Purpose: Shop.org is an association that is comprised of interactive executives from more than 500 nationally-recognized retail brands (both big and small). They participate to share information, lessons-learned, new perspectives, insights and intelligence about online and multichannel retailing.
To extend their diverse community online, Shop.org wanted to develop a blog where their members could write about their expertise and experiences to spur lively conversation (perhaps even a bit of a debate) that helps others to uncover best practices and solutions that work.
The blog focuses on topics such as affiliate programs, analytics, IT, marketing & consumer trends, e-commerce, search engine marketing, web 2.0 and user generated content. All Shop.org members are encouraged to write as many stories as they wish and to comment freely on others’ posts.
Features: ContentRobot designed a clean and stylish two column WordPress theme to compliment the Shop.org logo. We also incorporated the association’s primary colors (red, grey, and white) and other visual cues from its main website for the overall look.
The Shop.org blog’s motto is “By the Member, For the Member” and this is best illustrated by prominently listing its contributors in the right column. Authors have their own RSS feeds so members can subscribe to any contributor or get the entire blog’s content RSS feed as well.
ContentRobot worked closely with the Shop.org team to create Blogging Guidelines and specific Corporate Policies that detailed who can post, how comments would be handled, and how members join the blog.
Why It’s Successful: Since its launch, the Shop.org members have busy getting trained on how to blog effectively. Early feedback says that they are excited to take advantage of the blogging platform to bring their ideas together. No longer hindered by location and time, they expect a bunch of content and discussion to be generated in 2007 and beyond.
Note: The Shop.org blog is an intrablog that is currently available only to its members. UPDATE: On January 8, 2007, the Shop.org blog was opened up to the public.
Check out the site!