Blogs Archives - Page 2 of 3

My Fave Five Banking Industry Blogs (B2B)

By Jim Bruene Posted on June 25, 2007
Categories: Blogs

I've been meaning to write this post for a while. Since I'm about to go on vacation and the posting here will be light, I encourage you to follow these blogs if you are not already. In the order that I first began subscribing to them:

Best Financial Service Industry Blogs

Best financial services news blog: Payments News from Scott Loftesness at Glenbrook Partners is far and away the best source for tracking financial industry news, especially on the payments side. Scott has an uncanny ability to find every pertinent article published anywhere around the globe. And I swear he must never sleep. For sheer scope, it absolutely blows away American Banker, the pre-blogosphere "publication of record" for the banking industry.
Best strategic thinking in financial services, especially online banking: The Bankwatch from ex-Bank of Montreal exec Colin Henderson. Colin covers an enormous amount of ground in his writings, from organizational development to direct marketing. And his involvement with peer-to-peer startup Community Lend provides an important real-world perspective.
Best behind-the-scenes look at social media, especially as it relates to financial services and the credit union space: OpenSource CU is another wide-ranging and pointed commentary from the brilliant crew at Trabian (Brent, Trey and Matt). Full disclosure: I won a $5 Starbucks card from them in a comment contest earlier this year.
Best way to track bank and credit union offers: Bank Deals, written by an anonymous engineer who is a prolific poster in his spare time. It's like BankRate.com without the advertising and forced pageviews. Unlike the others listed here, Bank Deals is a pure B2C blog, so you only get the facts, no strategic insights.
Best antidote to all the b.s. circulating online: Marketing ROI by ex-Forrester analyst Ron Shevlin. Today's post is great example, as he dismantles a recently published article that attempted to convince readers that online banking leads to more online shopping.

Off-Topic

TechCrunch: The inspiration for hundreds, if not thousands of blogs, including ours. It's been diluted a bit with more posts and more authors now, but when Silicon Valley insider and founder Michael Arrington digs into a subject, it's still a fascinating read. And with 400,000 readers, the comment stream can be even more interesting than the post.
Freakonomics: From the authors of the best selling book of the same name. While they rarely touch on financial subjects, the blog is always thought- provoking and entertaining.

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New CU Blogs: Midwest Financial, Old Hickory, and Secure One Credit Unions

By Jim Bruene Posted on May 21, 2007
Categories: Blogs, Credit Unions

In our blogging report published last fall (here), we predicted there would be 300 U.S. financial institution blogs by the end of this year. Five months into the year, we are way behind on that projection, with about two dozen financial institutions blogging. That includes just two banks (Wells Fargo and Bank of Internet) and 20+ credit unions (see previous coverage here).

We found three new credit union blogs this weekend, another 1% of the way towards that prediction, which looks high. But I still think there will be close to 200 by year-end. And I promise not to profile ALL of them here.

My Credit Union Blog

MidWest Financial Credit Union and its affiliate, University of Michigan Health System Financial, launched a joint blog on May 14. Although, these two financial institutions are part of the same company, joint blogging efforts across several credit unions in the same geographic area could make a lot of sense.

My Credit Union Blog is attractively laid out and has five postings in its first week, several that are fairly long and fall into the "consumer education" category. It's fine to sprinkle those in over time, but don't overwhelm your readers with long lists of tips and tools. They can already read that stuff at just about any financial website.

Your blog should primarily have short, interesting articles of local interest. Limit the educational pieces to one or two per month at most. Again, Piedmont CU is the best FI blog I've seen in terms of content (see previous post here).

Old Hickory Credit Union

Old Hickory Credit Union's blog began last week with the obligatory welcome message and the first entry on going green with electronic statements, always a good blog subject. With just one entry, it's too early to comment on the content. But the layout is clean, it wisely uses it's own URL <blogohcu.org>, unique template, and covers the basics in the About section introducing the two bloggers behind the effort. Hopefully, over time the blog will be spruced up with more graphics and pictures.

Secure One Credit Union

Unlike the other two new blogs, Secure One Credit Union, should consider pulling its blog down until it has more resources to commit to the project. The blogger platform makes it look cheap (which it is), but the fatal flaw is lack of content. There are only two entries since its March 20 launch, and the last, which is more than a month old, simply lists CD rates, something that can easily be found on a regular website. Here's the link: <securefirstcu.blogspot.com>.

You don't have to blog that often, but once or twice per week is a good rule of thumb, and at least some of the posts should be original content, not cut-and-paste jobs from your website.

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First Look: Verity CU’s New Blog

By Jim Bruene Posted on May 18, 2007
Categories: Blogs, Trabian, Verity CU

Seattle’s Verity CU, the first financial institution in the world with an external company blog, is replacing its aging Blogger version, in use since the December 2004 launch.

Verity posted a clever “farewell” in its old blog on May 11 (see screenshot below) and promised a link to the new version “soon.” A week later, the new blog is live, and you’ll want to take a look at it <blog.veritycu.com> (screenshot below).

The new site is pleasing to look at, easy to follow, and state-of-the-art in just about every way, exactly what you’d expect from Trabian, the red-hot social media design firm. I especially like the middle column which showcases recent blog postings by department: marketing, member services, executive, HR, IT, accounting, and business services. It helps expose more great posts, while demonstrating to members that the blog is a true company-wide effort. Each department’s posts can also be accessed through the Categories area in the lower-right.

I give it the first A+ of the year. Excellent work!

New

Old

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Here’s a Financial Institution Blogger that Does it Right

By Jim Bruene Posted on May 7, 2007
Categories: Blogs, Credit Unions

One of the biggest questions surrounding financial institution blogging, is whether anyone would actually want to read one. We are firmly in the camp that EVERY bank, credit union, and financial services company should have a blog (see our Online Banking Report on blogging here). But with so few actually doing it, it's hard to find examples that provide a good mix of community news, financial advice, along with that right "tone" that makes it readable and believable.

Here's one to watch. After just two months bloggin, Dan Veasey, Director of Marketing and Biz Dev at Piedmont Credit Union in Danville, VA, looks like he has what it takes. When I first looked at his blog (here), there were only a few entries, and its credibility was hampered by the limitations of the Blogger template. Well, Dan took the advice of several industry observers and moved it to a WordPress template several weeks ago.

With the conversion behind him, Dan has been concentrating on the content, which is really what it's all about. For example, in the past week Dan had a great content mix with local news (Starbucks opening), humor (sponsoring a digit of the number pi), CU business (annual meeting invitation), and serious financial subjects (budgeting for a family). He uses a friendly tone that establishes his credit union as the kind of place you want to like. And he drops in a picture or two to break up the text.

Now, all this takes time, so he may need to bring in another author to keep up the pace; but so far, it's great work and a good example to follow.

Here are the previous five posts:

Math teachers, don’t you wish you’d thought of this?: Light-hearted Friday post on a website where you can buy a digit of the number pi. It has nothing to do with the credit union, but it's a nice break.
Annual Meeting and New Benefits for PCU Members: Dan drums up interest in the CU's annual meeting, emphasizing the fun, food, and festivities.
How much family can you afford? Serious piece about the cost of raising a family and the need to budget. Supported with background and a picture about his father's medical mission to Honduras.
New Future Neighbors at Coleman Marketplace: Short post about a new business coming to town, supported with a picture of a local billboard.
Starbucks Opens Tonight! (see below) Great post about the first Starbucks in Danville. The post a wonderful job welcoming the new business, while still honoring the two independent coffeehouses in town. Dan should be a politician.

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New Blog: Comala Connection from Comala Credit Union

By Jim Bruene Posted on April 25, 2007
Categories: Blogs, Credit Unions

Comala Credit Union: <comalacreditunion.blogspot.com>

Overview:

In our view, any blog is better than no blog; however, Comala Credit Union's new blog puts that hypothesis to a test. It's only been online for two weeks, so we'll cut them some slack, but they need to spruce it up a bit if they want members to trust it as a reliable resource.

Thanks to Ron Shevlin for posting the first link to the blog (here).
Update: Apparently, Morriss at Everthing CU had it first. Both posts were on the same day, but I doubt Ron posted his before the 12:19 AM entry at EverythingCU (here).

Metrics:

First post: 12 April 2007

Number of posts in April (April 1 to 25): 3

Comments in April: 3

Comments related to blog content or CU: 1

Traffic: not available

Score: 7 out of 18 (Grade = C-)

CU branding: No (just a small picture of what must be headquarters)
About this blog area: No
Relevant content: Not enough info (just 3 posts)
Appropriate post frequency: Not enough info
Acceptable blog "tone": Yes
Prominent link to main CU website: No (buried in link list on lower right)
Email address for author or CU: No
Author name: No
Author bio: No
Posts dated: Yes
Categories: Yes
Blog search: Yes
Professional look and feel: No (standard free Blogger template)
Comments: Yes
CU response to comments: Yes
RSS signup: No (small Atom link at very bottom does allow feed signup; but it is difficult to find)
Email signup: No
Links to other appropriate resources: No
Prominent mention on main CU homepage: Yes (big time…and it blinks!)
Supplements text with occasional pictures/graphics: No

For more info on financial blogging:

Our previous coverage of financial institution blogs here
Our report on blogging and feeds (Online Banking Report, #138)
Opensource CU from Trabian
Ron Shevlin's open letter to CU bloggers (here)

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Blog Sighting: Member Connect from Piedmont Credit Union

By Jim Bruene Posted on April 24, 2007
Categories: Blogs

Piedmont Credit Union: <piedmontcu.blogspot.com>

Comments:

It's a good start for Piedmont. The subject matter and writing style are good and it follows most "best practice" guidelines for financial institution blogging, scoring 13 out of 20 on our blog scorecard below. The blog is mentioned on the CU's homepage <piedmontcu.org> which helps introduce members to the new resource. Upgrading from the "blogger template" would make it more professional looking, and an email option would benefit the members and employees who want to follow the blog. Thanks to Trabian for posting the first link to the blog.

Metrics:

First post: March 2007

Number of posts in April (April 1 to 24): 10

Comments in April: 1

Comments related to blog content or CU: 0

Traffic: not available

Score: 13 out of 20 (Grade = B)

CU branding: Yes
About this blog area: No
Relevant content: Yes
Appropriate post frequency: Yes (2 to 3 per week)
Acceptable blog "tone": Yes
Prominent link to main CU website: No (buried in link list on lower right)
Email address for author or CU: Yes
Author name: Yes
Author bio: No
Posts dated: Yes
Categories: Yes
Blog search: Yes
Professional look and feel: No (standard free blogger template)
Comments: Yes
CU response to comments: Yes
RSS signup: No (small Atom link at very bottom does allow feed signup; but it is difficult to find)
Email signup: No
Links to other appropriate resources: Yes
Prominent mention on main CU homepage: Yes
Supplements text with occasional pictures/graphics: No (only one graphic used so far)

For more info on financial blogging:

Our previous coverage of financial institution blogs here
Our report on blogging and feeds (Online Banking Report, #138)
Opensource CU from Trabian
Ron Shevlin's advice today for CU bloggers (here)

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Online Banking and Marketing Statistics from Net.Finance

By Jim Bruene Posted on April 20, 2007
Categories: Blogs, Metrics & Market Research, Prosper, Vancity CU, Verity CU

Since I'm a numbers junkie, whenever I'm at a conference, I try to note as many meaningful statistics as possible. By meaningful, I mean a number that provides an outsider with some insight into the business. Merely saying, "we beat our expectations by 63%" does NOT qualify, unless the speaker also shared their expectations.

The flow of numbers was about a bit below average during the three days I attended Net.Finance, but the two professional researchers on the agenda, Jim Van Dyke of Javelin Strategy and Asaf Buchner of Jupiter Research, delivered slides chock full of statistics. I will check with them to see if they are willing to share with our readers.

Here's some of the nuggets buried in the presentations from the other experts on stage:

Most Eye-Opening Stat:

During the past 14 months, more than 280,000 messages have been posted on the Prosper.com discussion forum, according to CEO Chris Larsen (see here for Colin Henderson's complete notes on this session).
My take: That's an amazing level of consumer engagement with the new lending platform. To put that in perspective, Wells Fargo's Student Loandown blog has received 98 total comments during its eight months online.

Best Stat to Drop in a Business Case:

Shari Storm, CMO, Verity Credit Union, said that 1% of its new members named the blog when asked how they heard about Verity; the new members had an average of 2.7 accounts with $9,000 in deposits and $11,500 in loans (excluding mortgage); furthermore, the CU's blog, launched in Dec. 2004, now has 1,000 readers (see here for Colin Henderson's complete notes on this session)
My take: While I don't recommend trying to turn this single data point into an ROI calculation, it's the first time I've heard a financial exec say something about blogging that the finance folks will appreciate (chalk up another first for Verity).

Stat that Most Contradicts My Previous Position:

Vancity's ChangeEverything.ca blog, launched commercially in Sept 2006, now has 1,000 registered users who've generated more than 2,000 blog entries and comments; in total, the site has had 45,000 unique visitors according to William Azaroff, Interactive Marketing Manager (see here for Colin Henderson's complete notes on this session)
My take: Despite my reservations about whether it would gain traction without a financial services perspective (see our Online Banking Report on Bank 2.0 here), Vancity's unique blog has gained a small, but growing, worldwide following, and, more importantly, has contributed measurably to Vancity's efforts to help its community and create positive brand positioning for the CU. Nice work.

Blogging/Podcasting:

Key Bank's most popular podcast, top stock picks by John Caldwell, has recorded 70,000 visits and 12,000 unique users, according to Interactive Marketing Manager Mickey Mencin
Colin Henderson, BankWatch blogger and former BMO exec, mentioned that 39% of Canadians are now reading blogs

Online Marketing:

Colin Henderson also cited Forrester findings that 50% of recent financial buyers did 100% of their research online; 30% performed both on- and offline research; and just 20% conducted all the research offline. In Citibank's late 2005 new checking account promotion, the bank gave away 275,000 iPods, according to Charles DeFelice, SVP customer information environment (it wasn't specified if this was the POTENTIAL or ACTUAL number given away, since consumers had to follow through with a number of electronic activities over a period of months in order to qualify for the freebie)
Jon Kaplan, head of Google's financial services group, said that 60% of Google users have a personalized (Google) page and that 20% of Google search volume originates from these pages
GE Money's SVP of Strategy Vincenzo Picone said the company has 300 million customers with $190 billion in assets across 54 countries which led to a net profit of $3.5 billion in 2006; the company has 2010 targets for 300 million unique visitors; $20 billion in online originations and 1 billion transactions via the online and mobile channel
U.K.'s Lloyds TSB experienced a 71% revenue lift (against a control) on its homepage by implementing Touch Clarity's (now Omniture) targeted ad server which uses a number of variables to determine which ads should be shown to an individual visitor; according to Omniture's Brent Hieggelke who showed results from a case study presented by Lloyds TSB at a recent conference

Mobile Banking:

Jennifer Vos, director of Citi Mobile, Citibank's new mobile banking service, said that one-third of current Citi customers have input mobile phone numbers into the bank's alert system; furthermore, the new mobile offering was piloted by 100 employees, who have recently been joined by another hundred users in the southern California market

Small Business Banking:

Wells Fargo has 150,000 "very active" small-business online banking users according to Eskander Matta, SVP of internet services group; businesses are making $45 million in payments per month with the bank's DirectPay servic
e launched just a year ago

Branding:

94% of ING Direct's customers would recommend it to a friend, according to John Owens, Head of Marketing

Online Banking:

Customer satisfaction in online banking, while on the rise, still trails online retailing by five percentage points, 78% vs. 83%, according to Larry Freed, CEO Foresee Results

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Wells Fargo Continues its Social Media Innovation with a MySpace Page

By Jim Bruene Posted on March 29, 2007
Categories: Bank 2.0, Blogs, MySpace, Second Life, Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo marked the one-year anniversary of its first blog, Guided by History, with a Q&A today with the bank's Social Media VP, Ed Terpening. The post appeared in the the bank's Student LoanDown blog (post here), which just made it past the six-month mark. I've already weighed in on its blogging strategy (see previous coverage here), so I won't repeat myself.

The bank is experimenting with a number of social media outlets to extend its brand and see what works and what doesn't. Not all of these will pan out. The MySpace presence seems like a long shot, but then again, the cost is negligible so it’s worth a try. Wells Fargo has wisely not posted a pure "banking" presence, but instead used one a character from its StageCoach Island game (see screenshot below).

Bottom line: The bank's willingness to try new things has created an impressive lists of "firsts:"

First U.S. bank with a blog (though Verity Credit Union beat them to it by more than a year)
First bank with a student loan blog
First bank with a business banking blog
First bank in the world with a Second Life presence
First bank on MySpace at <www.myspace.com/stagecoachisland>, really more an extension of its StageCoach Island game which also has its own blog here (see below; though several credit unions beat them to it)
First bank with 2, 3, and 4 blogs
First bank with an avatar persona on MySpace
First bank with a VP Social Media (who appears to be proactively reaching out to the blogging community)

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ING Electric Orange Reviews

By Jim Bruene Posted on February 16, 2007
Categories: Blogs, Deposits, Checking, Savings, CDs, ING Direct, Public Relations

Much virtual ink has been spilled over ING Direct's Electric Orange account, and the new checking account isn't even available to the general public. From its Internet cafes to subway sponsorships, this is a bank that knows how to generate buzz, which really isn't all that easy with checking and savings accounts (see here for previous coverage of ING Direct).

Searching for <"Electric Orange" + review> on Google, we found six full-scale reviews of the product among the first 100 organic listings (10 pages of results using the default settings). All were blog postings. Most were moderately positive, and only one took shots at the bank calling the rates "too good to be true" (see Watch Your Wallet below).

It illustrates an interesting new phenomena, the power of the personal finance blogosphere. Most top-ranked search results belong not to mainstream press accounts, but to bloggers writing from various levels of knowledge about banking and finance. Most of the top-ranked blog reviews were thorough, factual, and relatively unbiased. But a few bits of misinformation creep in now and again, such as the rumor that the account stops paying interest on the sixth transaction in a statement period (false, by the way). Financial institutions should monitor these postings and jump in with a comment and/or email to the author to correct any factual errors.

Here's a list of what the personal finance bloggers are saying about Electric Orange:

1. Highest-ranked review on Google (#2 overall)

Getting-Green.blogspot.com

Date: 13 Feb. 2007

Verdict: Positive

URL: http://getting-green.blogspot.com/2007/02/banking-reviews-ings-electric-orange.html

2. Second-highest ranked blog review (#4 overall)

MyMoneyBlog.com

Date: 2 Dec. 2006

Verdict: Positive

URL: http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2006/12/ing-direct-electric-orange-checking-account-feature-review.html

3. Third-highest blog review (#5 overall)

TheSunsFinancialDiary.com

Date: 30 Nov. 2006 (#7 overall)

Verdict: Positive

URL: http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/2006/11/30/electric-orange-ings-paperless-checking-account/

4. Fourth-highest blog review (#33 overall)

BankDeals.Blogspot.com

Date: 29 Nov. 2006

Verdict: Neutral

URL: http://bankdeals.blogspot.com/2006/11/ing-directs-new-checking-account-now.html

5. Fifth-highest blog review (#46 overall)

NextCU.com (Callahan)

Date: 4 Dec. 2006

Verdict: Neutral

URL: http://www.nextcu.com/2006/12/electric_orange_covering_the_b_1.html

6. Sixth-highest blog review (#65 overall)

WatchYourWallet.blogspot.com

Date: 28 Dec. 2006

Verdict: Somewhat negative

URL: http://watchyourwallet.blogspot.com/2006/12/ing-directs-new-electric-orange.html

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Trabian’s “Give With Us” is a Cost-effective Way to Start a Blog AND Make a Difference

By Jim Bruene Posted on February 2, 2007
Categories: Blogs, Public Relations, Trabian

When's the last time you saw a new Web app that:

Was good for your brand
Was useful for your customers/members
Gave your employees a voice
Helped your community
Had zero IT support cost
Allowed you to begin blogging with virtually none of the risks of a typical blog
Caused non-customers to bookmark your site and/or subscribe to its feed
Prompted the local press to write glowing reviews
Put your name in front of community organizations, and their well-connected board members
And was affordable?

Take a look at the Web-based volunteer clearinghouse originally conceived by CU thinktank Filene Research Institute. The application is being commercialized as Give With Us by Trabian, a Dallas-based design firm that built Filene's prototype called My Community Connection (see note 1).

You can see the original Filene version in production at SELCO Community Credit Union <selco.cugive.com>, where 77 volunteer opportunities have been posted since its launch less than six months ago (see note 2). The revamped, and much more Web 2.0-looking, version from Trabian will be housed at the cleverly named <www.givewith.us>. The online product tour is not yet available, but we have the world premier exclusive screenshot below, courtesy of Trey Reeme of Trabian.

How it works
The application is basically a blog where anyone can post volunteer opportunities. Readers can take action by clicking a button to either:

Sign up
Email a friend
Leave a comment

Unlike other community websites that are bookmarked once then forgotten, users can sign up for a feed so that new opportunities continue to flow to their feedreader or browser. Hopefully, they'll add an email subscription option for the majority of users who are not yet using feeds.

Cost
The cost is $2,500 upfront plus $1,000 annually for the license. I don't need to tell you what a bargain that is. You get state-of-the-art blog design and functionality for the price of a Yellow Pages' ad.

You will need to assign a staff member to moderate the blog, clearing postings and comments for final publication. Assuming two posts and a couple comments each week, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes a day. But it needs constant attention, you can't have the moderator on vacation for a week with no substitute.

Analysis
The biggest problem will be attention, or rather lack of it. How do you get overworked volunteers and nonprofit staffers to take time to post volunteer opportunities? Even harder, how do you get the community to remember to look at your blog when they are in a volunteering mood?

SELCO has a link on its homepage <selco.org>, but how do you reach out to the larger community to make this relevant? The SELCO website has 77 volunteer postings, but only 3 comments in the past 6 months. That suggests it's relatively lightly used by those donating their time.

But any new offering takes time to get rolling. It's not unrealistic that you could end up being THE place in your market where volunteer opportunities are publicized. But that will take more effort than just posting it on your homepage.

For example, searching for "volunteers in Eugene," SELCO's home market, doesn't bring up the CU's site until result number 160, far too low for anyone to notice (see note 2). Selco should consider using Google AdSense to get its program listed in search results. With no other bidders, it'll only take a dime or so to get the number-one listing.

Another way to receive more attention would be integrating the volunteer opportunities with fund-raising services. For example, a financial institution could create a "donate here" button for the organization's website that instantly deposits donated funds into the nonprofit's checking account.

Notes:

Trabian is a specialist in Web 2.0 design and so-called "social media." The company also built Filene's website along with several interesting credit union sites; refer to its website for a client listing. Trabian also runs the OpenSourceCU blog tracking, which tracks blogs and other social media in the credit union market.
Click on the screenshot at right to see the front page of SELCO's My Community Connection site.
The number-one result is a competing site, VolunteerMatch.org
which lists 98 opportunities in a tabular format.

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New Twist on Financial Institutions Blogging, Messages from the Credit Union Board

By Jim Bruene Posted on January 30, 2007
Categories: Blogs, Trabian

Here's a blogging application we didn't consider in our recent report, Online Banking Report's Bank 2.0: Blogs and Feeds (here), a credit union board of directors creating a blog to communicate with the full membership.

The blog, which launched Jan 1, is called The Boardcast <boardcast.typepad.com> and is written by the board of directors at UFirst Credit Union <sunyplattsburghfcu.com>. Board VP Virginia Brady is said to be the moderator. However, most postings sound like they've been authored by someone within the credit union. That's fine, but it should be clear to readers whether a post comes from a boardmember or a credit union employee.

UFirst publicizes the blog in two places on its homepage (see screenshot below):

Analysis
Blogs are a good way for volunteer boards at non-profits to communicate with the full membership. They are inexpensive, timely, and promote two-way communication. In fact, we believe nearly every company and organization will eventually have one. However, they are not without risks and headaches; for example, here are a few issues that must be dealt with:

risk of generating pubic controversy for the board member(s) writers
the time commitment necessary to post at least weekly so the blog remains relevant
making sure the board and management are on the same page before making the post
monitoring and responding to comments
conflicts of interest with the board member's day job or business

Thanks to OpenSourceCU for the first post on this new blog (link here).

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Forrester Calculates the ROI for Publishing a Company Blog

By Jim Bruene Posted on January 25, 2007
Categories: Blogs, ROI

Forrester analyst, and blogger, Charlene Li announced Forrester's latest look at so-called "corporate blogging" (see post here). I haven't read the full report, but Charlene's post, and the Excel model she linked to (here), provide significant detail on the model. The full report is available to Forrester clients free of charge or to anyone else for $379 here (see also, Charlene's powerpoint presentation that accompanied her December webcast on the ROI of blogging here).

I'm sure there will be plenty of debate about the assumptions that went into the model, but here's the bottom line for one of the highest profile corporate blogs, General Motors Fastlane (see screenshot below; Forrester case study on Fastlane available for $279 here).

Blog benefits (2006): $410,000
– PR value (articles) $215,000
– Product feedback value (virtual focus group) $180,000
– Word of mouth/awareness value $15,000

Blog costs (2006): $255,000
– Producing content (mostly exec time) $155,000
– Brand monitoring service $50,000
– Blogging platform $25,000
– Review & direction $21,000
– IT support $3,000

Net value to GM (2006): $155,000
ROI: 69%

Much of the blog's value stems from the product feedback gathered and press articles written about the blog or what was mentioned in the blog's posts and/or comments. The estimated value of the word-of-mouth generated is minimal, just $15,000.

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