 PPL
348 GameStop
353 Yahoo
362 McGraw-Hill
369 Whole Foods Market
378 Newell Rubbermaid
396 Starwood Hotels & Resorts
398 Thrivent Financial for Lutherans
399 Pitney Bowes
406 Advanced Micro Devices
427 Micron Technology
431 Owens Corning
442 Foot Locker
443 Agilent Technologies
454 DaVita
461 Symantec
474 Clorox

What surprised you about these findings?

6 Comments - Posted in Social Media Tagged with: ,

Simply The Best | Group Writing Project

Posted on December 23, 2008

Thanks to Joanna Young of Confident Writing for coming up with the Simply the Best group writing project. It’s a call to sort through all of your 2008 posts and pick out just one to share. Joanna will be posting the collection. I’m looking forward to reading what others selected and I’ll be back with that link when it goes live. Hat tip to Brad Shorr for sharing his best post and getting me thinking about submitting mine. What’s your best post? Joanna’s keeping entries open until December 28.

Joanna Young’s Simply the Best Group Writing Project: My Entry Storyteller Marketing Search Engine Strategies Coverage

Joanna asked that we use 30 words to characterize our best post.

This post is simply the best because . . . it connects two of my favorite topics: storytelling and marketing, covers an industry event, links to real-life lessons, promotes others, includes insight-full comments and ignites inspiration.

And the back story . . .

It’s not every day that I get to go to an event on a press pass. In fact the last time I did, I went to a gardening show in Chicago to interview Roger Swain, former show host of Victory Gardens, and a few landscape experts. The Chicago Tribune bought the story. It was fun, it was novel, it was about 10 years ago.

I never did it again. But, a few months ago when someone from Chicago Search Engine Strategies called to offer my readers a discount, for some reason I asked them to send me a link to apply for press credentials. I applied, they came through and I got to go to the show – for free.

Although this was my first industry press pass, this was the seventh event I covered. Every post went up almost right away – except one. The storytelling marketing post took over a week to go up. When I went back to my notes, I wanted to give it some life. So, I decided to add links to the case studies mentioned.

What I didn’t mention on the post is that this year I created a program about storytelling for a friend of mine.

A friend in his 80s who asked me to speak to his social group. When I sent him a list of my regular marketing and PR topics, I was almost hoping he’d cancel.

But, the next time I saw Bill he said, “Say, I’d like to talk to you about what you’re going to talk about.”

He wasn’t going to give up.

So, I asked him, “Bill, what do you want me to talk about? What message do you want your friends to hear?”

“I don’t want them to give up on living,” he said. “I want them to keep telling their stories to people of all ages.”

“Life-giving Storytelling: The C-P-R Method” became the title of my simple motivational speech for Bill’s group.

Thanks to Bill, I came up with my own personal perspective of what storytelling is about. Make that storytelling for people of all ages.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How do you define a “best in class” post?

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2 Comments - Posted in Marketing Tagged with: ,

2009 Media Resource: Blogs, Social Networking, Newspapers, Magazines

Posted on December 12, 2008

BurrellesLuce recently released a report on the top 2009 media outlets, including comparisons to past rankings.

Grab your copy of the two-page BurrellesLuce’s 2009 “Top Daily Newspapers, Blogs, and Consumer Magazines & Social Networks.”

Note that you will have to enter name and email address in exchange for the information. Each list is based on one measurement.  What I like about these lists is that they report on where each media group ranks at the moment. To give you an idea of the current standings, I captured these screenshots to share with you.

Top Blogs as Ranked by Technorati

Here’s a pull out of the top 15 blogs, based on technorati authority. To find out how the blogs stack up on more levels, measure blog rankings that report on readership and page views as well. Still, it’s interesting to look at the list. If you want high-profile promotions, link to a post on these blogs or leave frequent comments so you become recognized as part of their community.

topblogs

Source: 2009 edition of the BurrellesLuce “Top Daily Newspapers, Blogs, and Consumer Magazines & Social Networks”

Top 10 Newspapers by Daily and Sunday Distribution

For me, one of the most interesting measures of newspapers is the number of inbound links. We also look at how the publications position stories both online and in print. Yesterday’s paper clip is today’s link online.

topnewspapers

Source: 2009 edition of the BurrellesLuce “Top Daily Newspapers, Blogs, and Consumer Magazines & Social Networks”

Consumer Magazines

Looks like the Boomers have this one locked up. How do the online sites match up? Will there be more movement in Boomer social networks in 2009?

consumermags-circulation

Social Networks based on Alexa rankings

No matter how these networks rank, what’s important to you is to be where your people are. For most businesses and organizations, it’s Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn with flickr filling in as an image manager and search engine magnet. By the way, LinkedIn comes in at number 15; twitter is at number 23.

topsocialnetworks

Source: 2009 edition of the BurrellesLuce “Top Daily Newspapers, Blogs, and Consumer Magazines & Social Networks”

For those of you who like to measure historical data, check out the BurrellesLuce archive – no sign-up required.

Your Turn: What do you think about the 2009 standings? How do they relate to your marketing and public relations efforts?

4 Comments - Posted in Blogging, Social Media Tagged with: ,

Search Engine Optimization for Blogs | BlogWorld08

Posted on September 29, 2008

SEO-Blogs-SearchEngineOptimization_BlogWorld08Interested in what happened at BlogWorld? During the sessions, I sent out enough twitter updates to fill a 15 page Word document, which added up to over 300 updates. This post covers Search Engine Optimization, SEM & New Media with Brian Clark, Michael Gray, Lee Odden and Stephan Spencer.

You’ll find all of my BlogWorld08 twoverage [tweet +coverage] here.

Thanks to those of you who asked me to share these updates.

Reader’s Guide: Each line represents a live update made on @wiredprworks on twitter.com. Reporting is in reverse order; so start at the end and read your way up. Note that this is exactly what I typed during the session, misspellings and all. When you see @name, this means that the person who was talking may be found on twitter.com/name. Apologies in advance for any inaccuracies.

Did you go to BlogWorld? Please share your takeaways and resources in the comments section.

Search Engine Optimization, SEM and New Media Session notes by Barbara Rozgonyi @wiredprworks on twitter.com

http://www.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com – great tool #bwe08 seo

now analyzing @tferriss’ blog: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/- he’s in this session #bwe08 seo

retheauditors: What’s the point if you can’t hear? rt @wiredprworks more opinionated, the more reaction, turn off comments for controversial post #bwe08

create a custom 404 page, comes up when files don’t exist with info, tool=seo-browser.com, tip=only 1st anchor txt counts #bwe08 seo

panelists suggest going to @blogher if you’re a single guy-like shooting fish in barrel – hmmm #bwe08 seo

if you don’t stand out from the crowd, you’re in the crowd – @graywolf #bwe08 seo

the more opinionated you’re going to get, the more reaction you’ll get, turn off comments for a controversial post – @graywolf #bwe08 seo

pick one category per post, block dates from spiders, go old school, make archives a page instead of template leaking juice #bwe08 seo

wordpress rocks from an seo standpoint #bwe08 seo

the thing about crap is, even if it gets votes, it has to be good content or it’s crap #bwe08 seo panel

friends = seo lift via stumbleupon, digg, etc, twitter great place to make friends,. #bwe08 seo panel

great content about shameless promotion is going to get you nowhere #bwe08 seo, no friends? you’re Shakespeare in the basement

your own creativity cannot be automated, hardest part of seo is getting people to link to you @copyblogger #bwe08

template level automates seo, can focus page on tag and make sure it’s in the h1 tag, intro copy to set theme, use sticky posts #bwe08 seo

wordpress plug-in seo title tag, decouples post tag from the title tag, title tag given most weight #bwe08 seo

compete.com – another keyword tool, put keyword in title-top takeaway, how tos, answer questions, solve problems #bwe08 seo

keyword tools-wintura? spyfu, seodigger-organic search results, expensive: hitwise, comscore marketer – ISP #bwe08 seo

keyword tools: google insights for search-#s data, google external keyword tool, wordtrapper, wordze, wordpot?, use a bunch #bwe08 seo

google looking more at site authority than seo, get as many links from other sources as you can takes time, patience #bwe08 seo panel

create a page for the people, make attractive to search engines, keywords impt, but building domain trust better #bwe08 seo panel

over-optimization is a very real issue, think about link bait -what graps people? #bwe08 seo panel

write for people not for search engines, a person will click on your result, need to take basic seo into acct, too @copyblogger #bwe08

in seo #bwe08 common-dangerous myths, linking out is not bad, is good, helps Google get topical relevancy, ego stroke people

Search Engine Optimization for Blogs Panelists

Brian Clark @copyblogger

Michael Gray, @graywolf

Lee Odden, @leeodden

Stephan Spencer, @sspencer

2 Comments - Posted in SEO Tagged with: ,

BlogWord08 | State of the Blogosphere | Twitter Updates

Posted on September 26, 2008

technorati-keynote

Interested in what happened at BlogWorld? During the sessions, I sent out what amounted to a 15 page Word document, which added up to over 300 updates. This post covers the state of the blogosphere address & opening keynote with Chris Alden, Anil Dash and Richard Jalichandra who previewed Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere report. You’ll find all of my BlogWorld08 twoverage [tweet +coverage] here.

Thanks to those of you who asked me to share these updates, including Lynn Terry who writes the ClickNewz blog.

Reader’s Guide: Each line represents a live update made on @wiredprworks on twitter.com. Reporting is in reverse order; so start at the end and read your way up. Note that this is exactly what I typed during the session, misspellings and all. When you see @name, this means that the person who was talking may be found on twitter.com/name. Apologies in advance for any inaccuracies.

Did you go to BlogWorld? Please share your resources in the comments section.

BlogWorld08 Technorati and Typepad Keynote Twitter Transcription by Barbara Rozgonyi @wiredprworks

blogit – new tool to post to blogs #bwe08

leaving soon to meet up with Chicago bloggers-and anyone else who wants to stop by-will be in the concessions area, wearing turquoise #bwe08

ccarfi: @wiredprworks #bwe08 mobile guide here, too: http://ventana.cerado.com/blogworld too. Tweets, peeps and agenda.

we have the power to make the giants jump – and we’ve already done it, talking about open id #bwe08

@ruthdfw #bew08 = BlogWorld Expo 08 www.blogworldexpo.com, watch all tweets at: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=bwe08

branches of social media = blogging, social networking, social publishing – trend will continue #bwe08

ruthdfw: @wiredprworks what does #bwe08 mean?

blogging is about power to the people – #bwe08

blogging is becoming an industry, 2007 majority of internet users reading blogs #bwe08

huge part of the iceberg is under the water in internal communications blogs #bwe08

blogging ranges from personal to political, what matters is what the media is achieving #bwe08

anil dash talking about blogging history #bwe08

six apart’s name comes from founder’s birthdays – six days apart #bwe08

note to my followers tweets with #bwe08 coming from sessions/experiences at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas www.blogworldexpo.com

@marismith – good to connect with you, too! your comment on being heard versus being memorable = great start to today! #bwe08

tough question to answer, the line between media and blogs is already gone #bwe08

where is the line between what is a media site and what is a blog @emom’s question #bwe08

marismith: @wiredprworks Yay, Barbara!!! Awesome to connect with you F2F at #BWE08. Whew, what an *amazing* event!!

technorati survey profiles top 10% of earners, mean income $19,000 year #bwe08

blogosphere is the new long tail, even w/a small audience, they’re incredibly loyal to the blogger and what they have to say #bwe08

average top blogger operated 3.5 blogs, get help if you need to #bwe08

on 9/22 technorati is publishing part 1/5 in a series, see the results at www.technorati.com #bwe08

about 1/2 have online or in person events – top 10% bloggers #bwe08

61% most influenced by other blogs, whole blogosphere can erupt on one topic #bwe08

90% blog about brands, 80% customer care, 60% 1/3 approached by brand to be an advocate, didn’t expect it to be that hight #bwe08

avg bogger spent $1000 on their business last year, top 10% earners use many tools and write 81 posts/mo #bwe08

bloggers everywhere in social media and in advertising, 1/4 use 3+ad mechanisms #bwe08

bloggers active web 2.0 consumers, avg. bloggers uses 5 web 2.0 utilities, #bwe08

diverse topics, other =43% that didn’t fit in 20 categories. expertise/experience top reasons to blog – #bwe08

technorati – #bwe08, 2/3 male, 50% 18-34, 52% outside of US, 72% publish in English, spread throughout US

76,000 blogs have technorati authority of 50+ #BWE08

95% of top 100 newspapers have blogs – technorati #bwe08

technorati – blogs=information and influence blogs are media, 77% of ppl on internet read blogs, #bwe08

sitting with @emom in front of @marismith in keynote #bwe08

in opening keynote about 1/2 full starts in about 5 minutes #BWE08

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