Ignite Social Media was the only social media agency featured this week in a Crain’s Detroit Business story on corporate blogging.  You can read the whole story by clicking here, although only subscribers get to see my smiling picture.  (I know! Recent enough to subscribe, right?)

The essence of the article is how corporate blogging is starting to take off.  Among my quotes:

“The whole idea behind social media is it’s the first time people can talk back. You give up a measure of control, but they will go out and talk about you.”

Ok, in that part I wasn’t really talking about blogging per se, but close enough.  Thanks to Bill Shea at Crain’s for including us.

Last week I read an interesting article by the Alley Insider that I’ve been dying to share – mainly because it included the following Nielsen chart that revealed an interesting comparison of sites.

As you see the monthly uniques for the big mainstream media sites listed, you may ask yourself about the company in red, Gawker Media. While you may be unfamiliar with Gawker within the context of being an independent blogging company, I’m willing to bet you have heard or read some of blogs it produces, including GizModo, ValleyWag, and a laundry list of others.

What is especially interesting about these findings is just how well Gawker is measuring up to these mainstream media sites. As the Alley Insider pointed out: “Gawker Media’s 14 titles are already drawing more than 70% of Washington Post’s traffic.” – yet another demonstration of the rising influence of blogs and the pressure blogs are placing on mainstream media.

Nick O’Neill has an interesting post on his very good “Social Times” site. (How, by the way, does he find time to post so much??)

Seems that LinkedIn is growing faster on a percentage basis than Facebook is. Here’s the data:

These Nielsen statistics show 189% growth for LinkedIn versus 125% growth for Facebook. Nick also sites compete.com’s stats that show 400% growth for LinkedIn.

Unfortunately, Nick doesn’t say (and the chart doesn’t show) how they are measuring growth (i.e., registered users, user sessions, page views, etc.).

A couple thoughts on what’s behind this:

1) LinkedIn is smaller than Facebook, so when you measure percentage growth, smaller sites have an obvious advantage.

2) LinkedIn has a clear value proposition to older business people who have a tougher time seeing the value of Facebook initially. Many people over 40 still feel a bit weird going on Facebook.

3) Building a profile on LinkedIn is no harder than inputting your resume. Setting up a Facebook profile that doesn’t embarrass you takes a little more thought.

As for me, I do both (feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or connect with me on Facebook), although I admit to joining LinkedIn first a long time ago and I’ve been seeing a lot of colleagues jumping aboard in the last few months so the growth isn’t surprising.

What’s most interesting to the social media agency employee in me is this: people don’t seem to be going online with the purpose of engaging with social media, but more and more of them are. Opportunity…......

Andy Beal committed heresy.  He dared suggest that Apple doesn’t really get social media and that they will need to figure it out sooner or later if they want to continue to thrive.  While it’s not surprising that Apple fans defended Apple, what is surprising is how many intelligent people showed by their comments that they didn’t get social media.

Like Andy, I’m an Apple fan.  I love my iMac. Hate my PC.  Like my iPod. Love the new iPod Touch.

But Andy’s right. Apple doesn’t get social media the way Dell does.  They are not taking maximum advantage of communicating with their customers and prospects.  And their market share, while growing, is under 4%, so they certainly have room for improvement that will positively impact their bottom line.

Here’s what’s interesting about the commenters on Andy’s post (and they got so heated that Andy had to shut them off):

1. People equated social media with corporate blogging.  Done properly, it’s much more (or much else, as corporate blogging is not a requirement of “getting” social media).

2. People equated social media with social networking.  Apple does have Facebook groups and other types of social networking tools. I don’t think they should create a niche Apple social network, and I don’t think Andy does either.

“Getting social media” means finding ways to talk with customers. It shows up in product development, it shows up in customer support, it shows up in a variety of ways.

Yes, Apple is hot right now in product development (and again, I love their products).  But what Andy’s post shows is how people who “get” social media are so far speaking a different language than those who don’t.  That’s a tremendous opportunity for those companies that show the way to connecting on a deeper level.  And it’s a shame that Dell makes Windows-based products (because Vista is h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e!!!), because they really are doing some great stuff in terms of two-way customer communications.

Hang in there Andy.  While you got skewered by some, your fundamental point was correct.  That so many missed it just shows how far we have to go in this business…

In the social media club meeting some of us exchanged contact information : blogs/Twitter accounts, etc. So here they are – go network!

• Johnathan Pletzke (AJI Publishing LLC) : Blog
• Michael Silverstein(Standout Networks) : Blog
• Brian Russell (Yesh) : Blog /Twitter
• Chris Ketchel (PrimeNC) : Blog
• Wayne Sutton: Blog / Twitter
• Peter Kusterer (NvestNtech) : Blog
• Teri Saylor (Open Water Communications) : Blog
• James Wong (iContact) : Blog
• Lee White (GSK) : Blog
• Kipp Bodnar : Blog / Twitter
• Bobby Carroll (Dakno) : Blog 1 / Blog 2
• Lisa McNeill (Ignite) : Twitter
• Jim Tobin (Ignite) : Twitter
• Gene Smith (Ignite) : Twitter

I’m sure you’ve thought at one point or another – “What is it that they do at Ignite?”.

This picture tells all.

By the way, this is Gene our Senior Technologist.

The Nielsen Company did a study in October 2007 of 24,486 Internet users and asked them to rate what types of advertising they trust. This is an excellent sample size. The findings aren’t terribly surprising:

People trust recommendations from friends more than any type of advertising. Does this mean companies shouldn’t advertise?? Of course not. But it does mean they should be hiring social media agencies as frequently as ad agencies. They should have a social media marketing strategy that empowers users to share recommendations.

Of course, we’re a bit biased. But hey, data don’t lie!

Ok, quick post, but this is cool. Just got an email from Papa John’s saying you can order pizza via text message. Basically, store up to 4 of your frequent orders online with your credit card #, text them, pick which of your orders you want and bang, pizza shows up. Very cool.

More and more is going to move to the mobile space. It’s already happening quickly in Japan, where PC sales are declining year over year. This has major implications for social media, social media marketing and a social media agency.

Watch this trend… (Oh, and try the Spinach Alfredo pizza from Papa John’s. That is seriously good.)

Just wanted to thank everyone for coming out to last night’s social media club event on corporate blogging . There was a great mix of expertise (rookies, apprentices, and gurus) in the room and it made for a great discussion and networking.

For those who made it, please let me know the following:

• Was this useful?
• How often do you want to do this?
• Topic suggestions?
• What would you change?
• Questions?

For those who could not make it, I’ve drafted highlights of our discussion:

What is the difference between message board and blogging?

• Message boards can be an extension beyond the blog
• Cultural differences (message boards were developed before blogs for a different purpose; blogs are chronological)
• Blogs tend to be topic centric, message boards tend to be people centric

Legal aspects of blogging:

• For some larger/public companies, blogs require extra legal steps.
• Like press releases, the client has to be educated and understand the legal rules and corporate background before distributing.
• It’s a matter of finding your niche, finding your audience, and learning what to post.

What about frequency of blogs? Is there a standard amount of time that should pass between posts?

• While there are no hard and fast rules – the general consensus was more frequent the better, simply because the more content you have, the more often it will come up in search results. Also shorter posts are generally more efficient, yet an occasional, useful long post will also get a lot of hits.
• Corporate bloggers have to commit a lot of time – have to constantly look for topics (it takes discipline, it takes energy, but they’re easy to maintain and results are pretty quick)

Should CEOs blog?

• If they can write, they should go for it, this can be a branding opportunity and a way to differentiate from competitors.

What should corporate blogs be about?

• There can and should be corporate information included, but every once and a while something funny, entertaining, or outside of the company is good as this builds trust in the reader.
• Should include other elements such as micro blogging, video blogging, podcasting.

What is the return on blogging?

The overall consensus of the group was that the return is difficult to calculate at this point, but that it is a return that is more than just sales. The following are the returns that were noted:

• Search engine optimization (through content creation).
• Preference for your brand and your site – a return that is probably better than that of a tradeshow.
• The creation of a community and brand advocates.
• Reputation Management
• Positioning the company as the “expert” or leader in a subject area.

Are traditional websites going away? Will blogs then become the primary tool to connect w/ companies?

• Overall, the line is blurring of the difference between a blog and a website, as websites are progressing to have blogging components built into them and blogging platforms can be built to have static pages.
• Blogs are great to incorporate into a website because they allow updated information, are flexible to a company’s needs, and can be very user-friendly.
• Industries should be sensitive to their audience’s capabilities (are they technological saavy?….blogs, Twitter, social media, etc. are not the only answer

Rupert Murdoch, chair of News Corp., is buying Dow Jones & Co, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal for $5 billion. Yesterday he announced that he’s ending the subscription model for the WSJ.com website (which many deem a success). He’ll give up $50 million in fees, which he expects to more than make up for in advertising.

The question for the social media world that comes to mind is:

Hello, Classmates.com??? Are you listening??

Remember when Classmates.com was relevant? They could’ve/should’ve been the social networking site of the free world. And they still have a chance. They had 40 million members by the end of 2006. (My high school graduating class has 224 people listed on Classmates.com, but only 8 are on Facebook.) But every time you turn around on Classmates.com (or heaven forbid try to learn something about someone, their hand goes out asking for $15 for “Gold” membership).

I remember that business model for the web. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but that was a long time ago. Classmates.com needs to take the small dollar needle out of their vein (and I’m sure it’s not easy) and find a way to leverage their huge base of information in a new way. I believe they’re trying, but little incremental changes are unlikely to get them there.

There’s at least anecdotal evidence that Classmates.com’s window of opportunity is closing.

In June 2006, comscore reported that Classmates.com had slighter HIGHER numbers of unique visitors than Facebook. Classmates.com was #2 to MySpace.

By February 2007, Hitwise was reporting that had fallen to 8th, behind Yahoo360. Ouch.

Classmates.com, if you’re listening… It’s time for the big change. Find the VC, build the sales force and make the change. It might be a “risk the company” type move, but doing nothing is far riskier.