Mario Sundar

LinkedIn's Social Media Guy since 2007. These are my thoughts on social media around PR, Marketing and the Silicon Valley.

August 10, 2010 • 5:52 am 7

Top 5 Corporate Blogs’ Front Page Structure

Just today Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox published the findings of a recent eye tracking study on the reading habits around corporate blogs. Of course, I find this of immense interest both as the blog editor of a Top 10 corporate blog (LinkedIn), but more so since I publish rankings for the Top 10 corporate blogs out there. I found this a perfect opportunity to re-rank the top business blogs out there and study their front page structure.

More on the front page structure of the Top 5 Corporate blogs (ranked August 2010), after this confusing graphic.

Confusing Jakob Nielsen graphic comparing full articles vs. summaries

Before I continue, here were the results of the eye tracking study: “Showing summaries of many articles is more likely to draw in users than providing full articles, which can quickly exhaust reader interest.” This is probably true of all blogs but more so for corporate blogs which for the most part are just a feed of breaking news press release style items. That said, I’m glad to announce that we’re considering a redesign for the LinkedIn blog (more on that later). But, I digress…

Here are the top five corporate blogs on the planet today (based on Technorati Authority, Aug 2010) show an interesting breakdown and development in terms of their front page structure and design. Read on. Please note: these reviews are purely on front page design as well as social media engagement.

1. Google: While Google’s corporate blog has a killer Technorati popularity ranking, it’s design is pretty staid and boring – providing full articles, while not doing much to engage ANY conversation at all. No comments nor focus on the author of the post makes this blog as useful as a press center and that’s how Google wants to play it. Brand recognition, over 600K subscribers to the blog, over a million followers on Twitter ensures they’re widely read, but if you’re a small business owner and want to create an engaging blog with compelling content to educate your users - see #4 on this list (Mint blog). If you’re a brand that wants to create a press center 2.0, this model may suffice. Again, from a front page design perspective – THUMBS DOWN.

Google Blog's front page design


2. Facebook: Facebook’s corporate blog moved up in the rankings overtaking Twitter’s blog and their newly redesigned front page is only gonna help them further give Google’s blog a run for it’s money. Positives: Simple, easy to use design aesthetics, integration with Facebook (whether it’s the post author’s Facebook profile or integration with the Facebook fan page, which has over 15 million followers!), engaging design – summaries over full articles, terrific share functionality (Comments, Likes and Share – again fully integrating into the design one expects to see within Facebook), Facebook connect integration (Duh!), and each post also links to topic category links (brilliant!). Love everything about the blog front page / design / usability. THUMBS UP. AWESOMENESS!

Facebook's newly redesigned corporate blog front page

3. Twitter: Moved down a spot since last year’s corporate blog rankings, Twitter’s blog is currently HOT cos Twitter’s hot, but again they closely mimic the Google model. No comments nor integration with their product (their posts don’t even have a retweet button!!!) and it takes forever to identify the author of the post. Again, this is but a press center 2.0 model. Decent integration with the corporate Twitter account doesn’t make up for a poor front page design. THUMBS DOWN.

Newly redesigned Twitter business blog front page

4. Mint: Mint’s blog even prior to the Intuit acquisition, set the standard when it came to CONTENT. They created the most compelling, objectively viewed content around personal finance and data, which got organically picked up by the blogosphere and press in general. No wonder they have rocked to the Top 5 and are at #4, this year. From a front page design, they’re a tad cluttered, but contain all the hallmarks of a great content portal – carousel with featured stories, broad categories and personal finance that is easily accessible, article summaries vs. full articles, great sharing tools (integration with Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, etc.), and JUST GREAT CONTENT that focuses on the product. THUMBS UP!

Mint's Corporate Blog front page: a bit noisy, but great content

Another corporate blog that kicks butt in the CONTENT category is Ok Cupid. Their content is exceptional and is quoted by mainstream press by the New York Times, but unfortunately Technorati has screwed up their authority rankings and I’ve no way to verify if they belong to our Top 10 rankings.

5. Yahoo! Search: Another straightforward old school corporate blog design with full articles vs. summaries. Also, Yahoo’s Yodel Anecdotal or Dell’s Direct2Dell corporate blog may have taken this spot if Technorati hadn’t screwed up their rankings this year. As for Yahoo’s Search Corporate blog front page design, I’d have to give it a THUMBS DOWN.

Old school Yahoo! Search corporate blog

–

Summary: The Top 5 corporate blogs show an interesting breakdown in terms of their full articles vs. summaries with #2 and 4  (both having made a jump to a higher rank this time) and both having not only summaries but also featured story sections with images that help drive engagement around compelling content. #1 and 3 did well because of their brands and their hotness in terms of popularity (in general) and newsworthiness.

While this may work in the short term, I think for business blogs to engage more of their audience I’d rather go the Facebook or Mint blog route. I’m also glad that the next iteration of LinkedIn’s corporate blog (ranked #9 currently on this 2010 listings) will have both a featured stories section as well as summaries over full articles. Stay tuned for more.

In the meanwhile, leave a comment if you feel your favorite corporate blog could be more popular than any of the above five blogs. Would love to know why?

If you like similar content you should subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter!

Filed under: Business Blogging

August 9, 2010 • 7:58 am 8

How to keep your business contacts synced across social networks

I just read a great post on “Work Awesome” last week that asked the question: “How do you pick your friends on social networks?“. I thought I’d share some of my insight into five key business networking hubs  that professionals need to keep synced with their business rolodex. Feel free to bookmark this post and share with your colleagues who wonder how to get the most from social networking sites from a business angle.

How to pick business friends on social networking sites

How to pick business friends on social networking sites

Every professional should approach the art of friending strategically and with greater seriousness like your career and reputation depends on it. And, trust me – it does. I think “People you may know” is a great place to start on all three key social networking sites but the webmail importer is a far more strategic way to approach “friending”:

1. LinkedIn: Without doubt, this should be the CENTER of your business networking universe as it contains the most accurate information mass resume / rolodex / conversation ecosystem you could find. 75 million professionals, millions of companies and tons of opportunities for professionals from finding jobs to collaborating on business. You want to make sure your LinkedIn network is an accurate reflection of your real world professional connections.

The easiest way to do that – find your business connections from your email. LinkedIn has a feature called webmail importer that makes it trivial to find and add your business contacts in your email client to LinkedIn. Fact is, most of them are likely to be on LinkedIn already. Also, all the remaining tips in this post will work more effectively ONLY if your LinkedIn graph is maintained accurately.

LinkedIn's Webmail Importer

Once you’re done with that, try to check the “People You May Know” widget on the top right hand corner of your LinkedIn homepage on a daily basis and add 2 – 3 relevant business connections that are recommended. Click “See more” once every week, to do a more serious update and you’ll be surprised to see a faceted search module on the left that lets you zone in on the most valuable connections for you to add. Just adding folks from your current job alone is priceless!

Faceted Search in LinkedIn's PYMK

Most importantly, make it a habit, to add folks you work on projects with on LinkedIn right away. To me it’s a daily ritual at the end of the day or week to add folks I’m newly working with on projects to LinkedIn. And, the best place to find them would be LinkedIn’s advanced search.

2. Microsoft Outlook / Xobni:

Pulling your  business rolodex (in this case – from LinkedIn) into your email client of choice is equally important, because it’s a great way to enhance the value of your email client. Your LinkedIn graph of connections and conversations can be pulled into Microsoft Outlook through LinkedIn’s Outlook Connector. Download it here.

As soon as LinkedIn and Outlook are connected, Outlook will start bringing in information about your LinkedIn network.  You should then start seeing profile photos and LinkedIn activity for any connection that e-mails you.

Xobni does the same through their plugin that works on Outlook and even in mobile – Blackberry. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with the iPhone, but chances are greater that your company has provided you a Blackberry at work. And, I’m guessing you’re also stuck with Outlook.

I haven’t tried it, but TechCrunch claims that the difference between Xobni and MS Outlook connector seems to be that “it does email search a lot better than Outlook and can resolve different identities to the same person in your contacts list.” If interested, check it out here.

LinkedIn information on Xobni tab

3. Google Contacts / Rapportive:

As a Google contacts user, I find myself increasingly syncing my gmail contacts to my iPhone and find it challenging that Google contacts doesn’t sync with constantly updated professional information on LinkedIn. Enter Rapportive, a browser extension, that pulls LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook information of individuals from the gmail address. It’s like Xobni, but for Gmail.

Rapportive features brings your LinkedIn Graph to Gmail

4. Twitter:

I’ve shared this before, but sync your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Now, this allows you to do two things. One cross-post from LinkedIn to Twitter (harmless) and from Twitter to LinkedIn (careful, I’d only recommend bringing over the #in tweets).

Secondly, you can auto-create a constantly synced Twitter list of all your LinkedIn connections. Oh, yae! Read more about that here.

5. Facebook: Personally, I keep my social and business contacts separate. I love using Facebook to keep my friends and family up to date and there may be the one-off business peer who I know socially, but it’s the exception. That said, if you’re a consultant type who uses Facebook for everything I guess you could still try the same tactics I recommend above for LinkedIn. It’s your call, but beware.

Do location sites matter to professionals? I added this since Work Awesome mentioned Foursquare, but frankly sites like Foursquare don’t offer any value to professionals – today.

That said, I do see value in knowing the location of my business contacts. You can already see this on LinkedIn’s Tripit app (for e.g.). Feel free to leave a comment on how YOU sync your business contacts across multiple social networking sites?

Disclosure: I work at LinkedIn, blog here (subscribe) and tweet @mariosundar.

Filed under: Linkedin

August 6, 2010 • 6:20 pm 5

Previously on LinkedIn: An acquisition, 75M users and 3 useful tips

I couldn’t think of a better week to revive my series “Previously on LinkedIn” (featuring 3 to 5 carefully curated blog posts sharing smart ways to use LinkedIn). Not only did we cross 75 million professionals on our site this week, but we also added new tech talent to the LinkedIn family – mSpoke.


Ask me questions or @mariosundar me on Twitter

1. How to write a balanced recommendation? by Chris Brogan

This post is a month old but the question is still very relevant and at the heart of business networking and professional relationship building. What’s the value of a public recommendation if its cloyingly positive and not balanced. I think public recommendations are necessary but sometimes people go overboard with the praise.

Chris’ suggestion to lead with strong positive language but keep it balanced is often ignored:

Of another person’s recommendation, I added the following gently-couched negative statement, “_____ isn’t always clear in what she needs. She sometimes needs encouragement to draw out details that might be useful to the execution of the project.” I did my best to make this sentiment clearly an issue, but didn’t crush the person. I didn’t say, “____ is too shy and mumbly to successfully convince people to follow her lead.” The first would be a bit kind to her; the second a bit harsh.

And again, if there’s a reason you wouldn’t recommend the person, don’t.

I think this candor lends the authenticity that many reviews lack though it’s a delicate balancing act. There’s the social etiquette you have to keep in mind and your relationship with the person in question, but being candid is in the best interests of all parties involved. I’d also recommend you read my colleague, Adam Nash’s, excellent post on Recommendations and the Reputation Economy. And, take him up on his challenge “to select three of your connections who fit this description, and write them a LinkedIn recommendation, unsolicited.”

From a hiring manager’s perspective, who often look for the negative to weed out candidates (the same way one ferrets out those negative reviews on Yelp and Amazon), can do a simple word of mouth background check by finding people in your common network who may have worked with that candidate and by asking questions relevant to the job you’re hiring for. Just do a reference search on LinkedIn!

2. Using LinkedIn as a business intelligence tool by Valeria Maltoni

Speaking of smart search on people and companies, Valeria’s post outlines ways to use LinkedIn to gather business intelligence around people (for e.g. when hiring somebody) or just researching the industry. Answers and Groups in particular are two features that are often used in the pursuit of business intelligence and you’ll be surprised at the quality of content you find. Quick Tip: Some of you may not have realized that both those features can be searched from the LinkedIn advanced search page.

In summary, Valeria blogs:

You can use LinkedIn as part of your content strategy to gain visibility. A better use of the tool may be to identify industry leaders and the company they keep by reading the content they present and share.

Advice for companies — train your employees to understand how their personal presentation reflects on your business. When someone pulls up the company page, LinkedIn will include the profiles of employees with it.

3. 6 easy steps for a company to start using LinkedIn by Tracy DiMarino

I’ve read many blog posts that talk about using LinkedIn for lead generation, but not many have picked up on the idea I have been evangelizing to companies – that your employees are at the forefront of your conversations with other companies or other leads. Has your company developed a core strategy to educate and channel the most active of your employees in building those bridges with the outside world – and don’t forget, many of those relationships are already being built. Here are two very useful tips (the other 4 are helpful too) from Tracy’s post that suggests ways to encourage your employees’ participation on LinkedIn:

Select employees to lead participation: Designate a few employees to be internal LinkedIn champions. To be most effective, these individuals should be social-network savvy; knowledgeable about your products, services and brand messaging; and have a desire to engage with target audiences.

Participants should also have the time availability each week to respond to LinkedIn discussions and questions relating to their areas of expertise. Note: See Step 5 for tips on how to alleviate some of the time commitment required from individuals. [Ed. Yes, read the entire post]

Have employees optimize their profiles: Encourage your employees to optimize their profiles. Be sure that all individual profiles are completely filled out — including the Summary, Specialties and Job Position sections — with keyword-rich descriptions. Also, include links to Twitter profiles, as well as optimized links to your company website and blog, if applicable.

This shouldn’t be a problem given how many of your employees are already active on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, but channeling their LinkedIn use is both in their best interests as well as that of companies as well. Along similar lines – also find your employees who blog on topics of expertise related to the company, though it may be harder to find those folks. Finding employees participating on LinkedIn, on the other hand, shouldn’t be a problem. With over 75 million professionals on the site already, chances are many of your employees are already engaging on LinkedIn. Quick Tip: An easy way to find them would be to check out your followers on your LinkedIn company profile.

If you find other posts that share unique tips on leveraging social networking for your career or business, feel free to share or leave a comment on this post.

If you like similar content you should subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter!

Filed under: LinkedIn in the News

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