Recruitment blogs - a no-brainer

One of the most powerful things about blogs is that they put a "human face" on companies. But with that more personal voice comes a lot of perceived risk -- I've found that many companies just are not comfortable giving employees or even executives the power to publish. Some companies, especially those in highly regulated industries like financial services or pharmaceuticals, have very real needs to control what information is provided by the company. 

But there's one area that I think is a no-brainer and a greater starting point for companies interested in blogging -- and that's in recruitment.  Think about it -- when else would it as important to show the “human face” of a company as when you're trying to convince someone to come and work for you?

Microsoft has been a pioneer this area -- their Jobsblog discusses technical jobs at Microsoft. There's also a blogroll of other recruiter blogs at the bottom of the right rail. And one of my favorite examples of a job-related post is actually on Microsoft’s Channel 9 video blog, where the ‘Softies conduct a mock interview showing what it’s like to interview for a technical position. And be sure to check on the comments to that video, where developers chime in how what they would have solved the problem!

One key question that I get is how a recruitment blog would differ from the static pages available on most “About Us” sections of corporate Web sites. Think about it as being able to quickly and easily update those Web pages with more personal stories, and most importantly, to market those hard-to-fill positions. Some ways for recruiters to use blogs include interviewing the hiring manager for a hard-to-fill position or providing tours of the campus, cafeteria, or of employees themselves.

I’m always looking for examples, so if you know of any companies that are using blogs as a recruitment tool, please add it as a comment below or email me.

Google Checkout Supports Its Core Search Business

Google unveiled its long-awaited wallet service, codenamed “GBuy” and officially called “Google Checkout”. While frequently described as an “eBay killer”, I believe that it’s actually positioned to solve a perplexing and core problem at Google – how to drive more search ad revenues, especially in the retail sector where search spending is plateauing for top keywords.

Here are the basics of Google Checkout:

-          Increase conversions with a better checkout process. The goal is to make it easier for buyers to checkout with retailers. Retailers today often see users abandon their shopping carts, so anything they can do to help potential buyers finish the transaction will increase their conversion rates. Google Checkout stores billing, shipping, and credit card information to enable speedier checkouts. Better conversion rates mean that retailers will be able to spend more money on advertising and marketing – for example, search ads – which is great for Google.

-          Build trust for merchants. AdWords advertisers using Google Checkout will have a “badge” (which looks like a shopping cart) appear in their search ads. Over time, Google hopes that consumers will see this as a signal that the transaction will be safe and secure. Why does it matter? Think about the last time you bought something from a no-name retailer – did you hesitate when it came time to enter your credit card? For many consumers, concern about security and privacy are major reasons why they didn’t buy with a specific retailer. Smaller, less established retailers in particular will benefit from using Google Checkout.

-          Provides a discount for AdWord advertisers. And AdWords advertisers will get some of their transactions processed for free. The standard flat rate for Google Checkout will be 2% of transaction value plus 20 cents per transaction. Compare that to PayPal’s lowest rate of 1.9% plus 30 cents per transaction for monthly payments over $100K and PayPal’s standard rate of 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction for up to $3k in monthly payments received. So not only will Google’s rate be lower for most retailers, but participating merchants also get 10 times the value of their AdWords spending for free transaction processing. So if you spent $100 last month on AdWords, you’d get $1000 worth of transaction processing (which translates into $20) for free. Do the math, and that’s a 20% effective discount on your AdWords buy. And yes, Google hopes that retailers will plow that savings back into more search spending.

So hopefully you’re beginning to see the virtuous circle that Google is building with Checkout and how it supports the core search business. It’s brilliant – by tying the wallet service to search, Google creates a huge incentive for its retail advertisers to participate. This is what differentiates Google Checkout from other wallet services like Yahoo’s now defunct PayDirect, AOL’s Quick Checkout, or Chase’s I4 Commerce's Bill Me Later.

While smaller merchants are the natural targets for Google Checkout, don’t count the larger retailers out. While some may be reluctant to “turn over” the customer relationship to Google, in the end, I think they will try and stick with anything that will result in better conversions.

What It Means For eBay

Poor eBay – its stock took a beating today on the anticipated news of Checkout's launch. The money on the street is that eBay/PayPal will be the losers in this, but I’m not so sure. PayPal is a payment method which fills a big needs in P2P transactions, especially for auctions. Will some eBay sellers defect and start using Google Checkout instead? Not if they want to remain fully integrated with eBay AND also offer non-credit card options (which Google Checkout currently does not offer). The battle will be with the merchants – PayPal will have to step up its efforts to get retailers to accept PayPal as a payment system along side traditional payments like credit cards – and hope that they can do this before Google launches its own payment system (more on that later). If eBay can convince enough merchants to accept PayPal, those merchants will eventually push Google Checkout to accept PayPal as well.

And I fully expect that the current eBay/Yahoo! partnership will launch a competing product to Google Checkout that mirrors the search advertising tie-in. So this battle is far from over – stay tuned.

One of the side “benefits” of Google Checkout is that consumers will be able to see their full transaction history. This isn’t a problem as long as you’re comfortable having all of that information reside with one player, which I anticipate will be the case. But now we have Google tracking our search history with personalized search, email with Gmail, and online spending with Checkout. At what point do consumers get that squishy feeling in their gut that Google knows too much? Our research shows that while consumers have a great concern about privacy, they aren’t willing to do very much and in many cases, willingly provide personal data as a fair exchange for a valued product or service.

All of this would be honky-dory for Google given its strong brand and trust it's built with consumers. But what happens when the inevitable phishing attacks begin, or payment problems ensue? In the pre-briefing of this announcement, Google did not discuss customer service issues, but clearly, it’s one thing to serve several hundred thousand advertisers paying for their search ads, and quite another to serve potentially millions of consumers.

I suspect that “all things Google” will soon start to wear at the edges, in much the same way that “all things Microsoft” came to be seen as a monopoly of the desktop. But instead of dominating operating systems and software, Google is instead dominating our information. So at what point does Google step over the line and extend its products and services too far?

I’m eager to get reactions to Google Checkout, if you would use it as a consumer and especially, if you take payments, if you’d use it as an alternative checkout solution.

Additional materials:

- Powerpoint presentation with screenshots of Google Checkout Download google_checkout_screenshots.ppt .

- Buyer demo and merchant demo

Update: Google Blog's official post on Checkout is available.

Forrester’s Blogging Platforms Wave Evaluation now available

Nine platform evaluations, 54 criteria, and 30 user interviews later, our blogging platform “Wave” evaluation is now available. The process started with a post on this blog asking for feedback on criteria to use and I wanted to share back the results. I’ve included a summary below, but the full report – which includes detailed product evaluations as well as a customizable ranking tool – is available only to clients or for individual purchase. (You can find the full report here.) The nine platforms evaluated were Drupal, iUpload, Roller, Movable Type, Telligent, Traction, TypePad, and WordPress. There are many other platforms available, but these were chosen because of their market presence, unique approach, and tenure in the industry.

The general take of the report is that blogging is quickly moving beyond simply managing posts into a lightweight content management systems. Companies are also increasingly looking to blogs to provide the foundation for a community strategy, both for internal collaboration and external marketing purposes.

Here’s the executive summary as well as the Wave graphic that shows how we ranked the platforms.

Forrester evaluated leading blogging platforms across 54 criteria and found that iUpload leads the market with its robust blogging capabilities and its strong strategic vision of a blog as a lightweight content management system (CMS), a collaboration and knowledge management tool, and even as a foundation to form communities of customers. When choosing between a full-featured suite like iUpload's Customer Conversation System or strong blogging-focused solutions like Movable Type and WordPress, companies should have a well-developed vision of how blogging will be used within the enterprise and then select a vendor that shares that vision.

Three clear leaders emerged – iUpload, and Movable Type, WordPress. Note that these are three very different platforms, each with their own pros and cons. And in some scenarios, it may make more sense for a company to choose one of the other strong contenders like Drupal, Telligent, Traction, or TypePad.

In the end, I believe that a company needs to have a clear idea and vision of how blogging will be used within the company – to seek out a platform whose product strategy matches that vision. This is what I wrote in the report:

When choosing a blogging platform, companies should first determine both their short-term and long-term needs. For example, a company just dipping its toes into the blogging waters may want to start with TypePad with the goal of transitioning to a more robust, software-based platform in the future. Another company may want to start with a robust, hosted platform like iUpload from the beginning and avoid the hassles of transitions in the future. And a third firm may want the integrated community tools of a Telligent or Drupal solution. The unifying idea behind all of these decisions is a clear vision of the role that blogging will play within the company.

My next area of research will be a series of best practices on how companies can get started with both internal and external blogs – so if you have any tidbits or case studies you’d like to share, please add them as comments or email me.

Calculating the ROI of blogs – it’s not about the math

One of the most frequently asked questions I get about blogs is how to justify them on a ROI basis. In many ways, blogs are like PR – you know there is a benefit but it can be tricky to quantify it. Unfortunately, all too many businesses won’t move forward until they “know the ROI of blogs”.

I tried to address this question recently in a speech at the New Communications Forum where I said my blog could be associated with $1 million of revenue at Forrester. I shouldn’t have said that – I shouldn’t have tried to attach a number to my blog’s ROI because in the end, it’s a highly subjective, qualitative measure that’s hard to measure. This is because a blog’s ROI is built around building a closer relationship with your blog’s readers, be it your most ardent customers or your employees. It’s that investment in the relationship that turns intangible, unquantifiable blogs into hard metrics.

In my case, I believe that I can associate my blog with increased business and marketing value to Forrester because I write about certain topics only on my blog. If I wasn’t blogging about these topics, then I wouldn’t have had the content, exposure, and influence to interest those companies in becoming Forrester clients.

But I also consider my blog integral to all of my activities as an analyst. I discuss blog posts frequently with clients and the press and use it to solicit feedback and conduct research. How do you quantify the value of a discussion point? How do you quantify the quality of research? And how do you quantify the influence and the goodwill accrued to the Forrester brand? Companies could spend endless cycles debating and calculating the correct way to calculate the value of a blog and end up losing sight of the core value of creating a dialog with their customers.

Quantifying that benefit doesn’t need to be a long, drawn out exercise but I do believe that clearly stating the goals of the blog in economic terms is a good starting point for a corporate blogging strategy. Use those goals then as the simple metrics to determine the success of your company’s blogging activities.

So for you fellow corporate bloggers out there, how do you justify your blogging activities, if at all? Or was it just taken on faith that blogging is a “good thing”? Add your comments below or send me an email with your thoughts.