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The Power of Negative Publicity

Wouldn't you rather buy based on a review with negatives as well as praise?

Basic logic tells us that negative opinions have a negative impact on our perceptions. If a man leaves a restaurant complaining about the service, he’s likely to drive other customers away. But this is not always the case: even negative reviews provide publicity and visibility, and a good can outshine the bad.

The Curious Case of the Envy 100

Last month I went shopping for a new computer printer after my trusty HP Photosmart give up the ghost. Being an iPad user, I decided to look for one that supported Apple’s AirPrint functionality. This left me looking once again at HP’s product line.

As I so often do, I spent some time familiarizing myself with the various products before heading out to the store. I quickly discovered that no one had yet analyzed only those printers that support AirPrint. Since I was interested in the topic, I decided to write up my experiences for my blog.

I was initially impressed by HP’s sleek and shiny Envy 100 all in one printer, but further investigation revealed the basic printer engine underneath. I concluded that the Envy 100 was not a good value for the money, and instead purchased the plain but functional Photosmart Premium FAX model instead.

But a funny thing happened since I posted my review. Of the tens of thousands of unique visitors my series on HP’s AirPrint compatible printers generated, dozens of people clicked through my links the Amazon to purchase one of the models listed. Surprisingly, HP’s Envy model is the top seller among those who purchased based on my series of reviews.

Credible Means Fair and Balanced

Why would someone rush out to buy after reading a negative review? Perhaps the answer lies in the review itself. Although I concluded that the Envy 100 was not a good value, I did praise its good looks and features. I also pointed out that fashion-conscious Apple buyers (who incidentally make up a large portion of my audience) would find the printer appealing. In short, my review was fair rather than negative.

I have found that fairness, mixing the good with the bad, yields much better results than effusive praise. This is especially true on the Internet, where credibility matters above all else. Clearly, my readers felt that my review was a fair depiction of the product and made their buying decision based on this unbiased view.

Lesson Learned

Corporate marketers can learn a lot from this experience. Although it can be upsetting to see the negative aspects of your product called out in public, it may not be the catastrophe you anticipate. It is difficult to let go and allow social media and unbiased reviews to stand, but they are your best advocate. Don’t get too upset when the commentary goes negative, as long as the overall tone is fair.

You might also want to read 4 Steps To Respond When Social Media Goes Negative and Always Punch Above Your Weight

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When Marketing Becomes Pointless

EMC taunted NetApp by parking these cars at their HQ. What was the point?

When I was 19, I presented a paper at a conference alongside former (and present) California Governor, Jerry Brown. Being a radical punk, I wore a Dead Kennedys shirt while chatting with him. Somewhere I have a picture. But Jerry didn’t “get” the message I was sending, and I’m not sure why I did it anyway. I actually respected what he said at the event about urban renewal, and his politics were much more to my liking at the time than those of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

I was reminded of this pointless stunt this week on hearing that EMC parked branded cars and power-washed their logo in front of rival NetApp’s headquarters. Aside from the glee of the EMC crew and annoyance from my NetApp contacts, I came away asking “what’s the point?” Was this stunt an effective way of messaging their new products? Would it demoralize the NetApp employees? Would it energize the EMC staff? Would it garner publicity and coverage? Or was it merely a silly and pointless stunt?

What’s the Point?

Marketers should always ask themselves this question when considering new initiatives. Creativity knows no bounds, and Internet and guerilla marketing tactics often turn to tactics ripped from the obnoxious MTV shows, Jackass and Punk’d. But even well-intentioned campaigns can go awry: It is common for technology companies to focus on communicating cool features instead of usability.

Do customers need “record-breaking” performance or easier systems management? EMC themed their entire January 18 announcement on the former, including claims that their new products were 2x, 3x, or even 7x faster than the competition. But, to me, the highlight of this product rollout was “Unisphere”, the simplified management application for their low-end systems. I believe that Unisphere and reseller support will sell more VNXe storage arrays than Xeon multi-core processors or 6 Gb SAS. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the technical references in that last sentence: The intended audience for these products don’t know or care about all that, either.

Making a Splash

“Candy doesn’t have to have a point. That’s what makes it candy.” – Charlie Bucket’s explanation of Willy Wonka

But not all marketing efforts are designed to make a point directly. Many are intended to make a splash, in hopes of attracting attention. Entertaining marketing is much more common and rewarding than dry, factual statements. This explains EMC’s world-record motorcycle jump, Mini Cooper stuffing, and (literal) record breaking on the 18th: They wanted to grab attention.

EMC's "record breaking" stunts raised visibility for a new line of storage products

It worked. EMC drew the attention of the entire industry; even those that refused to participate joined in! This is my second writeup resulting from the event, and will not be my last. And EMC’s share prices rose to a 10-year high in the run-up to the announcement. Clearly much of the effort was executed correctly.

Weigh the Benefits

Although it is easier to count the cost, it is wise to weigh the potential benefits of marketing efforts:

  • Will it increase visibility of my company or product?
  • Will it spread the word about a valuable feature or benefit?
  • Will it cause customers to consider buying from my in the future?
  • Will it reassure current customers that they made the correct choice?
  • Will it help my employees, vendors, and investors to feel motivated and positive?
  • Will it cause my competitors to make a mistake?

If few or none of these outcomes are likely, perhaps it’s time to consider a more-effective strategy.

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Always Punch Above Your Weight

Punching below your weight just makes you look like a foolish bully!

It’s tempting for companies to smack the little guys around. After all, it’s easier to bump off some new startup by spreading FUD than it is to challenge the top dog in your industry! But easy pickings should be avoided, especially when it comes to online communication and social media: It’s far easier for a company to lose mindshare by calling attention to the little guys than it is to gain anything from even the most justifiable argument. That’s why I advise my clients always to punch above their weight.

Pick a Fair Fight

It’s hard to pick the World Series winner before the Major League Baseball season, and World Cup “Futbol” is similarly competitive, but most fields of battle feature mismatched foes. Consider the University of Connecticut’s amazing “Lady Huskies” basketball team. They just won their 89th straight game, an amazing winning streak. Yet commentators were quick to downplay their success, claiming women’s college basketball just isn’t as competitive as other sports.

Spectators love a “David”, and schadenfreude always clouds a “Goliath”. Who wants to see Michael Shumacher drive another Ferrari to victory? It’s much more fun to see him fail to turn in a top lap, let alone stand on the podium! Seeing the Red Sox knock off the hated Yankees after losing the first three games in the 2004 ALCS was perhaps more important to fans than the two World Series victories that followed.

Social Media Lessons

I am always amused when an industry titan decides to go toe-to-toe with a tiny upstart. Sure, they often win these fights. But simply by taking up the challenge they have validated the whippersnapper’s cause, who often leverages the losing fight in the ensuing PR blitz. David and Goliath is a natural news story, after all!

This is even more true when it comes to companies responding to negative coverage online. Often, an up-and-coming blogger or analyst will intentionally pick a fight to get attention. When the victim punches back, they drag the little guy into the spotlight.

Always Punch Above Your Weight

This is an admirable tactic, and the lesson works in both directions:

  1. Always focus ahead and take on a foe larger than you
  2. Ignore everyone smaller than you – anything you say or do will weaken your position

When it comes to social media, companies should never respond in anger. It’s a rare blogger indeed who is bigger than the companies they cover! Companies should ignore the specific attack and respond with a reaffirmation of their actual value. And shooting the messenger just looks petty!

Keep this in mind the next time you see an angry response to a blogger or analyst!

Image credit: “Boxing Ring Santa Cruz IMS Academy” by KoKo Krispy

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The Four Stages of Vendor Blogging

Successful vendor blogging requires a careful balance between corporate Kool Aid and personal authenticity

It’s not easy to be a public face for your employer, and doubly so when you’re using social media. Blogs, tweets, and the like value personal authenticity (and shun “corporateness”), forcing vendor bloggers to walk a tightrope:

  • Sway too far towards your own personality and beliefs and someone from PR or marketing is going to smack you
  • Sway too far towards the press release mentality of “old communications” and your audience will abandon you

It can be hard to accept this burden, and many a bright young blogger flames out as the reality of the situation settles upon them. Yet some emerge from the trials with a reasonable philosophy and are able to continue – witness the success of folks like Chuck Hollis, Val Bercovici, Barton George, Duncan Epping, Lori MacVittie, Brad Hedlund, and many others.

Let’s consider the stages new vendor bloggers go through as they mature into a viable and authentic voice for their employer.

1) Drinking the Sweet Nectar

It’s tempting to drink the corporate Kool-Aid and jump head-first into the fray with a company-logo shield in one hand and product sword in the other. After all, if social media is a sure way to promote your employer, why not take the plunge and reap the rewards?

Because it won’t work, that’s why. Adults don’t go for overly-sweet drinks, and they won’t read “Corporate Kool-Aid” posts. This category of writing tends to be totally over-the-top corporate cheerleading: Ignoring one’s own faults, jumping on the shortcomings of competitors, and expounding on the merits of simple press-release content.

New employees often start here, but those who have worked for a while often skip this step. This is why some “people who blog and work for companies” aren’t really “vendor bloggers” at all – see, for example, Chris Hoff and Marc Farley. But who is and isn’t a “vendor blogger” is a topic for a different day!

2) Stepping Over the Line

Whether they start with Kool-Aid or with self-respect, the next step for bloggers (and tweeters, Facebookers, and other public speakers) who work for companies is to step over the line and get slapped for it. Perhaps they will enter a discussion charged with corporate or real-world politics; perhaps they will overzealously release inside information; or perhaps they will simply overshadow the marketing efforts of the company. Regardless, the repercussions are terrifying: Loss of “the mic”, a reprimand from the boss, or even an employment threat.

This is usually the low point for a vendor blogger. An act of corporate promotion becomes a threat to their employment, and they begin to question the wisdom of it all. “Keep your head down and do your job” seems like a reasoned response. Many an aspiring “public voice” is silenced at this stage. Trust me – I’ve been there, too.

3) Parroting the Press Release

Those who decide to persevere after the corporate slap-down tend to resume with a stripped-down, PR-focused style. Their blog posts contain a straightforward paragraph of praise followed by blocks pasted from official press releases. Their posting becomes less-frequent, too, as their heart has gone out of it.

If the “over the line” stage is personally risky, the parrot stage poses the greatest risk to one’s reputation. We all know that the Kool-Aid tasted great, so we can forgive posts that start with “my new job is awesome!” But seeing a formerly-vigorous individual reduced to quoting corporate marketing is harder to take. If many blogs disappear after phase 2, more are ignored when they reach this phase.

4) Being Honest and Forthright

If they survive the earlier stages, vendor bloggers eventually emerge as honest and forthright voices for their employer. They will try to avoid drawing attention to faults, writing about the highlights instead. When pressed, they will point to their tie of employment and hope the reader understands why they cannot say some things.

Great vendor bloggers are compromised and have sacrificed some authenticity. But their honesty about the situation makes this ok, and their creativity and thoughtfulness keeps the readers coming back.

It’s a tough task and not everyone can do it. But some can, and they earn my respect.

Image credit: “One Hundred + 16 — Drinking the Kool-Aid” by Khürt

“Kool-Aid” is a trademark of Kraft Foods and is used here for the purpose of satire

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9 Ideas To Make Your Blog More Reader-Friendly

Is your blog inviting or forbidding?

People write blogs for a multitude of reasons, ranging from crass commercialism to noble information-sharing. But every blogger succeeds or fails based on the interest of their readership: Lose your readers and you’ll literally be talking to yourself. Speaking as a former magazine columnist and feature writer, I can assure you that blogging is a special beast. We must always focus on making our blogs easy to discover, read, and share. Here are 9 ideas to help your blog be more successful!

1: No More “Me-Too” Posts!

If one of your peers already posted pretty much all you have to say on a topic, don’t post at all. There’s no law saying you have to immediately comment on every piece of news, and your readers are probably reading the other guys’ blogs, too.

If you’re a worthwhile writer, there has to be a unique angle you can use for any story. Find your own voice!

Bonus hint: Make sure you are reading your peers’ blogs so you know what they are saying, and a link back to them wouldn’t hurt either!

2: Use Full-Text RSS Feeds

If you’re still cutting off your posts after a few sentences, you’re losing readership. Many readers won’t click through on two-line feed items and feel burned when they bother to subscribe to these. Half the time the heading and excerpt promise more than the article delivers anyway!

Switch to a full-text feed so readers can view your content right there in Google Reader, Pulse, FeedDemon, and the rest without clicking through.

Although many believe they will lose readership, visitors, and AdSense revenue, they’re wrong. The best audience is an engaged one, and feed readers are the most-engaged folks you will find. They’re also a tiny tiny minority of readers (about 11%) compared to real search engine and referral-driven traffic. You’re only going to increase loyalty by switching to full-text feeds, whereas your refusal to syndicate more than 11 words is likely to drive people away.

If you’re worried about plagiarism, scrapers, and other content ripoffs, there are solutions that don’t inconvenience and alienate real readers. Watch your trackbacks and referrals and set up a Google alert for your name or some other key text in every post.

3: Don’t Write “Meta” Articles About Your Site!

Unless your blog happens to be about AdSense or search engine optimization, your readers don’t care about your monthly readership stats or AdSense revenue.

It’s not necessary to always be 100% topical. In fact, varying your content a bit adds a spark of life and energy that many writers forget. But navel-gazing and self-congratulation isn’t going to win you any readers.

4: Contain the Ads!

Face it: You’re not getting rich with banner ads on your blog. Although ads can help offset hosting costs, keeping the lights on is about all most independent bloggers can hope for.

If you decide to advertise, keep the banners unobtrusive and learn to tune your ad platform to keep them relevant to your topics. Direct ads from site sponsors are best, but vertically-focused ad networks like Fusion Ads and Daxeti (which I’m involved with) are an awesome alternative for smaller sites. Ozh’ excellent Who Sees Ads plugin for WordPress is another great idea, allowing you to only display ads to visitors from search engines.

And don’t pollute your feeds with ads: Treat your (very few) subscribers like the loyal friends they are instead of trying to make a dime from their clicks. And yeah, a dime is about all you are making from your blog anyway, right?

5: Trim the Fat!

Are you illustrating your articles with 300k high-definition PNG images? Unless you’re a photographer or graphic designer, do us all a favor and limit your inline images to about 300 pixels wide. I know it’s non-free and all, but JPEG speeds up load times!

And do you really need to embed flash animations, auto-playing YouTube clips, and other such junk? I’ll happily click through if I care.

Keep the number of illustrations down, too. If the vertical space of your post is more than half graphics (especially cheesy Excel charts) you need to refocus it before you lose your readers.

6: Edit and format your writing!

If readers can’t read your post, they won’t read your post.

Start with spell check and memorize some key rules of grammar. You may be a computer genius, but readers are not going to put up with incorrect homonyms and eggcorns forever!

The web demands short paragraphs with only one idea in each. Group them together into logical sections. Remember too that Google loves real HTML headers, not bold or underlined text.

You can still use bulleted and numbered lists sometimes, but make sure there is enough context so the reader will be able to follow your thought process.

7: Don’t Move Around!

If you’re blogging, you should control your own destiny: Have your own domain name, your own install of WordPress, and your own feed URL.

It’s hard for readers to take “whoever.typepad.com” seriously, especially when, three months after they subscribe, the feed moves to “whoever.blogger.com” and they have to re-subscribe. Often, they’ll just unsubscribe and forget all about it.

Even unsure newbies should register their own domain name, set up a hosting account, and install WordPress (it’s the best, hands down). They should also consider a private-label feedburner feed so subscribers can follow along even when the blog moves.

8: Make Commenting Easier!

Comment spam is a fact of life. Despite using Akismet, Bad Behavior, and clever tricks, most blogs get more comments from spammers than actual readers.

Clear out all the anti-commenting hurdles! Install Disqus to make life easier for commenters and you’ll see quick results.

9: Let Readers Contact You!

Everyone should have their real name and contact information prominently available on their blog. If you’re covering topics that intersect with work, you must disclose your employer.

If you want to engage your readers, add in a link to your LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook account, too. But don’t go crazy – no one needs to connect to you in 800 places. Keep it simple, with just a few links and a single email address.

Adapted from my post, Nine Blog Suggestions from a Grumpy Reader

Image credit: Daisy faces the Darkness II by lucianvenutian

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Creating Web-Friendly Collateral For Product Launches

Does your press kit include useful content for bloggers?

These days, every company wants blogs to cover their product announcements. After all, most customers rely on a Google search as their primary source of product research and increasingly trust blogs more than traditional media outlets. Guy Chapman’s excellent “how-to” for corporate content on Wikipedia (trust me, it’s a must-read!) brought to mind one key area where many corporate marketers still fall short: Product launch collateral. Even as they increasingly turn to bloggers for coverage, marketers still rely on the same stale “press kit” components from yesteryear. This new media world needs a new kind of collateral!

Blog-Friendly Messaging

One way to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to news sources is their reliance on press releases. Sites that routinely copy and paste whole paragraphs from press releases (or even the entire release) are cutting corners and losing relevance. Readers know it, and marketers should, too. These sites aren’t really blogs; they’re platforms for banner ads. Consider what this says about the content of press releases. If they’re providing content for sites to use verbatim, then they’re targeting the wrong ones.

Instead of the same old list of executive quotes, product announcements should provide the information writers need to cover an announcement:

  1. The basic facts: Product and company name along with version number or identifier
  2. What is it? What does it do?
  3. What’s new or different from previous products?
  4. How does it compare with competing products or otherwise fit into the market?
  5. Pricing: How much does it cost? Give ball-park figures at least, and don’t low-ball it with unrealistic configurations

Like conventional reporters, bloggers are looking for a “lede” – a concise statement they can build on when they write. Tell them what they need to get thinking and working rather than trying to feed them fully-formed thoughts and quotes.

Must-Haves For Web Coverage

Press releases aren’t dead and can be a useful summary for modern writers, but it’s amazing how many lack the basics. How can we properly cover a product without a URL? How can readers engage with a company without Twitter, Facebook, or other web links?

Every press release should include these web-friendly features:

  1. A unique, short, and consistent URL for this release. Readers want to click through to the product they’ve been reading about, and marketers want to lead them right to it. So why do so many press releases lack a product URL or lack a web address entirely?
  2. Tell us where readers can interact with the company itself. Many corporations now have official Twitter accounts, a topic to be covered later, and these should be included in every announcement. The same goes for corporate blogs or Facebook pages.
  3. Media content should be covered by an open license. Like Guy Chapman, I prefer the CC-by-SA license since it allows me to legally use and adapt your photos for my blog. Non-commercial or non-derivative licenses are right out. I won’t use content covered by these!
  4. We can’t use “confidential” material! Corporations are so used to tagging everything “confidential” that everyone seems to have forgotten what that really means. If that is included in every slide, we can’t use them to illustrate our coverage.

Sure, not everyone pays attention to licenses and confidentiality. But not everyone abides by embargoes or writes original content, either. Corporations can cater to the hacks or instead focus on the best and brightest. We all know who has the best audience!

Blog-Friendly Collateral: Photos and More

"Environmental" shots like this one by Iomega shot give readers a real-world feel for products

The web is a visual medium, and video is rapidly gaining value as well. Plain-text product announcements just don’t cut it anymore! Every company should post “media kits” online complete with photos, diagrams, and videos. As mentioned above, they should also make sure their license allows reuse and modification by writers

Companies should include a number of high-quality images with product announcements. The best press kits include a number of “hero” shots showing just the product as well as a few “environmental” shots to give us an idea of its place in the world. Check out the excellent shots provided by Iomega, for example. Photographers: Make sure the product doesn’t blend into the background: Black boxes in coal bins aren’t that attractive!

Product materials should also illustrate unique capabilities with useful diagrams. Many high-tech products are difficult to comprehend, and a clear illustration goes a long way. Don’t include too much text on these, either: A writer will likely have their own angle on the technology and won’t want to compete with canned text. For example, Cisco does a great job of illustrating complex networking concepts.

As video becomes more popular, many vendors are including these as well. It’s best to post videos to public sites like Vimeo or YouTube so writers can embed it without having to host it on their own servers. And a few short videos about different concepts beats a single all-encompassing video any day. Apple does a great job of producing these short videos, though they host them at their own site.

A New Kind Of Press Kit

Rather than the same old press release, why not try something different? Include web-friendly features, from URLs to videos, and roll everything in a license that allows reuse and the quality of coverage will improve!

Image credit: Photos inside by tanakawho