Kryptonite Joins The Blogosphere
Courtesy of Shel Israel, I see that Kryptonite Locks has started their own blog to cover the bicycle and motorcycle security world. Good for them, and they have started it out correctly, which is to say they are approaching the matter openly but with an emphasis on their readers, not the company.
How can you tell? Check out their blogroll, which focuses on cycling enthusiasts and their blogs. They even link to a dealer blog, which is quite cool, as it gives a retail store extra press.
Their first four posts are all still mission statements, but as the blog grows, I think we'll see the correct strategy for corporate blogging. Find communities of active enthusiasts online and put the spotlight on them. If you have a good product, and these communities use your product, you will reap the benefits of association with people who already use and love your products. And you get that all important early warning system called the blogosphere.
More important, you build up your reputation among the people most likely to criticize or evangelize your products. The blog shows that you are at least willing to listen (but it also raises expectations of being listened to. Having a blog is not enough).
The blog is standalone, hosted off blogspot, which is the simplest decision, the question of whether the blog staying away from the main site is something we'll find out about soon. The new Kryptonite site is launching next week, and we'll see if a blog link is on the front page. If it is, they would be well advised to map the Blogger template to http://kryptonitelock.com/blog instead of hosting it separately. Hosting it separately creates a psychological barrier between the blog and the company (but not really a legal one). If you're going to embrace the blog, embrace it. Give it the Google Juice of a link to the main page and make it part of your site map (in a short period of time, the blog will rank higher than the site, and more traffic will come from the blog to the site than the other way around.
So good luck, Donna. Well done Ingersoll Rand (the parent company), and if any other companies are out there looking for the right way to launch a blog, well, why not call a blog consultant?
How can you tell? Check out their blogroll, which focuses on cycling enthusiasts and their blogs. They even link to a dealer blog, which is quite cool, as it gives a retail store extra press.
Their first four posts are all still mission statements, but as the blog grows, I think we'll see the correct strategy for corporate blogging. Find communities of active enthusiasts online and put the spotlight on them. If you have a good product, and these communities use your product, you will reap the benefits of association with people who already use and love your products. And you get that all important early warning system called the blogosphere.
More important, you build up your reputation among the people most likely to criticize or evangelize your products. The blog shows that you are at least willing to listen (but it also raises expectations of being listened to. Having a blog is not enough).
The blog is standalone, hosted off blogspot, which is the simplest decision, the question of whether the blog staying away from the main site is something we'll find out about soon. The new Kryptonite site is launching next week, and we'll see if a blog link is on the front page. If it is, they would be well advised to map the Blogger template to http://kryptonitelock.com/blog instead of hosting it separately. Hosting it separately creates a psychological barrier between the blog and the company (but not really a legal one). If you're going to embrace the blog, embrace it. Give it the Google Juice of a link to the main page and make it part of your site map (in a short period of time, the blog will rank higher than the site, and more traffic will come from the blog to the site than the other way around.
So good luck, Donna. Well done Ingersoll Rand (the parent company), and if any other companies are out there looking for the right way to launch a blog, well, why not call a blog consultant?
posted by James Durbin @ 7:03 AM PERMALINK
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