Last week, I happened upon a LinkedIn Question that offered a glimpse into the challenges that have been keeping companies out of the blogosphere. So I did what any self respecting blogger would do, I wrote about it and promised an update when more data became available. As the answers trickled in, I found myself craving more responses to try and arrive at a meaningful conclusion, so I posed the question to our newsletter recipients via a "1-Second Survey" - and many of our readers accepted the challenge.
With a little more to go on, I think it’s safe to say that most respondents agree: time is the biggest impediment to corporate blogging. But behind the reason given lies an implication - that blogging just isn’t a priority for many businesses…yet. For months, we’ve been talking to companies that are using their blogs to communicate more efficiently and effectively with their key audiences and company ecosystems, and their stories are inspiring and compelling.
One company is blogging to put a personal face on its operations, and learning tons about its customers in the process. Another is using a blog to share real-time data with industry watchers, positioning itself as a leading authority in the process. Yet another has moved its blog from the edge to the epicenter of its corporate communications program, amassing mounds of message-driven media coverage with each new post. None of these companies cite time as a barrier to blogging. In fact, one now cites time as a barrier to writing press releases. My, how times are changing…
The other day I was collecting my mail at the town post office/store/restaurant/bank (yeah, I live in one of those towns) and noticed a couple of guys getting coffee. I noticed these guys because they both had near identical sweatshirts with the name of their employer, a landscaper, on them. They were the same color, had the same layout and fonts, same everything except each had a different slogan…
Here at the Science of Marketing, we’re fascinated by numbers. That’s why a recent 
There are a few simple ways to promote your blog through the social networks that you probably already use. I’m talking about 
One of the greatest benefits of blogging is a steady stream of interesting content that can be used to engage and inform prospects. But constantly giving birth to new content can be a daunting proposition for marketers, technical experts and CEOs alike, all of whom have plenty of other business to keep them busy. Not surprisingly, the most common question we get when we talk to companies about blogging is, "what on earth am I going to write about once a week?"
Most high tech marketing professionals look at pricing from a macro level (at least that’s what I did back in the day). Typical things to consider in setting a price include: competition, value, elasticity, market position and entry. But not many look at the implication of the actual numbers on the price tag in terms of customer perception - the MicroView. Over the last couple of weeks I have read two pieces (an article and a blog) that get down to the digits. Both are worth a read if you are responsible for setting your company’s prices.
One question that’s been popping up centers around the level of acceptable linkage between a company’s web site and its blog. Some of the common variations of this question include "Should we host our blog on the same domain as our web site?", "Is it OK to link from our blog to our web site?", and "Can we post company news on our blog?". All very good questions. And unfortunately, all these questions share a common, nebulous answer - "It depends."
Last week, The Wall Street Journal ran a report on golf. Since it’s finally golf season in New England and I had recently witnessed my business partner sink a hole-in-one, I read the report looking for something that would help my game. I didn’t find anything, but I did read an astounding (at least to me) fact: 13 billion golf balls have been sold over the past ten years. And where did most of those balls end up? 
I was recently doing some research on blogging for a high tech client, and as I scribbled down notes and numbers an interesting fact jumped off the page. In high tech, large companies are much better bloggers than small ones. Of course, my sample space was limited to a certain segment of the enterprise market, but even still, a fairly broad search for small high tech companies that are active in the blogosphere turned up very few results. Meanwhile,