A Cataloger's Guide to Blogs and Wikis

Blogging already is old news and you haven't even started yet; the latest buzzword is “wiki.” Not really sure what either term means and what they possibly could have to do with cataloging? Let's start with blogs (short for “Web logs”).

I picked up a few current catalogs, sat down at my computer and typed in the catalog name plus “blog.” Here are some blog snippets as they appeared on Google:

• Smith & Hawken — The Green Life blog: “Clash continues between Paul Hawken and the SRI industry. The SRI folks feel Hawken started it with a cheap shot…Hawken contends the industry had it coming…”

  AdviceGoddess blog archive: Relatively lengthy discussion about what a nice guy Paul Hawken is and his book, “The Ecology of Commerce.”

• The Sharper Image — Engadget.com: “You know you've got a pretty weak attempt to cash in on iPodmania when a company tries to sell their mini speaker system as an iPod accessory because, you know, you can connect it to your iPod via an audio cable (just like every other pair of external speakers), but The Sharper Image obviously knows a marketing buzzword when it sees one.”

  Wired.com: “Anyone notice how the Sharper Image catalog has seen better days? (I'll pass on the nose-hair trimmer with built-in flashlight, thank you.)”

• Coldwater Creek — Ericsiegmund.com: “I grabbed a catalog left on the counter…and proceeded to halfheartedly thumb through it…I immediately noticed a glaring absence from this women's clothing catalog: women.

“That's right; Coldwater Creek, a semi-upscale retailer of women's clothing and accessories, uses no actual women in its catalog, nor on its Web site, for that matter. I find that vaguely troubling, if not downright spooky.”

Bigfatblog.com: “I had been looking forward to shopping (at the Coldwater Creek store) because the catalog and Web site have beautiful clothes in all sizes, including larger ones. But the store only carries sizes up to extra large…This was strange since they have fat employees, and they advertise on Web sites catering to big women.”

As you can see, blogs can be less than supportive of catalogers. And they are not going away.

According to a recent article in The New York Times, more than 8 million Americans use blogs. Twenty-seven percent of Internet users read them, a better than 50% increase in less than a year. Of those, 12% interact by adding comments.

Blogs can be internal or external. Hence, you can get employees sharing good and bad news with everyone, including outsiders. You can have satisfied customers raving about you and unhappy ones spreading every negative morsel. If not addressed, blogging can distort the message you want to communicate to your employees and customers.

Some workers start their own blogs; reports indicate that this has brought certain firms negative PR, and some employees have been let go. Avoid this misstep by starting a well-planned and monitored internal company blog.

Rule No. 1 for blogs: Create enforceable guidelines similar to those you've established for talking with the press, but include provisions for blogs, such as bans on off-color language. Explicitly tell blog users what will happen if they do not follow your regs.

Blogs often have a “comment policy” that you can use to help establish yours. There's one on the site of the release manager for Microsoft Exchange Service (http://blogs.msdn.com/kclemson/articles/202621.aspx) that can give you a head start.

Guidelines should address the form in which blogs should be written and the length limit for comments. For example, all entries should be consistently dated, placed in chronological order and have space allotted for comments.

Rule No. 2: Keep on top of what is being said. Choose an outside monitoring resource or handle the matter internally. Monitoring also can keep you informed about what other blog sites are saying about your company.

Rule No. 3: Determine exactly how the blogs are going to be used. Do you want them on search engines? Will they be used to disseminate PR? Will they contain links to various parts of your company or to other firms? What about using them as a customer service tool or as an aid in brainstorming sessions? One blog can't be all things to all people. Prepare a strategy and determine benchmarks for success for this tool just as you would any other.

Like it or not, the Internet is where more and more of us turn to research a product before purchase. Having your own blog, and keeping track of others, can help you understand what consumers are saying about your company while making information about the firm readily available. Actually inviting comments from customers is like having ongoing, inexpensive research at your fingertips, as blogs are fairly simple and quite cheap to set up.

Don't treat blogs like stepchildren. Create blogs that are exciting enough to create pass-along buzz and you will get the added benefit of tapping into the power of viral marketing.

I tried to find a directory of catalog blogs. If it exists, it was well hidden. A Google search for “shopping blogs” turned up a three-page list, but nary a catalog surfaced. The Ultimate Blog Directory was fun and informative…but alas, no catalogers there, either. Searching for L. L. Bean on Blogdigger.com provided loads of blogs with “bean” in the narrative, but no legendary cataloger.

You get the picture. Perhaps this is something we should get on — now!

The newest kid on the block, wiki, which is not an acronym and means “quick” in Hawaiian, takes blogging a big step further. A wiki requires no technical expertise but allows any user to change a Web site's content.

To learn how this works — and to start thinking about ways you can use it to your company's advantage — check out Wikipedia.com, “a free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” The software also is free (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_software).

KATIE MULDOON (kmuldoon@muldoonandbaer.com) is president of DM/catalog consulting firm Muldoon & Baer Inc., Tequesta, FL.