Blogs: Foundational Tools for Network Building
Posted by Administrator on September 19th, 2005
By Elizabeth Albrycht, Blogging Planet | weblog: CorporatePR
EDITORS’ CHOICE | Building Blogging Communities
There has been much written about blogs since Global PR Blog Week 1.0 as they pertain to public relations: their attributes, their strengths/weaknesses, their power to persuade and their risks, to name a few subjects (check out the New PR Wiki for a plethora of links and resources). What I’d like to do here is to look at blogs a bit differently: to discuss how they are foundational tools for network building.
Over the past year I have become increasingly convinced that the primary function of corporate communications/public relations today is network building. By that I mean that all of our strategies and tactics need to be focused on building, extending and nurturing the entire universe of connections (by which I mean people) possible for an organization. You could argue, of course, that this has always been the function of communications, and you’d be right – to a point. When we identified our key audiences and decided upon the strategies and tactics to use to influence them, we were indeed nurturing a network, but a decidedly lopsided one in which all of the power resided with the organization (at least in its own “mind�) and the audiences existed to passively consume the information we provided them with. Now, I don’t want to endlessly parse this portrait of traditional command/control communications here. Rather, I want to explore how blogs, in particular, and participatory communications tools in general, can be powerful tools for building more complex and more effective networks.
First of all, why this focus on networks? What is so special about them? The way I usually explain it is this: By investing in, building or hosting the connections, links or pathways between and among your key audiences, you will be well positioned to use these networks over time to persuade people to action, to respond to a crisis, to leverage current market conversations and to improve your business overall. To put it in slightly more technical terms, I am relying on interpretations of Metcalfe’s Law and Reed’s Law. The former states that the value of the network is the approximately the square of the number of users. The latter states that when you enable connections between nodes on the network to take place, the value of the network grows exponentially. What that means for our subject is that you should be motivated to grow your network in terms of numbers of connections as well as to enable members of that network to communicate with each other as well as with your organization. Participatory communications tools like blogs are particularly well designed to help you do both of these things.
By focusing on network building, we move away from the hyperbole of BLOG and begin to think about how to use blogs pragmatically, as powerful communications tools. A prime reason blogs are such good tools for network building is that they are link-heavy, and the link is the core technology for making networks visible. I believe the visibility of a network contributes to its effectiveness because that very visibility reinforces its presence and influence to its members.
There are already tools available to help you visualize the network of connections an organization, or a person, has. For example, there are a variety of sites in which you can type in a url and immediately receive a graphical representation of its links (e.g., Opte Project, MyDensity.com) or track online conversations (Blogpulse, Technorati, PubSub). By examining these links, nodes and connections, a professional communicator can quickly grasp where the most influential connections lie. As time goes by, and these tools become more sophisticated, they will become ever more important to the public relations function.
In the past, it was much more difficult to see your network, as connections had little sharable physical manifestation. A business card sitting in a rolodex on your desk is a far more difficult to assign value to vs. a visible link on a website or blog. One of the implications of this visibility is that it makes the results of our work more easily measurable, making our work more justifiable (always nice at budget time).
To restate then, blogs are important tools for network building because they give you a place to generate visible links, both incoming and outgoing. By enabling comments and encouraging trackbacks, you are creating visible links. By commenting and trackbacking yourself to other blogs, wikis, websites and so forth, you are also creating links. That is why it is so important that, beyond just producing a blog yourself, you are contributing to others.
We can find another argument for using blogs as network-building tools in the social networking concepts of strong ties and weak ties. According to Wikipedia, “Strong ties are those such as kin relations and close personal friends,� and weak ties are “loose acquaintances such as those connections made at a party.� Mark Granovetter, in his groundbreaking article, “The Strength of Weak Ties� (The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 6., May 1973), argued that “weak ties…are more important for personal advancement, such as getting good jobs, than the strong ties of family and friendship.� Robert Putnam developed this theory a bit further in his book, Bowling Alone, where he surmises that weak ties act as “bridging social capital�. A bridging form of social capital is “outward looking and encompass[es] people across diverse social cleavages.� (Bowling Alone, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000, 22) Furthermore, “bridging networks…are better for linkage to external assets and for information diffusion…Moreover, bridging social capital can generate broader identities and reciprocity…� (ibid, 23)
My argument is that as professional communicators, we need to focus on building these weak ties via online networks. This doesn’t mean abandoning the activities we already pursue via in-person and other forms of communications, of course, but we should start viewing these activities as part of our overall network-building objective.
The challenge with this objective is that it is extremely tricky to build the social capital needed to nurture network building online. People are very quick to point their virtual fingers at corporations who misstep, and they are not inclined to believe anything corporations say these days. We have witnessed a mass breakdown of social capital between corporations and people over the past couple of decades, and that will not be overcome easily or quickly. However, the consequences of this breakdown can be severe (decreased share price, talent recruitment problems, over regulation, etc.) and it would well behoove corporations to begin mending these bridges sooner rather than later. Blogs represent a new, powerful tool for doing just this. As I have written before, it isn’t as simple as just launching a blog. Rather, corporate representatives have to be active contributors to the conversation.
One of the core mantras of public relations is that having someone else speak credibly (and positively one hopes!) about your organization and its products or services is more valuable in terms of persuading people to take positive action than a corporation speaking for itself. This remains true in the blogosphere. The challenge is to first find the influential people (not tremendously difficult) and to enter into an ongoing conversation with them (the hard part for corporations). A lone PR person trying to speak on behalf of his or her corporation isn’t enough. Rather, one should consider viewing his or her entire organization as full of spokespeople: employees, partners, customers – in fact, all relevant audiences. These people are already talking to each other at meetings, tradeshows, on the phone, and at the local pub. They talk about your organization, make recommendations and offer criticisms. Increasingly, they are doing it online, where they can easily link up, driving increased visibility of corporate issues (and, sometimes, dirty laundry). These people already have weak ties/bridging social capital with other individuals and groups. Isn’t it better to engage with them, so you can gain access to these bridged networks vs. trying to create the bridges yourself (which, in some cases, may not be possible)? These audiences also represent scale. Their sheer numbers can be a tremendously valuable asset when you are trying to grow a broad network! Companies like IBM and Sun have recognized this and embraced employee blogging.
Network building requires communications professionals to acquire new skills and utilize new tools. Given how new some of these are many of their longer-term implications are difficult to predict. Furthermore, fast and furious changes in technology and social practices increase the challenge. The good news is that there is a strong group of worldwide professionals, represented here, who are working very hard to understand this new world and share our thoughts and experiences with our colleagues. I can’t think of a more interesting time to be a professional communicator!
As always, I am very interested to hear you reaction to the ideas presented here. Please feel free to comment or contact me directly at ealbrycht at gmail dot com.
About the author
Elizabeth Albrycht is a 15-year veteran of high technology public relations practice and co-founder and co-producer of the New Communications Forum, a conference series designed to bring journalists and marketing and PR professionals together to learn how to use participatory communications tools. She has authored articles on blogging, RSS and other new tools for PRSA’s Tactics magazine, the IABC’s CW Bulletin, and the Future of Work eNewsletter, and has presented teleseminars and in-person seminars on new communications tools for PRSA. She is a member of the Future of Work, PRSA and the IAOC, and an alliance partner at Blogging Planet. She blogs at CorporatePR and is the editor of Future Tense, a Corante blog that explores the future of work.
{ tags: prblogweek, pr, public+relations, business, blogs, network+building }
September 19th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
Blogs: Foundational Tools for Network Building
Elizabeth Albrycht wrote the first article for the Global PR Blog 2.0 week for today’s opening conference. I read her article, and here are my comments to Elizabeth. Your thesis that the primary function of corporate communications is network building…
September 19th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
Elizabeth is right that blogs are THE foundational tools for network building and strategically appropriate in an era of non-linear, fast-paced, change-nimble communications ….the challenge will be - I imagine - to seek engagement from current-day corporate communicators to address - for value-added comms purposes - the ethos of an integrated universe of connections with high levels of interactivity ….and move on from more linear, controlled but lopsided types of communications …equally, it will be necessary to persuade corporate clients as to the value of corporate blogging, and fully engaged employee blogging, for ultimate and informed news and corpoate reputational value and to steer them away from unnecessary caution and control freakery in this respect …getting communicators and corporates to see the value of building high-value online networks of ‘weak ties’ -although a huge step change requiring an enlightened mindset - will be a major step forward in the role of corporate communicaions and in the world of today and tomorrow
September 19th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
Elizabeth,
I was thinking a little more about your article. I thought it would be interesting to compare the benefits of PR to online PR (or blogging).
The main benefit of PR is that a credible source, a journalist or media outlet delivers your message. Customers perceive companies to be biased and are turned off by advertising and direct promotion, even when companies are both truthful and transparent in their message. Being featured by credible source, will give companies the ability to have their message heard by more customers who will perceive the message as being more credible, and therefore are much more likely to take action when compared to a company message from advertising.
Online PR works in exactly the same way to mainstream PR, except customers rather than journalists are seen as credible sources of information. However, it’s the credibility of a community rather than an individual online that really provides the power of online PR for companies. Customers will read a number of customer online opinions about a particular product or service, if the balance of opinion is positive the community view will influence the customers positively, if the community opinion is negative then the customer will be influenced negatively
And online PR only really works if you can successfully connect with as many people as possible within a community. The benefits of building a number of connections are that hopefully a company will positively influence their community. And that positive impression will produce higher results because customers perceive they have gained their positive opinion from a credible source, the online customer community.
John Cass
September 19th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
Bernie,
I agree having corporate communicators widen their focus beyond mainstream media to their entire online community will provide many additional benefits to companies.
While using an entire company’s workforce can be a great strategy of engaging an industry’s entire online community. Backbone Media has seen through our research with such companies as Microsoft, IBM and Macromedia that each has a different strategy and approach to blogging and online PR. Each has received great results from their efforts up to this date. But we estimate that Macromedia is furthest along in the process of engaging all of their online communities precisely because they limited their blogging efforts to key writers and influencers within their company. Whether Macromedia had certain advantages because of its size compared to say IBM or Microsoft in engaging its whole community or it was a matter of their strategy, to me still remains to be seen. I know that both Microsoft and IBM are still moving the implementation of their blogging strategies forward each in their own unique way.
We developed a model for how a company can progress to more actively engaging their online customer community, and wrote about it in the Backbone Blogging Survey. http://www.backbonemedia.com/blogsurvey/8-corporate-blogging-cult-divide.htm
On consideration, I also wonder that Microsoft’s larger strategy of opening up blogging to every department and even individual within the community might eventually bring even more opportunities than the strategy Macromedia has followed. I believe at Microsoft is the first major fortune 500 company to embrace the clue train Manifesto. It will be interesting to watch how Microsoft’s strategy benefits the company overall. For as Elizabeth discusses, I think I can argue that over time Microsoft may have a broader array of weak ties to their online customer communities through the implementation of their board blogging strategy. While companies like Macromedia have had good results, their focus has been much tighter, and they have probably built ‘stronger ties’. This is all speculation and gut feeling on my part, so I’d be interested to hear others comments.
Oh, we did conduct some analysis on the number of posts by 431 Microsoft bloggers, and discovered the average number of posts was between 2.5 and 3 posts per month. http://blogsurvey.backbonemedia.com/archives/2005/07/average_microso.html That low figure for an average number of posts, similar to an IBM number, indicates to me that it’s not the volume of individuals at a community but the volume of posts of the entire corporate community that counts. And more bloggers means more opportunities for connections to customers.
John Cass
September 19th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
[…] john cass: Bernie, I agree having corporate communicators widen their focus beyond mainstream media to their entire… […]
September 20th, 2005 at 12:13 am
The key to enlisting the appropriate employees to be bloggers is to aim for quality, not quantity. Let’s face it: a lot of employees can’t write an English sentence, and others are not that insightful. Perhaps a litmus test is would you leave this person in a room, unsupervised, with a reporter or decisionmaker, and expect a good outcome? If the answer is yes, then they are a candidate to be a blogger.
The power of/trouble with blogs is they can’t be faked, or at least not over a period of time. If a company is full of energetic, insightful, knowledgeable thinkers (a la Microsoft), there is no better way to show them off. On the other hand, if a company is full of illiterate sheep, the corporate blog will make that clear as well.
September 20th, 2005 at 3:18 am
I agree that companies should have a strong and plentiful group of employees participating in the blogging network, but I also think that a team to specifically address this should be formed. The team could consist of both blogging specialists, who’s primary roles are to keep tabs on the blogging community, as well as other employees who take on a few blogging responsibilities in addition to their regular duties. The employees recruited to participate should be from various levels and departments and should be focused on networking with bloggers that would relate to their particular area of expertise. All those representing the company, of course, should be personable and educated in how to approach and communicate well with bloggers. (Just because an employee is especially internet-savvy or brilliant, doesn’t mean they’d come across as well when representing the company in a blog.)
Two-way communication between companies and their publics has been in existence for a very long time … just not very effectively. Most of what PR puts out there is very one-sided, as Elizabeth noted. I agree, more than anything, blogging provides an opportunity to really build a broad network of relationships. Granted, the depth of these relationships can be a positive thing, but the focus should be on the breadth — expanding that network, making online “acquaintances,” so to speak. And increasing that crucial two-way communication. I would like to point out, too, that blogs are not only important as a means of developing a public that is more easily reached and influenced, but because blogs make feedback so convenient. Companies can learn a lot from their publics, and blogs make it very easy to collect worthwhile information. AND, when a company is actively interested in hearing what people have to say, the public notices that … and through the resulting confidence, the network grows even more.
September 20th, 2005 at 3:31 am
Guy,
Your right, quantity does not make up for quality.
John
September 20th, 2005 at 10:42 am
Thank you all for your great comments! They will be very helpful to me as I continue to develop my network-building thesis.
Erin brings up a good point, which I will translate as achieving a balance between free-for-all employee blogging and more strategically managed “official” blogging. There is certainly a place for both. One point I try to emphasize to people when I am explaining this world of participatory or grassroots communications is that leadership is still very important. You might have thousands of employess blogging, and only a few will be truly fantastic and influential all of the time. They emerge as natural leaders. But I would argue that it is the responsibility of the communications to both nudge these naturals along as well as identify other potentials and give them the training and tools they need to get to a higher quality level.
In fact, the communications team itself need to be leaders in recognizing talent among all of the connected audiences and figuring out how to nuture and/or harness that talent towards organizational goals. A tricky, but vital, task.
September 20th, 2005 at 2:19 pm
Erin,
Your point about the public noticing that a company is interested in what people have to say is correct….I think I can prove that point by giving a couple of examples of a company that in my mind has had a few teething problems with their blog in the last nine months. I am thinking of GM’s FastLane Blog, while in many instances, the blog has produced excellent content and also responded to many enquiries from customers, there have been instances where I think the blog has just been overwhelmed with the level of interest and response.
Here’s my article on two interviews I held with two GM customer’s who had commented on the FastLane Blog, but did not receive a response directly, and their reactions to GM.
http://blogsurvey.backbonemedia.com/archives/2005/09/the_gm_blog_les.html
It’s also interesting that because of the nature of many blogging platforms, comments don’t have RSS feeds or email reminders (this blog is a notable exception) corporate bloggers may have actually responded to a customer’s comment, but the customer did not know the corporate blogger responded and assumes they never did respond, which harms the company’s brand, the opposite result of what the company was trying to achieve.
I think also when you bring up the issue of feedback, as a content strategy, feedback appears to generate the most response from customers, especially when you have a product. I can think of examples from Intuit, Macromedia and Microsoft here. All three companies use their blogs to respond to customer queries both on their blogs and on their customer’s blogs. And that ties into your point about the need for a group of professional bloggers to provide a backbone to a company’s blogging efforts, yes I agree, someone is needed to monitor the web.
I was thinking if you are running Macromedia or any company for that matter that has development and senior technical people blogging, PR and or customer service can help to triage the questions from customers on their own blogs to both respond to customer questions and blog articles. There are some who will also debate whether bloggers should have help in triaging their own sites. In my opinion I think the story from GM illustrates Bob Lutz needed help and that GM is currently using other people to answer questions due to the sheer volume of response.
This spelling mistake example from a case study on Microsoft illustrates that how customers encouraged by the new openness to feedback from Microsoft posted a question on their own blog, and received a response back from Microsoft fairly quickly.
http://www.backbonemedia.com/blogsurvey/52-Microsoft-case-study.htm
And my further interview with the customer, Ken Dyck, who originally asked the question about the spelling mistake is here.
http://blogsurvey.backbonemedia.com/archives/2005/07/ken_dyke_interv.html
This issue of feedback was my biggest lesson learned/learnt (us/uk) from the Backbone Media Study earlier this year, especially from the case study on Macromedia. Macromedia customers really did respond powerfully to the way Macromedia manages its blogging efforts, and Macromedia gained tremendous benefits from its blogging efforts.
http://www.backbonemedia.com/blogsurvey/47-macromedia-case-study.htm
John
September 20th, 2005 at 2:35 pm
free-for-all vs. managed “official� blogging
The conversation continues on the Global PR Blog today, Elizabeth Albrycht responded to Erin Caldwell in the comment section of the blog on a discussion point about the different strategies used by companies in who should blog. Elizabeth said, “Achie…
September 22nd, 2005 at 1:40 am
I agree with you Elizabeth that online PR such as blogs are an easy way to network. It is amazing how technology has changed over the years. Who would have thought 10 years ago that blogs and online resumes would become our new business cards?
My question is can you really get a good actuate perception of someone online? Some people maybe amazing writers but may not have very good one-on-one people and communication skills. Or someone may just be a so-so writer but have amazing people and communication skills. By observing someone’s blog could you pick that up? I guess the only thing I think could solve this problem is using a program like skype or pod casting. Then you would get a little better sense of one’s personality.
I also like Mark Granovetter take on “weak ties.� I had ever thought of networking ties in that sense but it is very true. The “strong ties� I have of course have come in handy but it’s the weak ones that have gotten me further. The most major “weak tie� has helped me find a potential internship next fall.
My other thought was about the blogs companies have for customers to comment on. What happens if there are a few positive comments and then the rest negative? That is not good for the company’s image. My idea would be for the company to try to use the criticism to help improve their product or service. And then respond to the criticism on the blog posting with a comment on how they are going to solve the problem and make improvements. How else could the company save or repair their image?
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:28 am
This is a brilliant article. Great job.
September 23rd, 2005 at 4:28 am
[…] Elizabeth Albrycht: Over the past year I have become increasingly convinced that the primary function of corporate communications/public relations today is network building. By that I mean that all of our strategies and tactics need to be focused on building, extending and nurturing the entire universe of connections (by which I mean people) possible for an organization. To put it in slightly more technical terms, I am relying on interpretations of Metcalfe’s Law and Reed’s Law. The former states that the value of the network is the approximately the square of the number of users. The latter states that when you enable connections between nodes on the network to take place, the value of the network grows exponentially. What that means for our subject is that you should be motivated to grow your network in terms of numbers of connections as well as to enable members of that network to communicate with each other as well as with your organization. Participatory communications tools like blogs are particularly well designed to help you do both of these things. […]