Well-written blog = great digital media strategy for Goodwill of Washington, DC

Digital marketers and social media “experts” sure love the shiny and new. As soon as one technology develops – email, Tripod, theGlobe, online forums, blogs, SMS, social networks – anything and everything that came before is old news, boring, stale, dead.

And, of course, Joe Q Public is usually 4 or 5 circles – or more – behind. As an aside, I drink coffee and read my newspapers every morning at a small, country store/diner with mostly a blue-collar crowd. I always enjoy hearing and eavesdropping on their consumer habits – especially when it comes to online and digital. Needless to say, if I mentioned Tweets to this crowd, they’d look around for a bird.

That’s just a setup for mentioning Goodwill of Washington, DC’s success with a simple ole blog – running on Blogger nonetheless – not even a WordPress installation. It’s important to keep in mind the power of a good blog with compelling content –  especially when I’ve seen more than one person say that blogs are dead in favor of Twitter.

As detailed in this Search Engine Guide story, in June 2007 Goodwill of Washington DC decided to increase their social media strategy.

They had two goals for the program:

1. Transform their live fashion show into a virtual fashion show – to help drive traffic to Goodwill’s new eBay store.

2. Reach a younger, hipper audience online.

Em Hall, Goodwill’s retail marketing manager, wrote her first blog entry on the DC Goodwill Fashion Blog as the DC Goodwill Fashionista on July 12, 2007.

Check out these results so far:

  • The blog now averages 3,500 unique vistors a week.
  • 1 out of 14 people who read the blog clickthrough to Goodwill’s online stores – eBay, ShopGoodwill.com.
  • 1 out of 6 people who visited the virtual fashion show visited one of the online stores.
  • The blog rentention rate is over 60 percent.

All that from a targeted, well-written blog hosted on Blogger.com

3 Replies to “Well-written blog = great digital media strategy for Goodwill of Washington, DC”

  1. That's awesome — I've given up on Twitter, after creating and then deleting two Twitter accounts. I just didn't like the throwaway aspect of it, the triviality. Some folks do Tweets well, but most… I don't really care what you had for breakfast.

    I hope blogs will make a comeback! There's something to be said for a well-written entry of more than 140 characters.

  2. Mike,

    I think you may end up going back to Twitter. I think it does matter who you're following. Scalzi for instance, writes a much better blog, than what he Twitters. He Twitters about his cat and stuff.

    Also, were you using the Twitter site? Have you used a Twitter client? I highly recommend Tweetdeck. You can set up persistent searches so whenever someone mentions Mike Jasper in a post, you can see it – when you log in – you don't have to be watching the Twitter stream live.

    Jeff

  3. Mike,

    I think you may end up going back to Twitter. I think it does matter who you're following. Scalzi for instance, writes a much better blog, than what he Twitters. He Twitters about his cat and stuff.

    Also, were you using the Twitter site? Have you used a Twitter client? I highly recommend Tweetdeck. You can set up persistent searches so whenever someone mentions Mike Jasper in a post, you can see it – when you log in – you don't have to be watching the Twitter stream live.

    Jeff

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