By Rob Longert, PepperDigital
A couple of months back, I heard about the Fortune 500 Blogging Wiki from a post on John Cass' PR Communications Blog and thought the idea of the Wiki was an interesting way to look at corporate blogging.
John and Easton Ellingsworth have put the review of Fortune 500 blogs in the hands of us bloggers, so I figured I would try and help the cause and take a stab at reviewing Verizon's PolicyBlog. The review format is based on Business and Blogging’s approach for reviewing corporate blogs.
Verizon is a company that is near and dear to my heart. I use them as a mobile phone provider, for long distance/ local phone at home, DSL, and a wireless card, but have yet to switch to FIOS for TV, although the little kid on the commercial makes it seem quite appealing. Their mobile and DSL service has been pretty good, and most of the customer service people I have dealt with have been pretty helpful (except at the Verizon store on 34th Street. They are mean in there!). 
The PolicyBlog looks to "focus on policy issues that have implications for the greatest number of companies and consumers," and at first glance it seems like the blogging team has a lot of experience and knowledge about the industry and it's Technorati rank is 91,157 with an authority of 103, meaning not they are not the most influential blog right now, but seem to be headed in the right direction.
Blog Review
Ease of Finding: 2 - I have yet to find the PolicyBlog on Verizon's homepage or site for that matter. I went through their news section, typed a recent headline into the search bar, and looked in the about section and site map, and still couldn't find anything. Verizon, if you are going to go through the effort of putting out fresh content a few times a week on your blog, you should make that content accessible to everyone that visits your site.
Engaging Writing: 7- PolicyBlog addresses FCC regulations, new Verizon products, and consumer questions in the comments section of the blog. One post in-particular from early July had 46 comments, many of which were questions from consumers. The author of the post, Eric Rabe took the time to respond to each and every question. All corporate bloggers out there should take note of Eric's practice in responding to comments, and make it a large part of their blogging program.
Frequency: 7 - Through June of this year, there have been 53 posts on the PolicyBlog, with an average of eight posts per month. They posted as little as six times and as many as 13 times per month this year, which does not show good consistency. The tempo and beat of a blog gets people to visit as part of their routine, and when posting is not consistent the amount of visitors will most likely go down.
Relevant: 8 - Whenever there is a product announcement or the introduction of new HD channels, comments on the blog skyrocket. Otherwise they range from zero to about ten comments per post. Is it possible for Verizon to talk more about THEIR specific policies, from customer service to the fine print which people sometimes don't read in their contracts?
Focused: 8 - PolicyBlog does an excellent job of staying on message and consistent in their posts, but doesn't veer away from Verizon very much. Some of the posts are self serving, but that can sometimes be tough to avoid in a corporate blog. When mentioning products and services, companies must be prepared to respond to customer complaints and suggestions, and the PolicyBlog seems really good about addressing those issues.
Honest: 7 - From a 20,000 foot view, many of the posts address Verizon's new products and services, but not the problems associated with them. The problems are usually brought up in the comments section of the blog, where the bloggers address these issues in response to comments.
Interactive: 6 - When it comes to posing questions or eliciting responses from readers, this blog could be doing a better job. In terms of navigating the page and the blog being interactive, they offer RSS feeds, but the blog itself is extremely slow (not sure if this is my browser) and hard to navigate. The speed of the site will impact a user's experience, and unless my computer is just crapping out, this site was very slow to load. Slow sites are a pet peeve of mine, so this could just be me here.
Responsive: 9 - When it comes to responding to comments, the PolicyBlog does it right. They are extremely on top of their comments section and never seem to leave a commenter without a response.
Overall Score: 54/80, 67.5 percent, or a C.
I commend Verizon for having a blog and taking part in the online conversation, but they could be getting more bang for their buck with just a few minor adjustments and tweaks. It looks like they have a great team behind the blog, but have some issues to iron out before leaping to the next level
It is a real pleasure to be part of this review process, and I am open to criticism and being proved wrong about any of the above grades for Verizon's PolicyBlog. I'm looking forward to reviewing another blog in the near future for the Wiki, and encourage you to review some of the F500 blogs, as well.
Thank you for checking us out. I'm the editor over at Verizon's PolicyBlog and appreciate the review, all the suggestions, and observations... as we said when this began in 2006, this would always be an ever improving work-in-progress.
We do get decent traffic, and I'd like to correct one item. You used the longer, and little used url to the site. Our common site name that is shorter and more commonly used (and directs to the site as well) is http://policyblog.verizon.com.
According a Technorati search today of that address, Policyblog's Authority is 103 and rank is 91,157. While not Leaderboard stuff (today, anyway) not many telecom companies or policy blogs have more links.
Here's the link to my Technorati search.
http://www.technorati.com/blogs/POLICYBLOG.VERIZON.COM?reactions77
Thanks again for the ideas and for the review. We are doing back-end work as well, so stability and speed should also improve soon.
CZ
PS: I also talk Policyblog & VZ stuff at Twitter as @CZ, so come check us out there, too.
Posted by: CZ | July 17, 2008 at 12:54 PM
Thanks for the correction, John. I will correct the Technorati info in the post.
Let us know if you have any other questions about our review of your blog.
It is good to see that you guys are monitoring what is being said about you. That is hand in hand with responsiveness, and sentiment/blog monitoring should be a major part of any blogging program.
Posted by: Rob | July 17, 2008 at 02:59 PM