I mentioned before Christmas that I’m starting a new business and now’s the time to let you all know what it is. It’s a new business blogging company, called Weblog Solutions Ltd. It’s a 50/50 venture with another New Zealand blogger, who’s a bit shy about revealing his identity right now (but a lot of you will be familiar with him and his work, because he’s developed some products which many bloggers all over the world use on a daily basis). We’re targeting New Zealand companies in particular with our new business venture, but we’re also looking for overseas work – to take advantage of the exchange rate! You can read more about us and our services on the blog – which has recently soft-launched. Comments and advice greatly appreciated, especially if you’re a New Zealander who is interested in our company!
Anyway for this week’s paid Marqui post, I thought it’d be timely to review Marqui‘s new blog – called Marqui’s world. My new company is all about business blogs, so what better topic to write about in my sponsored post. Let’s take a look then at Marqui’s effort at setting up a blog and compare it to another recent company blog on the scene – General Motor’s GM Fastlane Blog (which I wrote about on the Weblog Solutions blog this weekend).
Content
They both started about the same time – the first post for Marqui’s world was on 30 December and GM Fastlane Blog’s first post was January 5. In terms of content, GM’s blog got off to a voluminous start. They’ve already posted 9 items and some of them are lengthy. It looks like they had a bunch of posts pre-prepared (a couple of speeches converted into posts, links to interviews, biographies, plus some actual conversational posts). Pre-preparing content is a practice I’d recommend if you’re launching (any) new blog, so top marks to GM for that. And what’s more, the content is compelling – evidenced by the 68 comments (and still growing) that have been made to a post about GM’s new Saturn brand.
Marqui’s world has only 3 posts so far – and none in the New Year. So they’re off to a slow start. The one piece of advice I’d give to them straight off the bat is to post regularly – momentum is vital in keeping blogs afloat. I should note though that GM probably has more resources to throw at their blog, being a huge multinational company and all.
Target Audience
GM are obviously targeting car enthusiasts and, judging by all the comments they’re receiving, they seem to be striking a chord with that audience.
As for Marqui, they are targeting marketers. The 3 items so far have been an introductory post, a post entitled Firing up the imagination, and a post about an SEO paper. Nothing yet that will bring marketers scurrying out of their business lunches and commenting on Marqui’s blog. And remember that one of the main goals of an external business blog is to get conversations going with your customers.
However I do think the tone of Marqui’s blog is encouraging. It’s conversational and informal – that’s good. But the subject matter isn’t compelling enough yet. Nothing against SEO papers, but it’s hardly the sort of thing that your customers are going to get all excited about. Actually, the best piece of content I’ve seen from Marqui isn’t even on the blog – it was a write-up by Janet Johnson about “a fascinating breakfast meeting in Portland about innovation and risk taking in marketing [which] yielded surprising insights”. OK, that’s the kind of thing you should be blogging! Talk about your marketing theories, about innovation in your field, about “surprising insights”. That is much more likely to get marketers conversing with you, than a dry paper about search engine optimization.
Links
If you look at the GM blog, you’ll notice they’ve started to compile a list of links to other car enthusiast websites and “blogs we like”. In the blogging world, this is known as a ‘blogroll’ (they may be going out of fashion on the homepage, but generally most bloggers keep a blogroll somewhere). It’s particularly important to maintain a blogroll on your homepage if you’re a new business blog looking to connect to a community of readers. My suggestion to Marqui is to find out which are the marketing blogs that interest you, then link to them on the side of your blog. What’s more, regularly read what they’re blogging about and comment on that on your own blog (and leave comments on theirs). Two-way communication is important not just with your target audience, but your community of like minds.
Design
I mentioned above that GM probably has many more resources to throw at their blog – and it shows in their slick design. It’s a bit unfair to ask Marqui to match that, but one thing I suggest to Marqui is to differentiate your blog more from your main website. Currently it looks too same-y. For the blog to capture the imagination of your customers, and compel them to converse with you, it needs to have its own identity and (most importantly) personality.
Summary
GM’s new blog is off to a great start and the conversations with their customers (and potential customers) seem to be flowing like wine already. Marqui is by comparison off to a slow start, but I think the tone of writing they’ve adopted is promising. They just need to come up with some more compelling content that their target audience (marketers) will be excited by. I also suggest they find out who their blogging community is (other marketing blogs, primarily), and regularly read and link to them. Also a distinct design for their blog, to give it its own personality, would not go amiss.
That’s just a start… OK here’s where I add a plug for my new company, Weblog Solutions Ltd 🙂 Marqui, we’re available to help you improve your blog! That invitation extends to any other company or organization wanting to get started in the blogosphere, or wanting to put some pep into their current blog. Feel free to contact us to talk.
Disclosure: I mentioned and linked to Marqui as part of my sponsorship arrangement with them. See here for details.
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)