engaging online: experiences from a corporate blogging portal by simon henderson, director of...
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Engaging online – lessons and experiences from the UK's first corporate blogging portal
Simon Henderson
Director of Corporate Responsibility & Internal Communications at Centrica
Engaging online
Experiences from a corporate blogging portal
Simon Henderson Centrica
19 November 2009
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Centrica.com
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•Facilitate debate
•A dynamic platform
for big energy
issues
•Engaging and
impactful
Centrica Views
5
Challenges before launch
• Not a consumer brand – who are our corporate
audiences and what can we blog to them about?
• Demonstrating the value - does the effort involved
have any payback?
• Could this engagement backfire
• How do we identify bloggers internally and encourage
them to be active
• Maintaining regular content
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•Graduates led the
way…
•Tech savvy
•Encouraged
comments
•Easy to measure
impact
Graduate blogs
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•Covering energy
industry and
company topics
•Experts from
around the
business
•Starting to get cut
through with
opinion formers
Corporate blogs
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•Live Q&A
•Direct dialogue with
stakeholders
•Openness and
transparency
Graduate web chats
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The ways people can
follow us
Social Media
10
•Channel for news and
updates
•Not just press
releases
•Promotion of site
content, events,
blogs, careers etc
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•Corporate and brand
videos
•A driver to
centrica.com
YouTube
12
•A hub page for
our SM presence
•Feeds from our
other channels
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Winning people over internally
• Develop a strategy
• Find ways to measure the impact
• Start relatively small and safely
• Target one audience at a time
• Work closely with legal and media colleagues
• Develop a clear but speedy sign off process
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•Local community
concerns
•Discussed on Twitter
Langage power station
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•We were able to
respond in same
forum
•Monitoring system
worked
•Able to address
concerns quickly
Langage power station
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Addressing myths
through their web site
Starbucks
17
The lessons
• Don’t expect miracles
relatively low hit rate / comments
need to manage expectations
low initial engagement
• BUT stakeholders appreciate it
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Summary – so far, it’s been a success
• Centrica Views – a FTSE100 integrated blogging platform
• Rising interest @ 3,500 views per month
• CR web chat – 26 questions in 1.5 hours
• Issues handled
• Beginning to be integrated into our way of working