Went to Podcamp NYC and had a great time.  Talked about all the reasons why a company should blog:  search engine optimization, reach out to new and old clients and create a community, auto PR when bloggers like your product/service and finally blogging as a crisis management tool.

Well last week, one of my clients, Bigelow Tea, used their blog for just this reason, to manage a crisis. 

I felt that a well established blog with loyal readers would be the spring board for keeping the lid on the media and would prevent clients from loosing faith when managing a serious situation.  This still may be so, but what I observed with Bigelow is that the blog was used first as a communication tool.  Their first official statement hit the blog and the press took notice from there.  Statements going forward were posted on the blog and these weren’t corporate speak statements.  These were heartfelt, behind the scenes, I am doing the best I can, statements from the co-President Cindi Bigelow.  You may not have agreeed with her (and many didn’t) but you had to hand it to her, she laid out her dilemma honestly and was responding directly to the blog comments and emails pouring in from the main website.  The fact that Cindi had the blog to communicate and reach out to others on her own terms was what helped Bigelow Tea get through their situation honestly and humanly which, and time will tell about this one, should only bring loyalty from old and new clients!

The second interesting thing about the blog as a crisis management tool was that many didn’t even read what Cindi said, they came to speak their mind based on what they heard in the press (and the press didn’t get the story right half of the time and you would know this if you read the blog entries).  It was the one place where the commentors weren’t censored…the one place where they could go to vent and they knew they were being heard.  A community was created as divided as they were.

So my belief in blogs is deeper than before.  Blogs, in my mind, are not just a “new” media tool or a social networking pastime…this is real stuff that is here to stay.  A forum and a tool whose mere structure is, will and should be the backbone of every web presence for the corporate sector!

Thanks Constantin for including Creative Concepts on the newly updated international PR Blog List!

Our local Connecticut Post reported today on how to use a blog for marketing purposes featuring the Bigelow Tea blog and the Cruise Resort & World Travel Inc. blog with a couple of words from Creative Concepts.

Check it out here.

Liz Strauss, blogger extraordinaire of Successful Blog, has put together a conference, SOBCon ‘07, in Chicago.  Topic: taking your blog to the next level through strategy, art, technology and the science of relationship blogging.  250-300 bloggers expected.  Blog talk radio will cover it.

May 11 and May 12 at the Chicago Ohare Business Hotel

Well this week and last have been bustling and fun!  Here are some of the projects and visits with present and potential clients:

First we did a major hustle and got the Cruise Resort & World Travel blog up and running.  We announced an award and posted a press release while Nancy, the blog owner was traveling in Viet Nam, Bangkok and Singapore and posted her observations.  We have information about Nancy, contact information for booking a luxury travel vacation and a press page with links.  We have a blog roll that supports the visitors’ need for travel information from flight stats to where to work out in the US when traveling.  Look for more to come with this exciting blog from an luxury travel agency owner who knows and experiences the world!

For a site that I thought was maintaining status quo, one of the principals called with vim and vigor and wanted to rev things up…letters out to customers, expand the topics of the blog posts, reach out to peers….it has been easy to support The Orthodontic Center, a site that supports 2 blogs where both blogs have a different agenda and different readers.

Next I was on to visit Ruth Ridgeway whose site is about to go live next week so check back on this link.  Ruth is a hard working feisty event designer who knows how to please her clients and make something out of nothing when it comes to a party.  Her site is awesome…we are about to add some video so bookmark her site for future visits.

I then worked through the details of two more sites that are going to be awesome…both have blogs, both communicate well with potential site visitors…stay tuned…you know I will tell you something when there is something to show.

And to add to all of this, I went this week to visit a potential client.  The principal is bright, energetic and creative but still afraid of what a blog is and can do (search engine optimization, crisis management, networking to name a few!).  Many in the corporate arena think a blog is dangerous and out of control.  Dangerous, no, out of control, yes, in a great way. 

Take a look at the Bigelow Blog.  This is a prime example of a corporate blog hard at work and working well for the company (500% increase in visitors from last month).  The President (Cindi), the VP Sales (Bob) and the VP of manufacturing (Dean) all contribute to the blog plus we back them up with studies and web finds on the benefits and facts of tea.  They have a strong community outreach plus they were a featured weightloss team on ABC Primetime live…all fodder for the blog.  The fact that Joe Torre, Phil and Chris Simms drink Green Tea doesn’t hurt either…Bob blogs about them especially when they came to headquarters recently for a visit.  A corporate blog requires the CEO or head of the organization to be open with a sense of adventure and dedication and that is Cindi Bigelow to a TEA!  She is ready to head out the door to bring on new customers…stay tuned for more exciting developments from Bigelow Tea.

All of this coupled with the excitement of the Business Smart Tools conference which is coming in May.  Amazing and knowledgeable speakers plus demo companies (tech startups that are geared toward business) and the BST angel award where judges award the one start up that shows the most promise with consulting time from management and tech gurus…it is truly a show to behold and one that has solid content where you walk away satisifed and well fed with information that can change how you work today.  Check out the Business Smart Tools Blog for updates.

We at Creative Concepts have been busy with the best yet to come…look for more adventures in the not so far future.

Just an interesting note.  PR Newswire: while they claim to be on the forefront of technology (great people? yes, ahead with technology? no), I have seen no evidence of it.  They made an accounting error which began in June 2006…they still have the same accounting error happening even though my rep and her boss are lovely and claim it has been resolved.  Should they be worried?  Just a little but they no doubt don’t read blogs so they may never know about this entry.

On a marketing blog note, Todd And’s Power 150 Top Marketing blogs has put Creative Concepts on the honorable mention’s list.

And a final note, we at Creative Concepts have a couple of great blogs we are creating for our clients.  Our latest is Cruise Resort & World Travel, Inc. which has just broken out of the gate.  Stay tuned for more updates and check the links in our client section for new blogs!

 

For those of you who are in the midst of overseeing and guiding the corporate blog, has anyone ever put on the blog a “how to” section?  As we have pulled out of the gate with the Bigelow Blog, many of the visitors who are coming over from the main Bigelow website have never seen or been active on a blog.  The first way to alienate anyone is by presenting something that no one understands and so we have posted a “how to” section to help explain the many facets of the blog (entries, comments, how to comment, categories…).  It is a simple thing but necessary.  As we all become more immersed in this online world, don’t forget that there is a large majority of people out there who don’t get it or maybe they get it but they don’t know how to work it!

Speaking of this premise, this is the idea behind the Business Smart Tools Conference.  Business people everywhere have heard of blogs, podasts, RSS, and many other online tools, but they may not know how to use them when it comes to futhering their corporate strategies.  We provide the speakers who are in the thick of things, we provide a time to learn, we provide a time to chat and connect, we provide live demos of upstart companies who will make a difference in the corporate arena.  We do all of this in one day, in 6 hours, in Connecticut.  Who can ask for anything better than that!!

On a more local note than Disney, I headed over to the offices of the Fairfield Metro Center for a light cocktail party this evening.  What a project that is going to be between corporate and retail and a train station…it will change Fairfield in a great way!

Ran into a good friend, Michael from DesignSite.  He and his buddy Joe are making it big with podcasting in the music industry…more specifically Capitol Records.  They created The Pet Sounds 40th anniversary podcast series.  It got a crazy big number of hits on iTunes..check it out.

It has also been a big day of blogging and websites.  Working with a host now where we are having problems uploading a simple blog design for a corporate client.  They are working hard at solving the problem but come on..my client is waiting…other solutions are waiting in the wings on Friday that is for sure.

Bigelow Tea sent out an email blast today to 49,500 of their biggest supporters….56.41% of the visitors to their blog were new today…love those multi level communications to get the word out…blogging, email and search engine press releases (those are coming)…you can’t get any better than that.

Ok, I am done for the day!

One of the predictions of this whole Spocko/Disney debacle is that Disney will encounter its worst nightmare: mainstream media will get wind of the story.  The ball is rolling.  Melissa McNamara from CBS News reports the story.

Just to finish up on the Disney story, Spocko, the guy who reported that Disney’s super right wing radio affiliate KSFO condoned torture and murder, was supported and given a big hurrah from the blogging world. 

Once the blogoshpere learned about Spocko’s site being taken down because of uploading audio files from the radio station, other bloggers (both national and international)  posted the audio files on their sites and different hosts offered their services to bring Spocko back up.

What are Disney’s lawyers going to do now?  It’s only a short time before mainstream media picks up the story.

This is what I love about blogging, the internet, and consumer generated content: the truth has an easier and faster way of bubbling up to the surface.  The big guns like Disney can’t beat the small guys into submission any longer because there is no controlling the messaging.  This scares some (and many Public Relations people fall into this category of fearing the uncontrollable) but to me it brings total satisfaction.  The blogosphere can bring down the bad but at the same time it can boost up the good ones (and the bold ones)  :)