Planning and designing a production Web2.0 operation

One of the most important ingredient of starting a new Web2.0 marketing project is planning and research. I can't stress this enough when speaking with people who have not written steadily for a living. This is specially true with generalist marketers. Product managers and product marketers who write or edit casually, mostly for internal consumption. While writing a steady stream of articles is not for everyone, I believe that many managers can write and gain a real advantage with blogging, newsletters, wikis, social networking, and other Web2.0 applications. Not only because they are going to be popular in the future, but also as simple tools which can evolve into a good systems of communication. I have some ideas which will help you in planning and justifying resources and effort to start a production Web2.0 operation.

Gather Existing Information, Data, Ideas...

First of all, make an effort to gather all the information available. The available resources, stories, content, individuals with writing and editing abilities, industry and user contact people, etc. Gather all material which has been published in an attempt to create a stream of messages. NOT press releases, but real business and technical information. Even parts of customer presentations, data sheets, and success stories. If you have seen a good blog, even one that is not exactly on topic (to yours), store and print some of the stories and explain how they could be used on your blog. If you receive industry and competitor newsletters, feeds from portals or publications, use these as well. It is a common technique to add industry news to original stories in a newsletter. If you can put this in a nice package, print and bind it, and distribute to a few people, you can start getting an idea who will help and how to deliver the message(s). People do much better when they see something resembling the final product. Seeing a package of related stories, is easy to get them going. Remember that seeing a final product and working on it are different. You will need both aspects to show people if they are going to be convinced.

Justify: Resources, Attention, Tools, Skills...

Next, you better have a very strong justification for the project. Anything well justified will get attention and resources. If you are totally new to this, you will definitely need the resources (not just budget and people). This includes the driving need for a blogging or newsletter program IN YOUR SPECIFIC OPERATION! While it is easy to see a blog that has been running for a while, some managers and VPS of marketing may not appreciate a part time writer added to their headcount. If you clearly show what the company will say, who will be involved, where the information will come from, this will help in the justification. In most cases this would be the need to keep current and potential customers informed. There are qualities of message streams which are totally new and unique. Newspaper writers and editors know this well, but the rest of us are not as familiar and experienced to them. I will eventually dedicate a few full articles to the justification, budgeting, start-up, and other aspects of operating a Web2.0 application.

Define A Real Strategy and Tactics

This step will help both you and the people who are connected with your work. Strategy in this case can be simply to use a tool or a format to communicate certain information. It could also be a way of managing information which already exists. It could be the introduction of tools to the organization (acquisition, training, operation). The clarification and delineation of tactics is very important. This goes for the clear plan on software tools and hosting as well as management of the story writing and researching or buying information. Strategies and tactics need to guide writers and editors. It also helps readers and managers who use the blog as a communication channel. The marketing managers who comment and suggest how the blog develops need to understand what are the goals and the means of getting there. Don't skimp here, if you do not have a strategy in the early stage you will need one later. In the mean time, you will duplicate ad-hock strategy sessions over and over again.

A Story About A Blog

Five months ago I started working on a blog / newsletter project. It started out as an experiment for a small Internet security company. The company wanted to target a small number of potential readers (approx. 1,000). The target reader attributes were well defined, at least that is what we thought. The idea was to write a blog or a newsletter and keep the posting frequency to once a week. The marketing manager did not think she can do it. But there was pressure from both the CEO and the sales organization for "a blog". At first we started planning the design, overall GUI (Graphical User Interface), and graphics (mostly free images). Different people in the organization wanted different looks based on what they have seen. This is not hard when looking at a blog, you just need to find examples and search for a similar template. Prototyping a design and layout is a great way to start. When it came to planning the writing and the topics things got a little strange. One camp wanted to have fresh relevant topics. In security market that means scanning the news feeds and writing about what is exciting NOW. This is sometimes a big virus or spam attack, what Microsoft is doing with the new Windows Vista release for security, what Mcaffee or Symantec are doing technically or marketing wise, or even a story about the politics of security. But there is another camp which says that the writing should be timeless and more marketing and technical in nature. This way the 'content' can be used and referenced as regular web site content (some people call this Web1.0 redone). All these voices from the corporate world are nice to know, but an editor, designer, writer is going to approach the task the way she sees most appropriate. Which for the these new Web2.0 'consumers' was difficult to accept. One thing to remember is that doing things differently will be hard to impossible for some. But that is the nature of this change.

This brought me to a discussion on how to coach product managers and general executives about what to do with regard to taking the first step in running or developing a blog. This is quite different from an individual or a group who simply want to start blogging. Most blogs out there seem to be a stream of articles which are not necessarily related to and one specific topic. But products which need to be explained also need to have the steady stream of information, examples, explanations, and other type of writing a blog or a newsletter can support.

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solostream.com offers WordPress teams, there are many helpful technical services out there for blogging and newsletters
So I thought that it would be helpful to start searching for sources about writing for effective product marketing. There are good "old school" resources. There are mostly writing, editing, and publishing based. Without good writing, most readers are going to be turned off. But once a blog or newsletter writer has the formula for writing, the sources of information, either internal or external, and the flow of articles start to move, you have an operation.

My next step if to have some work books. I think that strategy, tactics, operation, planning, and other practical tasks can be put into a few pages of forms and examples. There are also great articles and resources for this work on the web, so send me your favorite and I will start posting it here.

Is there "new media" in blogs and wikis?

I spoke with a friend in the advertising industry about "blogs and wikis" and his comment was something like: '... a few customers once in a while ask us to write content for blogs when they need a message and they ask them to "write content" ... but, doing blogs is a lot of work and it's expensive... ' In general the "established media" world sees the Internet as a "new media" - most think of it as not really ready for "prime time". To some extent they are right, print, electronic and even direct marketing is still running at full steam... and a train moving in its tracks at full steam is hard to stop and harder to turn.
I have been looking at blogs and wikis for examples of serious and useful marketing work. At this point I am not looking for a pattern or a "method" from anyone out there, I think it's too early for that kind of information to be readily available. But, there are many examples of people who do not see the "blogs and wikis" as "new media". Why do I think that "new media" is not a useful model for what people think the Internet can do? Because this seems like a what had happened in the past, the history of distant past and more recent history. It seems to me that most people who are not using the Internet as a primary form of marketing are not going to see the value in the "new media" until its too late (for them). So these people are not the ones to look for guidance. But for people who either can't afford "old media", or are starting to market a new product or with a new effort, it makes sense to start with the Internet. That is why I am looking at the blogs, wikis, newletters and quick edit pages (i.e. google pages, myspace, etc). The idea is to see how essentially direct marketing is used by marketing managers DIRECTLY. I think that we can find good examples so this is going to be my effort in the next few weeks. (I am looking for equivalent of "direct" marketing but other forms of marketing is also OK) If you have any examples or comments, please write to me. THANKS !

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Let's get to the next part, learning from history and seeing how the big guys used similar situations to create big products. To look at historical examples, I chose to look at an older shift in technology and marketing (40 - 50 years); I became aware of just now, the story of Playboy. Now, some of you will not like this example, but it will quickly illustrate my point. Hugh Hefner started Playboy as a fluke, not exactly sure that it would work and what it would turn out to be. There were all kind of objectionable remarks about the "new venture". Some said that Playboy will not be able to find girls to pose, that did not turned out to be a problem at all. Anyway, let's move beyond the Playboy "idea" - what Hugh Hefner did with magazines at the time is what the Internet is doing to "media". Hugh Hefner figured out that magazines is not a new way to get the "message" out, but a whole new way to get a "new message" out. Actually he created a new "product". The magazine was not a "shrunk" book or an monthly update in a specific area, it WAS THE PRODUCT. As magazines became cheaper to print and mail, as the acceptance of more risque content and as men demanded or 'accepted' more sexy and personal content. In hindsight this is easy to analyze, but I believe the the Playboy story is not about planning and "designing" as much as a gut feeling - jump into the waters without thinking too much. In today's more accepted Internet "self publishing" world, we have a very similar situation.
I hope that the Playboy example was not too vague or controversial, specially if you are offended by Hefner's content. But it's a lesson well learned. Next time I will write about Blogger.com and a few other more 'recent' examples. Using technology, shift in opinions or social norms and economic / product capability. I look at successful products and services because they usually have a good lesson to teach. I think that as we go about using current technologies in a changing environment learning from others is one way to think creatively. Also, it's a way of keeping a better perspective. It's always crucial to make sure we do not miss an opportunity to go after a market or capture a better competitive position. More about this aspect of newsletter/blog/wiki/web marketing in the coming stories.