HYPERtext linking technology and communications

Fujifilm's public blog, the Fujifilm Captains' Blog, launched in spring of 2005 and details the exploits of the Fujifilm blimp and its captains: Michael Fitzpatrick, John McGuirk, Felicia (Feli) Lockley and Mike Dawson.

Because Fujifilm takes a truly holistic view of peer media strategy, Captains' Blog and all other aspects of blogging, blog relations and Internet presence are integrated into its communications strategies. Captains' Blog, as well as all peer media relations activity and internal policies covering communications-via blogs or otherwise, are overseen by the corporate communications team.

Fujifilm several years ago began monitoring photo enthusiast sites, chat rooms and forums for product reviews and other information that consumers might use to make decisions about what cameras to buy. So when true "blogs" emerged Fujifilm was already there watching them. As a result, Fujifilm began working with independent blogging influencers early on. This blog relations program laid the foundation for an understanding within Fujifilm about the benefits of a strong online presence, and when the group launched the Captains' Blog earlier this year, it was well supported.

Strategy. Identifying specifically what the blog should be about was a crucial element in the decision to launch Fujifilm's Captain's Blog. Fujifilm looked at several corporate blogs for best practice guidelines on how to develop and especially launch their own corporate blogging program.

Ultimately, the Fujifilm blimp was selected as an appropriate blog topic for several reasons:  

The Fujifilm communications team felt the best approach was to focus blog content on a highly relatable topic for consumers rather than using it to push product functionality or feature information out to readers. Hence, Fujifilm uses Captains' Blog to reinforce the strong connection between the blimp, its brand and customers, and allows independent bloggers to sing its praises on the product front.

The blimp and its travels provide ongoing, authentic and genuinely interesting subject matter to readers. The captains write their own posts, and the communications team edits minimally, typically correcting only spelling and punctuation errors.

For many years, the Blimp has been associated with the Fujifilm brand, and Captains' Blog extends the visibility of the brand to the online medium by increasing Fujifilm's online presence through something that already has meaning for the customer.

Objectives. Fujifilm's initial objectives for Captains' Blog were simply to explore how to use various peer media technologies and in the process, identify the resources required to manage the effort. Fujifilm also views this first public blog as a proving ground for the exploration of how corporate blogging could be used to support communications objectives, but stresses that they approached the effort cautiously given the public nature of blogs and potential for corporate blogging missteps to be widely publicized.

Success Metrics. Because Fujifilm's primary objective was to explore various aspects of blogs in a learning capacity, evaluation of success is based on whether those goals have been achieved, rather than standard industry measures like visitor traffic or linking and comment volume. While the blog does receive a lot of genuine interest, readership is small thus far because Fujifilm launched quietly and has yet to aggressively promote it. One of the goals for the coming year is to build readership through a series of creative promotional activities tied to Fujifilm's blimp communications strategy and overall Web presence, including its corporate Web site.

Technology. Rather than spend a great deal of effort reviewing multiple blog technologies, Fujifilm selected the widely used and reliable Movable Type, coupled with simple RSS feed technology that is used primarily to push product, technology and promotions information out to Fujifilm news subscribers. They recently enabled the reader posting/commenting option capability, observing that initially that option was disabled in order to give Fujifilm more time to learn all aspects of the technology as well as ensure quality while the effort was new.

Resources. While the blimp captains provide all post content (usually about one post per week), the Fujifilm communications team estimates   approximately two hours per week on general coordination activities such as responding to reader inquiries and proofreading related to the blog. Time investment is likely to increase as promotional plans are implemented and readership grows.

Next Steps. Fujifilm now plans to develop a formal position on employee blogging that is both open and transparent but clarifies for staff what its expectations are with regard to behavior in the blogosphere. Fujifilm's existing policies cover most employee blogging-related issues that may arise. However, due to the likelihood that many Fujifilm employees are also amateur photographers who already author personal photo blogs, part of this process is intended to raise awareness among employees on the company's position on blogging.

Best Practice. While not entirely new to peer media, Fujifilm's foray into corporate blogging is recent. Companies planning to establish public blogging efforts of their own can take the following guidance from Fujifilm's experience:

• Before launching a corporate blog, first identify other blogs, chat rooms and forums that are already discussing your company or products. Take some time to read discussions/comments about your company and related issues and become familiar with the norms and conventions of the blogosphere. Assess which topics/issues interest your customers/future blog readers and utilize them for potential sources of future blog content. Begin to build relationships with independent bloggers, working with them to better understand what customers/readers want from your company.
• Assess whether or not your company's corporate culture is compatible with the open and transparent nature of peer media, and identify potential blog topics and practices that a) integrate naturally with the personality of your company and b) map directly to the communications and business objectives of the brand. Because Fujifilm's product development and research are driven out of Japan, the commonly used "developer/blogger" model employed by many technology businesses wasn't a natural fit for Fujifilm USA. In selecting the Fujifilm blimp as the centerpiece for its corporate blog, they chose a highly relatable topic that both supported the brand and resonated with a wide range of influencers-especially consumers-and was easily understood and supported by internal stakeholders.
• Set realistic expectations for your first corporate blogging effort. Fujifilm's objective to learn more about blogging technology and better understand the peer media environment in general was reasonable and attainable. While on the surface corporate blogging may appear to be a simple undertaking-and from a purely logistical standpoint that may be true-the finer subtleties of creating a compelling presence and voice for your blog and growing readership are more complicated and may take time to show results.
• Launch your corporate blogging effort quietly so that a) you can work through complications/issues and b) get some posts under your belt before opening the blog up to scrutiny. While it doesn't mean it won't be publicly accessible, it does mean, as Fujifilm has done, that you'll sort out what works and what doesn't before investing time and money building readership.
• Select and deploy proven and easy-to-use technologies, unless your company already supports an alternative platform. Fujifilm's use of Movable Type simplified the blog creation and launch process by minimizing the level of time investment required to master the technology behind Captains' Blog.
• View corporate blogging as one aspect of an overall Internet communications effort, and as Fujifilm has, integrate peer media into your strategy. Incorporate all aspects of peer media, including blog relations with independent bloggers and overall Web presence through other online channels, and consider what role corporate blogging will play in that broader environment.
• View peer media as a communications-led effort, even if other internal groups own and manage blogs. Recognizing early that blogs and other online media were impacting how Fujifilm delivered messages allowed their communications team to take a leadership position in this important area and integrate efforts with other existing public relations strategies.
• Follow Fujifilm's example by developing a formal company position on the use of peer media, and support that position with a policy that governs employee behavior in the blogosphere, if none already exists.