Content for your Blog

Context For Your Blog
By Fredrik Wacka - Contributing Writer

If you want to gain a deeper understanding of the changing field of communication your blog exists in, take a look at the presentations from WOMMA Summit 2005. The focus is obviously word-of-mouth marketing, and blogs are just one tool from that perspective. But many of the speakers did talk about blogs as part of their strategies.

GM Blog in Marketing Strategy Terms
I found it interesting to learn more about the thoughts and plans behind General Motors FastLane Blog in Michael Wiley's presentation (pdf).

"Company position but candid and transparent" is one of the operating principles, and they also use the blog to "subtly introduce or move to important positions that need more clarity".

One of the goals is to use the credibility and influence the blog generates to reach mainstream with a fresh image of GM.

Wiley's presentation is all the proof you need to convince yourself that a blog can be a integral part of a marketing strategy, written in the words your Marketing Director feel comfortable with.

PETA Staying Relevant
For People for the ethical treatment of animals the blog of cofounder and president Ingrid Newkirk is one of several ways of "staying relevant with fresh content daily"


I happened to read Isenberg's Blog (David Isenberg is somebody I LOVE to read...)
He submitted the link to another article which gives everything but a "fresh image of GM."


Rotten cars, not high costs, are driving GM to ruin
By Simon London
Published: April 23 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 23 2005 03:00

It is a sunny Tuesday afternoon in California and I'm driving down a traffic-clogged freeway at the wheel of a white Pontiac Grand Prix. General Motors has just posted a $1.1bn (£574m) first-quarter loss. Healthcare costs for current and retired employees are to blame, says Rick Wagoner, chief executive. On the car radio, analysts debate what can be done to get GM's finances back in shape.

By the end of the three minute discussion I am apoplectic. Have none of these people driven a GM Pontiac, Saturn, Buick or Chevrolet recently? GM's problems stem not from its spiralling healthcare costs but from its inability to build cars worth buying.