How Level3 Communications Took the "Blah" Out of Corporate Blogging, presented by Ben Bacon

How Level3 CommunicationsTook the “Blah” Out of Corporate

Blogging

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Ben Bacon

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MOUTH MARKETING

How We Took the “Blah” Out of Corporate Blogging

BlogWell Dallas – January 24th, 2012

© Level 3 Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Level 3, Level 3 Communications and the Level 3 Communications Logo are either registered service marks or service marks of Level 3 Communications, LLC and/or one of

its Affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Level 3 services are provided by wholly owned subsidiaries of Level 3 Communications, Inc. Any other service names, product names, company names or logos included

herein are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

@level3

@benjaminbacon

blog.level3.com

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Level 3 Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 3

Starting social media from scratch

January 2011

What are we going to say? What tone should we say it in? Where should we say it?

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Step #1 – Look at our business and how we compete

What do we do?

B2B Telecom

Internet access, VPNs, phone

service to companies

How do we compete?

Intimate customer experience

Collaborate/2-way dialogue

Challenge the status quo

Enjoyable to do business with

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Step #2 – Listen to customers and how they speak

Who do we sell to?

Network engineers

Telecom managers

Solution architects

IT organizations

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Who do we sell to?

Network engineers

Telecom managers

Solution architects

IT organizations

What are they like?

Mostly male

Self-identified “geeks”

Eclectic, super opinionated

Contrarian viewpoints

Great BS detectors

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Step #3: Let the sum of those things set your tone and

content

How do we compete?

Intimate customer experience

Collaborate/2-way dialogue

Challenge the status quo

Enjoyable to do business with

What are they like?

Mostly male

Self-identified “geeks”

Eclectic, super opinionated

Contrarian viewpoints

Great BS detectors

Quirky

Self-Deprecating

Edgy

Transparent

Human

Not “Telecomplicated”

Approachable/Inquisitive

Friendly/Humorous

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Step #4: Find employees that embody that tone and can

create that content

Search for storytellers not titles

Go way beyond product…who

talks to customers and who does

what our customers do

Look for long articulate emails,

people that tell great stories at

happy hours

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Step #5: Help train and empower them to do it

We had engineers…not bloggers

Blogging not a skillset, weekly emails with tips

on how to write blog content

Long leadup time – Jan to June to find and

train folks

Leverage listening tool, twitter feed, VOC

research to find potential stories

Avoid brochure speak like the plague

Short, punchy > long, technical

Would someone share this?

They write…then we do the rest - titles,

punch it up, legal approval and post on

their behalf

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Beyond Bandwidth – blog.level3.com

Launched June 2011

~100 posts

~20 writers

~20 categories

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Things that have worked for us in blogging

Analogies – How can we help engineers communicate XYZ solution?

Network = lawnmowing, teenage girls, learning languages, kitchen renovations

Uncomplicating telecom

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Global Events/Current News

Overpopulation, Borders closing, cord cutting, Arab Spring

You can’t have thought leadership without readership

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Group Posts

# Things That Take You Beyond Bandwidth

Showcases our diverse thinking, easy to assemble

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Nostalgia/Company History

Help customers build an emotional/personal connection to Level 3

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Look in the Mirror Posts

How can we be as transparent as possible?

What have we done wrong? Can we pass those learnings to customers?

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Talk about the Taboo

Death, taxes…fiber cuts; How can we educate our customers on outages?

Single tweet picked up by Telecom News…then GigaOm and Gizmodo…then

Yahoo News and The Atlantic…the Der Spiegel, etc etc.

• This article rocks. I’m the guy that says “well, according to the traceroute, it’s the ISP’s

sh*t.” Thoroughly enjoyed it.

• Dude. I fricking love you. Level3 is my world. Everything I use, I know where

the pingtrace runs. Without level3, I have no internet. Level3 is the sh*t.


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Fun has spread across all social media

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Light content, serious results

Blog Traffic

100,000 page views by 3rd month

Readers from 178 different countries

YouTube

#1 organic result for “Data Center Networking”

Top 3 for “Unified Communications”

Top 5 for “SIP Trunking”

Twitter

From 0 to 8,000 followers

Klout score – from 0 to 50+

• Influential in Broadband, Video, Cloud Computing, etc.

Google – 3,000 different keyword combos driving blog visits

CDN architecture, why Ethernet better, concurrent call paths, culture at Level 3

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Blog management tips

Monthly recaps in the form of a blog

Assignments – not editorial calendars

Find self-motivated bloggers

Get up, walk around the office and always carry a camera phone

Don’t be afraid of the red pen, especially on the title and first 2

paragraphs

Roll up your sleeves and write some yourself

Everyone thinks a.) their job is boring and b.) they’d be awful bloggers -

you need to get people out of their comfort zones

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Come see us in Colorado!

Ben Bacon - @benjaminbacon

[email protected]

Twitter - @level3

Facebook.com/level3

Blog.level3.com

mailto:[email protected]

How Level3 Communications Took the "Blah" Out of Corporate Blogging, presented by Ben Bacon

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Transcript of How Level3 Communications Took the "Blah" Out of Corporate Blogging, presented by Ben Bacon