Company Profile
Photobucket was founded in 2003 and is now the premier standalone photo and video sharing site, with 45 million unique users around the world. Every month, Photobucket users conduct more than 900 million searches for photos, images, and videos. The company was acquired by Fox Interactive in 2007, and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
A Popular Photo Site Finds Blogging
When Photobucket's VP of Marketing Alice Lankester came in board in early 2007, the company was using an outdated blog platform that made blogging a chore. "Our old blog was really hard to update," she reports. "We had to go through programmers every time we wanted to publish a post."
Alice has used TypePad for her personal blog, and so it was the first company she turned to for Photobucket's blog solution. "We chose TypePad Business Class because we needed to be assured of full uptime and superior performance," says Alice. "We've been quite happy with it."
Nearly two years later, the Photobucket blog is a lively place, with regular posts that are full of photos, videos, and information. The blog enables the company to give readers more information about changes, news, and other things that are happening at Photobucket. "Our main website is intentionally light on copy," Alice explains. "The blog allows us to tell the bigger story, and offer a full explanation about things we're doing."
The blog also allows Photobucket to showcase their partners and affiliates, and enables the company to stay closer to its customers. "We believe that you need to offer multiple communication pathways for your customers," Alice says. "They all want to reach out in different ways - some via blog comments, some via email, some via customer service. We want to hear from our customers in any way they choose to reach us, and we feel that having a blog is a vital part of our communications strategy."
As soon as the company publishes a post to the blog, it updates a feed reader on its home page, allowing visitors to see headlines of blog posts and click over to read more. The company has found that press often picks up items they've found while doing a web search, even when the company hasn't put out an official press release. "The blog is a great way for the press to find things on their own," Alice says.
In the rare instance that the main Photobucket site has a technical problem, the company can communicate status updates to customers via the blog. "Since our blog is separate from our main site, it gives us a platform where we can provide up-to-the minute updates if we should ever need to," Alice says.
Captivating Readers with the Magic of Photos
One of the most powerful benefits of the Photobucket blog has been the way it has given the company a human face. The company often showcases up-and-coming musical talent, and creates photo pools where fans can upload photos of their favorite bands, like this photo pool of the band Ludo.
When Ludo came to town, they visited the Photobucket offices and sang "You're Awful, I Love You" in the company's kitchen. Afterwards, Alice wrote a post titled "You're Awful, We Love You, Ludo" which became very popular with Photobucket users. "Our music-related posts allow people to see what we care about, and helps them realize that we're more than just a corporate entity," she says.
In an exciting recent development, Photobucket was chosen to be the online photo destination for the Barack Obama 2009 Presidential Inaugural Book. The book will feature the work of two presidential photographers - award-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly and President Bill Clinton's official photographer Bob McKeel - and will be the first inaugural photo book to also include pictures from everyday Americans.
So far, hundreds of photos have been submitted to the photo pool for the book, capturing the events leading up to and surrounding the inauguration, and creating a insightful look at the people and emotions that made the selection of the 44th President so special. The Photobucket team posts some of the best photos on the blog, and no matter how much traffic the blog gets, the bandwidth offered through TypePad Business Class keeps it running smoothly.
Advice for Other Business Bloggers
"Don't commit to anything you're not prepared to follow through on," says Alice. "To build trust, you have to be consistent." She explains: "If you start a blog category called "What's New" - but then you only update it every six months - you'll lose your credibility."
She also offers some practical suggestions: "Make sure people can find your blog; link to it from your main site. Most importantly, make your content useful and informative. If it's just more 'marketing speak' it will just become background noise. Make a commitment to it, and allow someone in your company to run with it."
