Buzz Marketing with Blogs: Online Influence Talk for High-Tech Communicators and Society for Technical Communication

Online Influence Talk for High-Tech Communicators and Society for Technical Communication

I gave a talk tonight to a joint meeting of the High-Tech Communicator’s Exchange and the Society for Technical Communication in downtown Vancouver. It was a great group—smart, engaged, and with such excellent questions!

I hit on these topics during the hour-long presentation (at lease I think so!):

Marketing strategies businesses employ with and through blogs
The intangible benefits to a businesses reputation and credibility that can be built via blogs
Ways to reach new and current customers through blogging
Blogs as tools for product/technical support
Reading blogs and talking to bloggers
Actual examples of companies who have successfully used blogs to support their business
Marketing no-nos in the blogosphere

I promised to post my slide deck so here that is (PPT, 1.51MB).

Members of the STC include writers, editors, illustrators, project managers, instructional designers, web designers, knowledge managers, usablility specialists, help developers, engineers, and others involved in communicating technical information to other professionals or the general public. We work in high-tech industries, health care, the resource industries, the legal system, utilities, and government.

The HTCE is a group made up of professionals from the fields of public relations, marketing, marketing communications and technical communications who are or have been working in the high-tech and/or biotech sectors. The group comprises junior, intermediate and senior professionals who work for companies or agencies or who are independent consultants.

Thanks to Susan Patch for contacting me and making the arrangments, and Catherine Ducharme for helping me get set up beforehand!

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/15 at 10:17 PM • Blogging Events -- Blogs and Business

Comments

I found the talk intriguing, and had an experience this morning which really galvanized the timeliness of the material.

This morning, I answered yet another ‘dead air’ call (hello? hello?) from a number that has been calling repeatedly for the past few days. Frustrated, I googled the number, and lo! there’s an entire forum on it! Besides ‘dead air’ calls, it involves someone who identifies themselves as being from the Vancouver Sun. The forum indicates that some people have cancelled their subscriptions as a result.

Testing your theory, I called Jamie Pitblado, Director of Marketing at the Vancouver Sun. Before I could finish my first sentence, he took me off speaker phone and asked for the forum’s URL. I’d been expecting to launch into what I’d learned at last night’s presentation, but it seems he’s already in the know. Not only was it obvious he took the matter quite seriously; he promised to investigate it as soon as he received the link to the forum. Here’s a professional who understands the strong impact public discussion can have on his business.

Returning again to what I learned from your presentation, I went back to the forum and posted public kudos for Mr. Pitblado’s willingness to make things right.

Thank you for a very informative presentation!

Posted by liessi on 11/16/05 at 11:22 AM
you’re so welcome!

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/25/05 at 12:35 PM
Susannah Gardner: what you covered in your talk sounds like it would be of interest to many of my clients (where I speak to them about how to be more compelling, collaborative and frequently-quoted). Idea: consider offering some of the highlights of that talk and others to us (your fans) to share with our constituency, with the attribution you want. For example, I would put one of your tips in my 32,000-subscriber Say it Better” newsletter or speech handout ... that’s what is so fun about the Power of Us, sharing ideas to better serve our clients… I aam learning so much for your blog and blog design for my newbie blog sausalitobythebay.com and thank you so, so much

Posted by Kare Anderson on 11/29/05 at 02:04 PM