My annual review of year-end readership statistics from the "Strategic Guy" blog was encouraging...and somewhat discouraging.
Let's start with the good. Although my pace of publishing declined from 87 posts in 2010 to 61 last year due to new writing commitments I took on with the Washington Business Journal, Washington Executive and Govwin, the quantity of unique visits to the blog site exceeded 10,000 with nearly 17,000 page views.
Web search is the primary driver of traffic, yet I also realized a consistent flow of readers from Strategic Communications Group's (Strategic) corporate Web site and presence in online communities like Google+, Facebook and LinkedIn.
An analysis of the blog site's most popular posts in terms of readership is where I grow concerned. Here are the top three, each of which exceeded 500 unique visits.
Three Phases of Social Media Maturation, published on April 12, 2009
Great SaaS Debate, published on January 19, 2008
Company Wide Social Media Engagement: A Bridge Too Far, published on March 1, 2011
Based on Strategic's competency in social media and focus on serving clients in the technology markets, these posts are all relevant topics that reinforce our expertise. What's the problem?
Check out the dates of publication. The most popular post is nearly three years in the can, while the second most popular is now four years dated.
Did the issues, trends, technologies and best practices I addressed in 2011 fail to resonate with readers? And how should I evolve my editorial and content plan based on this review of analytics?
A couple of questions I'll be thinking about during the next few weeks.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Top Posts in 2011 are Remarkably Old School
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Holes in the Cloud
At last year’s FOSE conference Google’s senior sales and marketing representative Dave Girouard stood in front of nearly 1,000 federal government IT and network management executives with a message about security and the cloud.
Girouard argued that government agencies that move their applications, information and content to Google’s data centers will actually be more secure because managing the cloud is the foundation of the company’s core competencies. If Google ever violated this trust because of a breach or lack of access, their business would suffer.
Like most of the attendees of that FOSE keynote, I didn’t believe it then and, in the wake of continued outages of Google’s Gmail, I’m certainly not buying it now.
I don’t appear to be the only one. A recent survey from Kelton Research and IT consultancy Avanade concluded that business and technology managers understand the value of cloud computing, yet fears about security and data control continue to depress adoption.
Software-as-a-Service vendors (SaaS) and providers of hosted solutions will continue to gain traction in areas like CRM, sales force automation and email/digital subscription management. The value proposition of the SaaS delivery model is too compelling (i.e. cost savings, ease of implementation, etc.).
Yet, good luck convincing customers (especially government agencies) to give up control of their mission critical data. There are just too many potential holes in the cloud.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Market Moving Thought Leadership
The backbone of public relations, social media, marketing communications and advertising programs is content that engages, educates and entertains. Our methodology at Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) is to produce and/or package content once and then merchandise it across multiple channels. This approach positively impacts awareness, credibility and lead generation (via search engine optimization and sales cycle marketing).
One of the zingers I typically drop to a prospect during a new business presentation is that “thought leaders have thoughts.” Sounds elementary, yet I point out that most executives shy away from taking a stand on issues or topics that could be controversial. And that limits the effectiveness of their company’s external communications program.
Now, it’s important that any thought leadership platform align with a company’s business objectives. There is simply no ROI in controversy for the sake of being argumentative. Additionally, ideas need to be presented in a clear manner, supported by third-party commentary and (when possible) statistical validation.
Competitors like Oracle, SAP and Microsoft initially protested Benioff’s views and then were ultimately forced to play catch-up. More important, Salesforce.com ignited a movement that spurred innovation across multiple segments of the market. Strategic clients Avectra and GovDelivery are two examples of SaaS providers that are accelerating growth in their respective market niches.
Benioff’s back with a new thought leadership campaign that defines what comes after SaaS. His premise: view companies like Salesforce.com as offering a “platform as a service” that allows entrepreneurs to write, test and deploy software without cost-prohibitive infrastructure investments.
Citing vendors like Google, Amazon, Facebook and MySpace that are all employing a comparable “platform” strategy, Benioff brands this movement as Web 3.0.
While I find the Web 3.0 tag to be clichéd (a myriad of companies have already made a run at using this term), I applaud Benioff and Salesforce.com for their continued innovation in marketing and positioning.
Take a few moments to read his guest column in TechCrunch IT. It’s a well constructed argument for Salesforce.com’s approach and proves out that thought leaders truly do have thoughts with the potential to move markets.
Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center
TechCrunch IT
http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/08/01/welcome-to-web-30-now-your-other-computer-is-a-data-center/
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Cracks in the Cloud
My head has been in the clouds today.
I’m not referring to a day off from work or even a brief mental break in the afternoon. In fact, I had to be sharp as I had three important meetings – with a client, with a long-standing relationship over lunch and then with a prospect with a world of potential.
It was during lunch that I had a fascinating discussion with a senior executive at an enterprise software developer about markets and functionality most appropriate for a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering. There has been a lot of debate within this person’s company about the viability of SaaS in their core market. Ultimately, they have decided to stick to a traditional server-side license model because of the critical nature of the data their software touches.
Fair enough…yet I argued that innovation in the software space now only truly occurs within SaaS companies because of the economic realities of today’s market. Two of Strategic Communications Group’s (Strategic) clients – GovDelivery and Avectra – are perfect examples of SaaS innovation.
I remain passionate about SaaS and hosted solutions as it allows a company to focus on its business (rather than the technology infrastructure), while better managing resources. However, I recognize the big fall down of SaaS is the availability of the cloud. No access to the Internet or the vendor’s system…no data or functionality.
I imagine Google’s application service customers were frustrated and helpless this morning.
Google's App Engine breaks down
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/06/18/Googles_App_Engine_breaks_down_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-06-18
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
What's the deal with stealth?
I’ve seen a number of articles of late in which the journalist refers to a company having been in “stealth” mode. Here’s an example:
Apptio, a startup partly funded by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, came out of stealth mode Monday to push its SaaS (software-as-a-service) offering meant to help IT shops track exactly how much their assets cost the business. More of this article at:
http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/3280998/121940157/118824/0/
Does creating the perception of a company being stealth heighten interest in a start-up to support a corporate launch campaign?
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
SaaS Consequences
Microsoft continues to move its focus from the desktop to the cloud with an announcement yesterday of Live Mesh, their new Web-based platform.
Microsoft Reveals a Web-Based Software System
By JOHN MARKOFF
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/technology/23soft.html?th&emc=th
I am a strong proponent of software-as-a-service (SaaS) as it gives a company the ability to concentrate on its core competencies while better managing its technology spend. In fact, one of Strategic Communications Group’s (Strategic) exciting client engagements is with GovDelivery (http://www.govdelivery.com/blog/), a SaaS provider of Email and digital subscription management solutions in the public sector.
However, I’m concerned that an unintended consequence of SaaS is the devaluing of the very solution being delivered. If everyone uses the same hosted CRM then that function within the enterprise becomes commoditized. The same could be said for HR, supply chain and finance.
Unique technology has historically provided companies with a competitive advantage. Is that era now at an end? I’m not proposing a return to the days of complex custom builds. Rather, a blended approach of SaaS and proprietary systems may be the way to go.
New Content Addition (4.24.08): interesting survey about SaaS adoption finds it remains a top priority, yet adoption has slowed.
SaaS, Web Services Top Software Priorities For Businesses
A new research report also shows signs of SaaS's maturity, with fewer businesses reporting they adopted SaaS for the first time last year.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/saas/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=5TK03ZVR5IPXAQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=207401640&_requestid=109335
