MGSM Blog Strategy: Web 2.0 Analysis and Recommendations

Introduction

The intent of this analysis is to review the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management (MGSM) blog, comparing it to other business schools' blogs, and generating a series of recommendations. Initiatives and strategies to drive blog traffic for the MGSM blog are defined, and an assessment of the MGSM blog's strengths and weaknesses is also provided. Recommendations for increasing blog traffic — including four specific approaches — are presented throughout this analysis.

The design and structural principles of Web 2.0 technologies as defined by O'Reilly (2006) serve as the basis of this analysis and are shown in Appendix A of this document. Web 2.0 design principles continue to define social networking applications as well. Based on an analysis of the rapid adoption of social networking and the growth of applications resulting from it, a summary of the most pervasively used applications is provided in Appendix B, titled "Web 2.0 Applications." The groundswell effect occurring as a result of social networking (Bernoff & Li, 2008) includes blogs as well. According to the analysis of Web 2.0 design criteria as defined by O'Reilly (2006), blogs are redefining collaboration and increasing the accessibility of information globally. The intent of this analysis is to provide insights into how the MGSM blog can attain best practices in social networking.

Usability of the MGSM Blog

The MGSM blog is fundamentally structured to provide navigational ease of use. Links to MGSM-related sites include the Home Page, Business Programs, and the Alliant International University site. The design of the links to the right includes an archive of blog entries and MGSM contacts with email addresses and telephone numbers.

The MGSM blog site follows the basic conventions of Blogger-hosted software, which is meant as a basic platform for getting started with social networking. Blogger is a free blogging service owned and hosted by Google (Wyld, 2008). Its usability is fundamental and its scalability excellent, given that Google's software engineers manage the virtualization platform that runs the Blogger application (Vara, 2004). What Blogger offers in terms of scalability and stability, however, it lacks in terms of customization and the ability to reflect the unique identity of a person or organization over time.

As a result, the MGSM blog is highly usable, and comments indicate that students find posting messages to blog entries relatively easy. Navigation is made very effective by the chronological listing of entries along the right side of the screen. Support for comments posted in full — not just in linked form — also makes the blog exceptionally usable. For all this flexibility, however, the blog sacrifices potential for differentiation and could be made significantly more valuable over time. Later in this analysis, recommendations are made for making the blog more valuable and timely as an information resource and collaboration platform.

Comparative Analysis of College and University Blogs

For purposes of completing a comparative analysis, the blogs from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University, the Innovation Blog at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California Irvine, and the UCLA Anderson School of Management blog are included. Each of these blogs has slightly different objectives, and their content reflects that variation in purpose. They all share, however, the common objective of the MGSM blog: seeking to create a greater level of collaboration with potential students, actively enrolled students, faculty, staff, and potential faculty. From this standpoint, all blogs included in this analysis are attempting to fuel the groundswell that Bernoff & Li (2008) describe in terms of connecting and communicating with others and giving them a voice in how organizations respond and tailor programs to unmet needs.

Traditionally, institutions of higher learning have concentrated on using blogs primarily as a means to impart knowledge — a use of these collaborative platforms that many college and university libraries are finding invaluable (Schrecker, 2008). Because knowledge in business often blends the practical and the theoretical, the depth of expertise a learning institution demonstrates is frequently part of its brand or reputation (Lowrie, 2007). Pepperdine's blog takes this approach: Associate Professors write thoughtful and potentially controversial posts on topics such as the ethics of sports celebrity endorsements. The blog posts are meant to serve as a catalyst for debate and discussion online, thereby fulfilling the design principles of Web 2.0 technology-based applications (O'Reilly, 2006). This approach — combining the expertise of a Pepperdine Associate Professor with a timely issue of ethics and business — also promotes conversation and involvement, which is critical to the effectiveness of any social networking strategy (Kreitzberg, 2009).

Another blog using its expertise to create a unique online brand is the Innovation Blog at the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine. This blog is primarily focused on innovation and features a series of written posts about how companies are being creative in a challenging economic environment. The blog is also innovative in offering role-based navigation for business leaders and students, visible across the top of the page. There is also a series of topic groupings, a blogroll where authors will list blogs of potential interest over time, and a list of additional topics. The branding clearly ties the blog back to the Paul Merage School of Business. In short, this blog seeks to communicate the school's expertise and position it as a thought leader in innovation.

The role-based content for business leaders includes a wealth of information covering ideation, future planning, leadership style, strategy and vision, and eleven different industry groupings. Clearly, the Paul Merage School of Business is using its blog as a means to communicate its unique value proposition of expertise in new venture creation and best practices in management. Branding for colleges and universities is as much about communicating core competencies and strengths as it is about the inherent value of the educational experience leading to a degree (Lowrie, 2007). The Paul Merage School of Business marketing strategy demonstrates thought leadership in key areas to attract new students and recruit candidates for its senior executive MBA program.

The third blog included in the analysis is from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. This blog is structured to give students online resources for submitting registration materials on time, help new graduate students find housing and acclimate to the UCLA campus, and provide links to graduate student blogs. The MBA Student Voice blog provides an accurate representation of typical student stresses throughout a semester, complete with descriptions of team projects and exam preparation. While UCLA has not pursued the thought-leadership direction taken by Paul Merage or Pepperdine, it is the strongest of the blogs profiled at being a practical information source for students. The UCLA blog demonstrates how many organizations use blogs — specifically as a rapid publishing system to get time-critical information out to students and, in the case of companies, their customers (Wyld, 2008).

The UCLA blog is not as interactive or open to collaborative communication as the MGSM, Pepperdine, or UCI blogs, yet it accomplishes its purpose of serving as a communications channel for students and prospective applicants. Notably, the UCLA blog is the only one analyzed that includes links to Facebook and Twitter. The role of Twitter as a microblogging social networking site is revolutionizing how organizations stay connected with and relevant to those they serve (McFedries, 2007). By combining Facebook and Twitter, UCLA has the ability to build longer-term relationships with potential future students using the former and provide real-time updates using the latter. In short, UCLA has created a means for communicating and potentially collaborating with prospective and current students across a spectrum of social networking channels. This is precisely the point Bernoff & Li make in their concept of the social networking groundswell (2008) and the need to connect with and communicate to customers across channels. Customers, from the UCLA perspective, are effectively students — hence the focus on maintaining multiple channels of communication. From the longer-term Facebook approach to the blogging platform for current information, to immediate news via Twitter, UCLA is the most multichannel-focused of all the blogs and social networking strategies analyzed.

In summary, the strengths of the Pepperdine and UCI blogs lie in their use of blogs as collaborative platforms to share expertise and thought leadership. This is essential to their approach to defining a broader unique value proposition and differentiation (Lowrie, 2007). Both institutions are using their blogs for branding as much as for communicating and collaborating with students and community members interested in their areas of research and focus. As a result, both the Pepperdine and UCI blogs have generated collaborative conversations through their blogging activity. The most advanced multichannel approach is seen in how UCLA has created Facebook, blog, and Twitter accounts to communicate with students in whatever form they prefer. Some students spend the majority of their free time on Facebook, while others are accustomed to using RSS readers (Wyld, 2008) to quickly scan blog content. UCLA excels in its multichannel focus but lacks the collaborative depth that the MGSM, Pepperdine, and UCI blogs promote.

References

Bernoff, J., & Li, C. (2008). Harnessing the power of the oh-so-social web. MIT Sloan Management Review, 49(3), 36–42.

Kreitzberg, A. (2009). Building a Web 2.0-friendly culture: Success on the web is about people, not technology. People and Strategy, 32(2), 40–45.

Lamont, J. (2009, July). Managing the Web 2.0 life cycle. KM World, 18(7), 14–15, 22.

Lowrie, A. (2007). Branding higher education: Equivalence and difference in developing identity. Journal of Business Research, 60(9), 990.

Luzon, M. (2009). Scholarly hyperwriting: The function of links in academic weblogs. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(1), 75.

Madsen, M. (2009). Mashups: Here comes the future again. Information Management, 19(1), 56.

McFedries, P. (2007). All a-twitter. IEEE Spectrum, 44(10), 84.

O'Reilly, T. (2006, July). Web 2.0: Stuck on a name or hooked on value? Dr. Dobb's Journal, 31(7), 10.

Schrecker, D. L. (2008). Using blogs in academic libraries: Versatile information platforms. New Library World, 109(3/4), 117–129.

Shapiro, W., Mentch, M., & Kubit, M. (2007). Streaming video: The bridge between tradition and innovation. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(4), 68–69.

Vara, V. (2004, October 12). Folksy no more, Blogger firm taps big clients. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. B.1.

Wyld, D. C. (2008). Management 2.0: A primer on blogging for executives. Management Research News, 31(6), 448–483.

Appendix A: Web 2.0 Meme Map

Source: O'Reilly (2006)

Appendix B: Web 2.0 Applications

Blogs: Online diary or journal entries on the Internet, primarily supporting text, photo (photoblog), video (vlog), and audio (podcast) formats. Google, AOL, and Yahoo offer free blogging platforms.

Mashup: A web service that gathers related content from more than one source. For example, IBM's mashup applications enable project managers to match team resources with a map to identify the geographical locations of those resources.

Peer-to-Peer Networking: A technique for effectively sharing music, audio, and text files. Napster and Gnutella are popular peer-to-peer networks.

Real Simple Syndication (RSS): Feed-based technology that, with the aid of an RSS reader, enables users to subscribe to newly released content such as text, web pages, sound files, photos, and video. An RSS feed may contain full content — for example, a podcast — or simply a link to that content.

Social Media: Encompasses all online tools (blogs, podcasts, wikis, social networks, vlogs) and websites enabling people to share content such as text, audio, pictures, and video. Popular social media sites include YouTube (video) and Flickr (photos).

Social Networking: Websites that permit users to create online networks and communicate with friends and colleagues. Social networking sites include MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and Friends Reunited; business networking sites include LinkedIn and Ryze.

Tagging: Allows users to bookmark or rate online content to share their recommendations with other online users. Typically used by publishers of media sites seeking to benefit from user recommendations. Popularized by sites such as Digg and del.icio.us, which enable users to publish, categorize, and share their bookmarks.

Wikis: Enable users to create and edit the content of a website, leveraging the expertise of online contributors. Consumer wikis allow users to comment on content in addition to editing it. Wikipedia, a community wiki encyclopedia, includes approximately 1.3 million English-language articles.

Sources: Bernoff & Li (2008); O'Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html