Corporate Blogging Provides Tangible Value – Radvision’s Case Study

Radvision is a publicly traded video conferencing company. Pravda Media was chosen to kick off Radvision’s corporate blogging project, define its strategy and provide on going support and training- all in full cooperation with the company’s evangelist, Tsahi Levent-Levi

Social media is all about commitment, and the recent case study I am doing with Radvision is a proof that enthusiastic employees, training, and long term activities brings value in the over hyped field of social media marketing.

I had the honor to consult Radvision with building a blog network based on their business units:

1. Code of Contact , written by Ran Arad, aimed at VoIP developers

2. Video over Enterprise , written by Sagee Ben Zedeff, aimed at enterprise collaboration decision makers

3. VoIP Survivor, written by Tsahi Levent Levi, the chief evangelist of this effort, which focuses about VoIP industry insights.

These blogs provide company information and general industry trends and analysis. The later helped establishing these blogs as industry resource, and not as a PR effort.

In the year since the project started, the company’s blogs provided value for both organization and writers:

1. Leads Generation -the blogs became source of information and thought leadership for the industry, potential customers contacted the company using the blog’s contact form, which in specific cases resulted in leads and deals. Also, 3^rd parties distributed these blogs to Radvision’s potential customers, positioned as expert opinion.

2. Relationships with Industry Experts - many industry experts maintain blogs which are perceived as independent source of information and analysis. These experts often affect customer’s buying decision. Radvision blogs established and strengthened its relationships with these experts.

3. Speaking Opportunities and Media Relations - Corporate blogs established its writers as industry experts regardless of their company affiliation. As such, they were quoted in industry publications and invited to participate in internal discussions by potential customers. Furthermore, Tsahi was invited to open a blog in a prominent industry publication, further strengthening Radvision’s market position.

4. Sales Support -customers referred to the blogs during sales process, as well as left comments on the blogs with relevant questions. This direct access to developers and product managers proved beneficial to the sales process. Also, the blogs became an internal briefing aid, which sales managers use to learn about industry trends and new product development.

5. Rapid Material Development - one of the bloggers created an ebook from a collection of blog posts in a specific area. This Ebook was created in a fraction of a time of writing a white paper, and was used to encourage readers to subscribe to the blog’s RSS feed. It quickly became an industry resource, that was distributed by 3rd parties to potential Radvision customers, as expert opinion.

6. Employees Satisfaction - all bloggers reported higher level of satisfaction due to their writing and industry exposure.

However, the blogs still didn’t maximize their potential:

1. Blogging effort is not directly linked with corporate marketing activities

2. The blogs are text based only, and do not utilize the benefits of originally produced video and audio shows

3. Blogs’ web addresses were only recently added to company publications and business cards

As one can see, corporate blogging could provide tangible value if done right. Stay tuned for additional information, including how to identify the right internal bloggers, required training, blog design and additional business benefits Radvision enjoyed from in its blogging effort.

Interested in receiving the full case study? Email us with the subject line: Blogging Case Study, and we will send you the full report as soon as it is ready.