I've been thinking a lot lately about the purpose of a company blog, the style, etc.
Is it supposed to inform customers? Is it a marketing document? Is it PR with comments? Who blogs? Why? How does it relate to the company's existing PR and marketing efforts?
Every company does this differently, but I think that Feedburner has really set the bar for creating a dialogue with the technology community and a site that reflects who they are as a collection of people, not just a company. They don't even post that much, but they still have 11,000+ subs.
Why?
I think, most basically, they've created something that people actually want to read, with a style that makes outsiders think of Feedburner as the kind of people they'd like to work with... and probably even work for, too. Props to Rachelle who has done a great job with their online image, and really for the whole team for giving us some insight into their corporate culture.
"The developers at FeedBurner
have been acting like a bunch of kids in the back of a station wagon
lately ... "When's our next Hackathon?! Tell Chris to stop touching me!"
On their new music fan feeds...
The office stereo is cranked up to eleven this morning to welcome our latest customer, Geffen Records. With a date like 06/06/06 upon us, the office flashpot could finally see some use should Rob Zombie drop in on us.
I don't know whether or not the folks at Feedburner decided ahead of time, "Let's just be ourselves..." or whether they just realized this was the accepted norm in the blogosphere, but they could have very easily went out and written the definitive RSS blog as leaders in the space. However, they'd have to get past the first Google page of all of the other RSS blogs already out there. So, instead, they went out and created the definitive blog about Feedburner... because, really, who else could do that any better?
And they didn't just stop at blogs. They have a company Flickr account as well.
Is there a business benefit to this? Maybe... maybe its just fun. But, as a blogger using their product, it makes me feel like they're "one of us" more so than they're trying to sell me something or make money off me.
Feedburner... made out of people.