Dave led the team along the dirt road before we were led up mountainsides and down gorges at less than break neck speeds. While Melissa was slowly adjusting to losing her power steering bonus, and the rest of us eased the bikes through their paces as we managed to take in some of the most beautiful views on a sun kissed day which heralded the start of spring in the Cape. We reached the pinnacle of one of the peaks to enjoy a moment to take it all in, before returning back to the farmhouse and proceeding to the wine tasting halls of the estate. A petition was suggested for the acquisition of an office quad bike, and signatures are currently in process to be sent to the CEO for consideration.

We all took our seats inside the modern tasting rooms and decided to pop the cork with some bubbly Cap Classique Rose. Our tasting hostess provided us with the full experience, offering us tastes of dry citrus infused sauvignon blancs and buttery chardonnays while others sided the more smoky and spicy reds. We all came out of the experience a little more educated and satiated, and some of the troops made purchases from the estate, with Brett and I deciding the Shiraz Granache blend was definitely a winner that deserved a medium rare steak as a date.

Reconvening at a Seafood restaurant, we all finished the days outing with a good meal. An assortment of Sushi, salads, executive platters and calamari were enjoyed and as the sun set over Cape Town, we enjoyed some good laughs and time together as a team. For more highlights, take a look at our facebook page and see if you “like” it as much as we did.

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Quad Biking and Wine: What Can Go Wrong?

2009 saw a mad dash for the social media real estate and even then uptake was tentative and haphazard, with many companies taking a stand just for the sake of it, simply because of all the buzz around social media, but without actually knowing why they needed it or what the return on the time invested was going to be.

2010 will see a more organised and planned approach to a corporations online presence as keeping a tidy shop window will no longer suffice. With public views so prevalent in the search results, strategies need to be focused around proactively engaging with consumers on all levels. This sounds similar to the plan for 2009, however this time we really mean it! The entire corporation needs to become self aware on all levels. All employees need to feel how they fit into the bigger picture and how they shape the way their organisation is perceived. Has anyone ever heard of any disgruntled Google employees? Or how about Fedex? What sets these companies aside is the company ethos. They are a community and they feel that theirs is one of the best companies to be working for.

With this attitude, the company transforms the way they deal with consumers. A deep sense of pride is attained and all staff strive to deliver greater value to consumers. It shifts the perception of the customer and of the company, and it empowers staff to contribute to the community, and the greater good.

Brand management then becomes an entirely different occurring for the corporation. The expertise and specialist skills of agencies in understanding social media channels are still essential to the organisation however now they fit in with what the organisation wants to tell the public and not the other way around. Agencies will take on the role of advising internal teams on how best to undertake their communication and how to monitor their reputation in real time. The organisation is no longer “outsourcing” its voice to an agency, rather they establish a strong strategic framework in which to execute social media activities.

The advice for 2010 is for brands to engage with their consumers on all levels, because the conversations are happening, whether you are a part of them or not.

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What 2010 holds for Brand Reputation Management

I read somewhere that you should be able to write a blog or online article in fifteen minutes. That includes doing research, thinking about the topic, coming up with a headline, checking your grammar, writing a good introduction and conclusion, organising your ideas and optimising for keywords. Jim Estill said on copy blogger that he can do it in 20. And I like his writing, it’s concise, engaging and accessible but, with all due respect to Mr. Estill, I would still never spend less than an hour or two on a blog or article.

When I think about churning out the written word like a newspaper printing press, I think about one of my least favourite, and one the world’s most loved, writers. Barbara Cartland churned out a massive amount of pulp fiction during her long life: on her deathbed she had 664 novels to her name and when you read them you know why: they lack depth and the characters are not believable. J.K Rowling on the other hand, spent 12 years carefully crafting her popular Harry Potter series and took a few years to conceptualise the stories before putting pen to paper (or rather paper to typewriter) in earnest. Literary experts may criticise her style but my response to this is that when someone has become so unbelievably famous and rich from her written word, it transcends criticism. The extra time J.K Rowling spent on her books served to make her a far superior writer.

Having said that, everyone is different and how you write a blog depends on who you are. Jim Estill, for example, will turn over a topic in his head for a few days to allow the free flow of new ideas before he commits to anything. He also says that he is most productive when he works on several articles as the same time and I know from experience that this is the exception rather than the rule. What works for Jim, may or may not work for you or me. What I like to do is commit a few hours solely to one article and spend that time toying with various ideas and words and reading up on all sides of the story and even looking beyond my core ideas and reading around the topic. It may sound self-indulgent but it works for me.

It also depends on your subject choice. If you’re writing a technical blog and you’re a ‘how to’ girl, the fifteen minute rule could induce a nervous breakdown. On the other hand, if you have a massive general knowledge, are a veteran of the written word and concentrate intensively on the topic at hand, then I admit, it’s possible to write a good blog in 15 minutes. However, I have yet to do so.

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Writing a blog or article in 15 minutes: it’s possible but is it wise?

Sometimes clients aren’t too keen on the idea of having to manage their own blogs though, especially once their consulting agency has made them aware of the hard work that goes into a successful blog. Jennifer Osborne put together the first post in a series of five, focusing on blog strategy from the client’s point of view. It addresses some very common and valid questions posed by clients when approached with the blog idea.

Often clients believe that there is not enough of interest in their particular industry to maintain a blog, and query whether it is worth putting something together that not many people will even read. Another worry is that they might run out of ideas on what to write about as they try to keep it interesting and up to date. Both of these concerns are valid, but can be addressed with the variety of helpful internet tools available today. Simple internet tools (accessible to everyone) such as Google Trends and Google Adwords Keyword Tool can bring valuable insight into what users search for, how often and on what sort of scale (number of searches).

With effort, time and patience you can make your blog a success, and it can definitely thrive within your particular industry. Yes, some blogs do fail, as there is always a chance that your corporate blog may slide down the list of priorities, but that is usually caused by a lack of interest, inconsistent management and allowing things to fall outside of the original plan.

Corporate blogs add a lot of value to your credibility among consumers and there are ways to prevent it from becoming a major hassle. By enlisting more than one blogger, coming up with several article ideas before the launch, and building creative ways to interest your target market, you have the beginnings of a recipe for blogging success.

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The merits of having a company blog

With blogs being rather easy to setup, many companies have invested their time, knowledge and commitment to corporate blogs. But a major concern is how long they will last in today`s demanding working world? For most people, the working day is already pretty full, crammed with new assignments, meeting after meeting, and business travel etc. Without being specifically assigned to the blog (sometimes even when they are), many corporate members move it to the bottom of their to-do list, and the task often gets forgotten.

Keeping the company`s blog regularly updated is not an easy task, it is often too much for one person to handle, unless that is their only function, but even then it can become tedious. Many experts say that it is better to have numerous members of the company contribute towards the blog on a regular basis, so that fresh content is submitted on a regular basis, and it remains appealing for industry peers and consumers.

According to Lee Odden of Toprankblog.com, there are five reasons why corporate blogs fail:
• Not planning key objectives for your blog

• Having unrealistic expectations and failing to allocate resources effectively

• Not sourcing enough content for the long term can hinder your blog`s versatility

• Having only one person contribute restricts the free flow of ideas and limits the number of newsworthy topics that you can cover.

• Not having any feedback mechanisms (for example, analytics), which would allow you to access vital information that could contribute to effectively intertwining the blog with other components of the marketing plan, and ultimately reinforce the corporate message and brand.

The final point that Odden makes is that companies often think that they can setup and manage the blog successfully on their own. This misconception is often unmasked a few months into the blog, when things start to die down and new ideas begin to run low. Soon enough the last post appears to have been made over a month ago. It is never a bad move to call in an experienced consultant to provide strategic and tactical insight into what is necessary to make your blog a success.

Blogging is not an easy job to master, to some it may come naturally, but to most it is a challenge to have to churn out worthy news every day/week/month. However, the benefits of having a blog are often well worth the effort. It is a way of developing relationships with customers, and reaching a larger potential market than you would with only a corporate website. But to ensure it produces benefits for the company, proper and consistent management of the blog needs to be firmly established.

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Is your corporate blog on a downward slide?