Who knew?
AT&T billboard on I-35 (Stemmons Freeway across from the INFOMART) in Dallas, Texas.
The Architel corporate web/blog site has been launched. The open source WordPress architecture allows the company to launch the site and make continious changes to it over time. So you can never say a site is ‘done.’ Kudos go to Dan Cederholm from SimpleBits for the xhtml/css design (as well as the new Architel logo). Weblogs Work integrated the xhtml/css into WordPress (actually three WordPress installs).
Architel is a boutique IT support company located in Dallas, Texas that supports small businesses (20-100) employees. Their unique IT service delivery model (one flat-monthly-fee for all-you-can-eat support) aligns the interests of the small business owner and Architel. The company was a pioneer in this space and is now a pioneer in the ‘blog as corporate website’ meme. Here are screenshots or just visit the site yourself here @ architel.com.
The site was entered in the website design contest at SXSW conference and we are crossing our fingers that the judges will enjoy the tight integration between the blog CMS and Dan’s xhtml and css. What do you think about our work?
Drew Neisser, CEO of Renegade Marketing, predicts that,
In 2006, expect blogs to be standard items in the marketer’s playbook. Corporate blogs will continue to proliferate. Some will earn kudos for their honesty and informative nature, while others will be recognized as blatant, homogenized propaganda and ignored. Content blogs (such as www.AfterHoursCity.com) will deliver “street cred” for marketers smart enough to create their own slice of aggregated info and brave enough to let the consumer-generated content run unfiltered.
Brian coined the phrase and now marketers like Drew are using it. "Blog Monitoring" services are going to be huge according to Drew,
Blog “Monitor” will be the newest, hot job in corporate communications, as marketers try to stay up on both the positive and negative buzz in the marketplace (Dell found out the hard way the importance of this role, as Jeff Jarvis’s “Buzz Machine” shamed them into replacing his malfunctioning computer). Consumer blogs will continue to multiply as mobile devices like Sony’s AIBO support blogging on the fly. Blog networks like WebLogsInc will make it easier for marketers to advertise on these sites, especially the ones that attract consistent audiences with quality writing.
Finally, Drew suggests that partnership between big players and smaller, niche players (like WeblogsWork) will become the norm, not the exception,
In the last few months alone, smaller agencies have delivered slap shots to the biggies, stealing away such prestigious accounts as Heineken, Volkswagen, Sprite and British Airways. Agencies like Mother, Strawberry Frog, Renegade Marketing and Crispin Porter and Bogusky (the Wayne Gretsky of the idea pack) are among a handful of firms that are building reputations for delivering channel neutral multi-disciplined campaigns, and driving what will be an enormous shift in how clients approach their agencies in 2006. Big clients are already starting to see the benefits again of having multiple partners, and asking each for “media neutral” ideas; it might not be long before clients designate one firm as the “idea agency”, tasked with coming up with the media & channel neutral idea, while other firms are tasked with execution according to their specialty.
Folks like BL Ochman and Hugh Macleod bet their careers on blogging. BL and Hugh used to chat on the phone and ask one another,
"Should we get jobs? Are we nuts? Will anyone ever hire us as bloggers?"
Today it is lucrative and all-consuming for more and more marketing folks. Hugh’s so busy he doesn’t have time to answer his own email anymore…
Students from Northeastern University describe corporate blogs as:
"Synthetic transparency involves using blogs to give the impression of openness, honesty, and transparency but without really doing so.
This notion is based on Norman Fairclough’s* idea of "synthetic personalization"** which he defines as:
… a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people ‘handled’ en masse as an individual. Examples would be air travel (have a nice day!), restaurants (Welcome to Wimpy!) and the simulated conversation (for example, chat shows) and bonhomie which litter the media…"
From Debbie Weil via Fredrik Wacka. Note to Weblogs Work clients - don’t do that…
In a first, Budget Car Rental is using ‘blogadvergaming’ as a marketing tool. Budget is hiding a $10,000 prize in four cities over four weeks giving away $160,000 total. Clues will be delivered on Budget’s blog in cartoon format (featuring our favorite cartoonist Hugh MacLeod). The ‘blogadvergaming’ program was organized by B.L. Ochman. Via Adrants and Business Week.
Technorati Tags: adrants, blogadvergaming, budget, budgetcarrental, hugh MacLeod
I will have to admit that product placement works for companies selling to me. BMW used their 745i in the first Transporter movie and just before my M5 fell out of warranty I traded it for a new 7 series. Jason Statham trades his BMW for an Audi in the second installment of the Transporter and I it has caused me to start considering the Audi for my next ride. So what? Audi figured out a way to get ‘way’ more bang for their buck by using blogs to get their message out.
Brian Clark, CEO of GMD Studios (Audi’s ad agency), indicated that almost a third of the traffic to Audi most recent A3 compaign was generated by advertising on various blogs. The most interesting thing Brian revealed was that these advertisments only took one half of one percent of the budget. McKinney + Silver and Adrants indicated:
"The media cost of the entire blog ad buy was less than the cost for one ad on a mainstream site such as Yahoo!" Of course "one banner ad on a mainstream site such as Yahoo" is a nebulous statement at best, however, again 29 percent of traffic to an A3 promotional website came from one half of one percent of the budget. Shall we say it again?
Josh Hallett (I really enjoy his blog, this is the second post in a row I have blogged about) posted an interesting post about tagging. His point? The truth is, it difficult for novices (who barely understand the concept of tagging) to tag their posts in TypePad or Blogger. Obviously, WordPress and Movable Type make it easy as pie to tag (we typically launch client blogs on WordPress). Why tag? Here is Josh’s thought:
"I know that tagging my posts has led to increased traffic from Technorati and other search tools that support tags. Granted it is very easy for me include them in my posts."
Your dishwasher has its own podcast, check it out here.
A survey indicates that 42% of PR professionals indicated that they pitched their ideas to bloggers. Almost 60% of them realized that bloggers represent a clear and present danger to companies who ignore them. Business Week points out that the it will be interesting to do this survey again in six months to see the trend.
The IMC’s Management Consultant’s Forum chapter meeting scheduled on Monday, September 19th is titled: Blogging - Learn about this new tool and how to harness its potential. The IMC D/FW Chapter is a professional organization comprised of management consultants from a broad range of consulting disciplines and firm sizes.
The meeting promises to help management consultants "understand how blogging, and other on-line tactics, can build their brand communities and extend their reach." It is quite interesting that we are starting to see more and more of these sort of events - especially here in Dallas.
Case Study: Consolidation of an existing corporate website and blog into a WordPress blog/website.
The M | Ventures website was designed completely in flash and was considered a very good site in 2003. The site had two big problems, (1) it did not rank well in search engines (Google hates flash) and (2) it was very difficult to update. A screenshot of the site can be found to the right.
The general partner started blogging in 2005 with a blog titled Texas Venture Capital Blog. He took to the blog format quickly and asked one of his IT guy to create a simple theme to replace his default Kubrick design. The simple theme can be see to the left. Notice that it included a simple header and Google ads.
Soon the general partner realized how easy it was to update his blog through the WordPress CMS and how well it ranked in Google and other search engines. He asked this simple question: "Why can’t my blog and website be one in the same, housed entirely in a WordPress site?" The answer was simple, "There is none."
Weblogs Work took the assignment of consolidating the two. First our designer worked with the general partner to come up with a new look and feel. The concept was to create something with a Texas feel - perhaps cows, spurs, horses and cowboys. The designer took these ideas and came up with a very subtle ‘Texas’ design that can be seen below. The Google ads were removed. And the interior pages were kept very basic. The new site is a work in progress, but each aspect can easily be edited by the general partner without assistance from anyone else. Visitor statistics are built right in and he is generating dealflow from the site today (something his old site NEVER did).
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