In the end, I decided to review Mena’s Corner, the corporate blog of CEO Mena Trott at Six Apart, a relatively new company that has shaped some of the blogging world by developing blog authoring tools. I also came across CEO Michael Hyatt’s blog – he heads up Thomas Nelson, Inc., a company that’s been around since the 18th century and is known mostly for publishing Christian Bibles. While both companies are involved in some form of communication, they seemed like they couldn’t differ more.
What’s That Blog About?
To begin my contrast, I tried to determine who the blogs were written for and what they were about. Ms. Trott’s blog had an “About the News Blog” sidebar that stated the following purpose:
Welcome to the official Six Apart blog. Anything that affects our company or the entire blogging industry is up for discussion, since 2002. You'll find out about public appearances that we make, new product announcements, major company news and even some peeks behind the scenes.
That seemed straightforward, rather broad, but easy to understand. However, upon surfing additional pages on the Six Apart site, I realized the same purpose was listed on each of several other company blogs. Was this text part of a CSS for the entire Six Apart blog site? Maybe . . . but it left me wondering what Ms. Trott’s mission is. Something to remember as I progress with A Better Message.
Mr. Hyatt’s blog did not explicitly state what his blog’s mission was. Rather, he just listed his most popular blogs on his About page. Here’s the list:
Looking over the list, I found career management and productivity articles (like I’d expect from a CEO), information on presentations and Twitter (who said this company was stuck in the 18th century?), and an article on publishing (this is a publishing company, after all). Looking over the topics list on the left side of the page, I found categories for Technology, Blogging, and Productivity. So even though no purpose was explicitly stated, I got a sense of what the site is about from his list – authoring, publishing, leadership, and Web 2.0 applications.
Who’s That Blog For?
Neither blog explicitly stated their intended audience. In each case, I was left to speculate on the readership by reflecting on the content. Better stated, I needed to determine if the content interested me, something I found rather inefficient.
For Ms. Trott’s blog, I suspect the readership is primarily composed of experienced enthusiastic bloggers and IT staffers. The focus of the subject matter was: (1) Six Apart’s software products, which bloggers can use to blog, advertise, and generate revenue; (2) Ms. Trott’s remarks on her own public appearances; and (3) internal happenings at Six Apart, such as staff appointments and service outages.
I suspect that Mr. Haytt’s blog for Thomas Nelson Publishers will appeal to a more general audience. The articles and categories already noted apply to folks who are trying to get more done, use Web 2.0 applications, and navigate a career. These are topics that an aspiring author might find important, but many other folks wrestle with these issues every day.
What About The Comments?
Comments facilitate the feedback from readers and make blogging a potentially interactive experience. Positive comments and dynamic interactions are said to boost credibility (see Lorelle VanFossen’s Does Your Blog Have A Comments Policy?), an important consideration for a company that’s trying to manage its reputation. However, having folks post negative comments about you or your organization can also be damaging (see the “Potential Issues for Corporate Blogs” section of Corporate Blog Design: Trends And Examples). For an example of negative comments you don't want to have to manage, see these at Verizon's Public Policy Blog.
In this instance, I compared the frequency of comments on the two blogs. Ms. Trott made 10 posts over a period of 2 years. Only 3 of the posts had comments enabled. In that time, 8 comments were posted to the blog. And for the record, the last post on this blog was made nearly 2 years ago, and several posts were made several months apart. In contrast, Mr. Hyatt very recently posted 9 times over period of 15 days. This activity generated ~600 comments, a portion of which were Mr. Hyatt’s own prompt responses.
It seems that Mr. Hyatt’s readership responded more dynamically than did Ms. Trott’s, therefore his blog - and by association, his company- interested a greater number of participants. In this instance, I’d rather read something that is fresh and useful to a dynamic community rather than an occasional post on a blog that almost seems abandoned. At that point, I was tempted to make some hard and fast conclusions about blog frequency, but some folks believe that less could be more in the blogosphere. In particular, I liked this thought from Eric Kintz’s Why Blog Post Frequency Does Not Matter Anymore:
If you want to be a top 50 Technorati blogger, you will most probably still need to post several times a day. But for the rest of us, we should think seriously about the added value of frequent blogging. Actually, according to Technorati, only 11% of all blogs update weekly or more. What will matter more and more is what you write and how you engage, not how often you write.
How Do These Blogs Look?
Here’s what Ms. Trott’s blog looks like at Six Apart’s site:
It uses a number of standard elements to get its message across including:
o A high-contrast header with navigational links and company logo
o A page title
o A date-stamped title for each entry
o A text-intensive layout that uses small fonts
o Side lists for recent comments and posts
o A single ad for Ms. Trott’s personal blog
o An “About” description
o Hyperlinks in the body
o Links to Six Apart’s international sites
o An RSS feed button
o Not visible are a few graphics and videos used on older posts
Looking at the layout and design, there is sufficient white space and the site looks clean, but there isn’t a lot of color, and what’s there isn’t particularly bright.
Mr. Hyatt’s Blog looks like this:
The design and layout of this blog is definitely busier than the Ms. Trott’s blog. It’s a little crowded, but the use of color, images, fonts, and partial entries makes it seem a little warmer and more inviting – perhaps the cyber-equivalent of visiting the home of a large active family.
How Effective Was Each Blog?
In the end, both the content AND presentation within each site conveyed the complete message of each blog. Because each CEO represented their corporation, I extended my impression of the blog to their companies by association.
Ms. Trott’s blog, Mena’s Corner, seemed narrowly focused on managing the firm’s reputation and promoting its products to expert bloggers. I didn’t think the design of the blog was remarkable in any way, and the dearth of recent posts left me thinking that Six Apart and Ms. Trott didn’t care to maintain their blog. To be fair, there are other corporate blogs on the Six Apart site – perhaps I would find those more relevant - I’ve focused here on CEO blogs. (For the record, Ms. Trott maintains a much more personal, varied, and current blog, dollarshort, but it does not seem to have much to do with Six Apart.)
Mr. Hyatt’s Blog, http://michaelhyatt.com/, left a more positive impression. Mr. Hyatt likes to stay in touch, engage his community (Commenters can become book reviewers for the company), and offer content that will be valuable to a much wider readership. I think that even folks who are not interested in the company’s core business would find useful information, including technical communicators who need to manage their own Web 2.0 issues. This left me with a sense of goodwill towards Mr. Hyatt, and by extension, Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Earlier in the post, I stated that the two companies couldn’t differ more. Ironically, in my opinion, the CEO of the 18th century publishing firm blogged A Better Message than the CEO that helped shape the blogosphere.
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