Salesforce.com Blog Guest Author Program

2014 Program Guide

Contents

1.  Program Overview •  Program Description

•  Participant Criteria •  Benefits of Participation

•  Tiers of Rewards •  Submission Process

2.  How To Get Started •  Blog Guidelines

•  SEO Tips

•  Branding Guidelines

Program Overview

Program Overview

The Salesforce.com Blog is a fast-growing platform for engaging dialogue among business professionals around the future of business. We invite top thought leaders to play a role in sparking social conversations and sharing their vision of how businesses can tap into the power of social, mobile and cloud technologies to drive success. See these leading blog posts: Marc Benioff: Turn Your Idea Into A High Growth Company http://bit.ly/12C8LAm Kyle Porter: 6 Tony Robbins Insights That Will Change Your Sales Game http://bit.ly/11Ukfwg John Barrows: Top 8 Questions To Ask Prospects To Sell More Effectively http://bit.ly/150JfEm

250k+ Visits/Month!

Criteria for Participants

•  Book authors •  Regular media contributors

•  C-Level Executives •  Subject Matter Experts

•  Professors

•  Entrepreneurs •  Other authorities

We’re looking for new voices who can build a following and stay ahead of major trends impacting business.

Your blog submission selection is at the discretion of our Blog Editor. We recommend participants blog at least monthly to develop a following.

Why Become A Guest Blogger?

Blogging can benefit you and your organization with real and measurable benefits:

For you: •  Reach a large professional audience with your thought

leadership positions •  Build your own social following •  Link backs to your website, blog or content

•  Social promotion and engagement by the Salesforce channels

•  An entry point to new opportunities with Salesforce.com (webinars, Dreamforce sessions, eBooks)

For your company or organization: •  Link backs to your website and content •  Blogging can lead to more search results and higher search rankings •  Blogging humanizes your brand, offering a credible voice and more

personal experience than content on your website

Tiers of Benefits for Participants

Tier 3 “All Star Blogger” •  Consistently ranks in top in terms of blog views •  All of the below plus:

•  Invitations to Influencer Series webinars, Dreamforce panels, eBook collaborations, co-promotions

Tier 2 “Regular blogger” •  Submits quality blogs at least monthly for 6 months •  All of the below plus:

•  Blog platform log-in, premium time slots, content collaborations, thematic guidance

•  ‘Salesforce.com Blogger’ digital badge

Tier 1 “Rookie blogger” •  New to blogging with Salesforce.com

•  Editorial support, coaching on best practices, social promotion, topic ideas, networking event invitations

Blogger Guidelines

General Guidance

When drafting your blog post, please adhere to the following guidelines: •  Keep your post between 400 to 700 words. If you have a longer post

either cut it down or make sure every word is meaningful and offers new insight.

•  Don’t be afraid to show your personality – you can use first person when writing (I did this...) or draw from examples or stories from your life. Sound authentic and approachable; don’t sound like a marketer/sales person trying to pitch a product.

•  No pitching – the blog post is meant to be a thought-leadership piece. •  Be honest and transparent. All blog posts must be factually accurate and

all statistics and numbers should cited and supported by authoritative third party source(s). Include links to studies, etc.

•  Conclude the post with a question to your readers to provoke comments or create a call to action (linking out to an offer page) at the bottom.

•  Spell check the article prior to submitting!

Title Guidelines

•  Length: 10-12 words or less (to fit in a tweet) •  Format: Make it catchy. How to’s, questions, statistics, numbers (5 ways, 5

keys, etc.) usually do the trick. Make sure your title is clear yet enticing enough so that the reader would want to click on it and read more.

•  Keywords: Include a SEO keyword relating to your topic in headline and the intro paragraph (See following section on SEO & Linking). Example: “How Has Social Media Changed CRM”

•  Capitalization and punctuation: Capitalize every word in your title - no punctuation except colons, apostrophes, question marks and (rarely) exclamation points as punctuation affects the blog post URL and sharing capabilities.

Body Guidelines

•  Tone: Don’t be afraid to show some personality – blogs are supposed to be fun, easy to read, engaging and sometimes even provocative. Don’t sound like you are advertising/promoting our company. The more “authentic” you are, the better the conversation you will have with your readers.

•  Intro: Open your post by explaining why the audience should care about your topic (state what’s the problem you are solving). Use simple and straight-to-the-point language. Here is your chance to capture your audience and convince them to read on.

•  Format: Keep your paragraphs to 4-5 sentences. The more you break out your content in paragraphs or lists (1,2,3, or bullets) the easier it is to read/skim.

•  Length: As mentioned previously, keep your post between 400 to 700 words.

•  Pictures: The Salesforce Blog editorial mantra is ‘no picture, no blog post’. Submit at least ONE picture that would capture the audience attention; logos and spreadsheet screenshots don’t fall into this category. NOTE: image dimensions should be 300x200 pixels and make sure to source all third party/credited images in the photo caption.

SEO & Linking Guidelines

•  Keyword selection: Align your blog content with 1-2 keywords and sprinkle these keywords into your blog post, both as linked (see below) and unlinked. Keep the ‘keyword density’ (i.e., percentage of total word count) to approx 5-8%.

•  Use of keywords in titles: Title tags are one of the most important ranking signals to search engines and a key to optimizing your blog for search. Think of what readers might enter into a search engine to find the content you’re creating and include those keyword(s)/phrase(s) in the title of your blog post.

•  Linking ‘out’: Consider linking to outside resources (i.e., not from your company or salesforce.com) that are genuinely helpful and share them with your readers – the blog should be helpful and not just a promotional tool for your brand.

•  Anchor text: Anchor text is the visible text of a link, not the url itself. Be sure to limit the use of branded anchor text, and only link out to the first occurrence of the brand (e.g., “Your Company”). Linking out to the brand several times through the blog post can be perceived as ‘spammy’.

Branding Guidelines

General Branding Guidelines and Policies

Salesforce.com places a great emphasis on the trust we give our partner community and the significant role each partner plays. Salesforce.com has expended tremendous resources establishing its brand identity and the trust the public has come to associate with its various brand assets.

Members of the salesforce.com partner ecosystem are considered an extension of our trusted brand identity, and are therefore expected to respect and protect our brand assets through the manner in which they portray themselves and salesforce.com in interactions with customers, other partners and the general public. As a member of the salesforce.com partner ecosystem, therefore, you agree as follows:

•  You will read, understand and at all times comply with the Salesforce.com Branding Guidelines;

•  You will cooperate with salesforce.com to timely address violations of the Salesforce.com Branding Guidelines that salesforce.com brings to your attention;

•  You acknowledge that salesforce.com may take remedial action to address any violations of the Salesforce.com Branding Guidelines that are not timely addressed;

•  Failure by salesforce.com to bring any violation of the Salesforce.com Branding Guidelines to your attention shall not be construed as (1) authorization or permission by salesforce.com, and/or (2) a waiver of any rights of salesforce.com

Salesforce.com Corporate Branding Guidelines

•  “Salesforce.com” is our corporate name and is lower case except at the beginning of a sentence.

Ex: Salesforce.com is a company. My friend works at salesforce.com.

•  “Salesforce” is the name and trademark that refers to our entire service or overall solution—our applications plus the Salesforce Platform and/or infrastructure—and should always be capitalized.

Ex: With Salesforce, you can sell more effectively and create custom apps to fit your business.

•  “Salesforce.com,” “Salesforce,” and any associated program names, solutions, or related brands must be spelled out completely and never abbreviated or modified and otherwise used properly as trademarks, as outlined in the Salesforce.com Branding Guidelines.

Ex: DO NOT use salesforce, SFDC, salesforce dot-com, etc.

Salesforce.com Product Branding Guidelines

•  While salesforce.com offers a number of solutions and functionalities, members of the salesforce.com partner ecosystem should limit references to the salesforce.com Primary Solutions (rather than inclusive solutions) as much as practicable. The salesforce.com Primary Solutions are: Salesforce Sales Cloud®, Salesforce Service Cloud®, Salesforce Marketing Cloud™, Salesforce Platform™, Salesforce Chatter®, and Salesforce Work.com™. Please regularly visit our Product Overview page for updates. •  Ex: Salesforce Sales Cloud® not Data.com

•  Ex: Salesforce Service Cloud® not Desk.com

•  Ex: Salesforce Marketing Cloud™ not Buddy Media or Radian6

•  Ex: Salesforce Platform™ not Force.com or Heroku

•  Ex: Salesforce Work.com ™ not Rypple

Salesforce Platform Branding Guidelines

•  “Salesforce Platform” is the name and trademark for our cloud platform and cloud infrastructure and should always be capitalized. Salesforce Platform may refer to Force.com®, Heroku®, Database.com™, Site.com™, Salesforce Indentity™, AppExchange®. ISVForce®, and/or RemedyForce™

Ex: With the Salesforce Platform™, building custom apps is easier than ever.

•  “AppExchange” is the name and trademark for our cloud app marketplace; both the “a” and the “e” are always capitalized.

Ex: Salesforce AppExchange® is your best source for cloud computing applications.

Brand Family Guidelines •  Salesforce.com has expended significant resources in establishing its

Brand Families (e.g., “Force” Family, “Cloud” Family, etc.). Each Brand Family includes a number of our solutions and trademarks and have come to be associated with salesforce.com. While partners may want to include a salesforce.com Family term as part of their own branding, this may inappropriately signal an endorsement or special relationship with salesforce.com where none exists. In order to protect salesforce.com customers, other partners and the public at large from mistakenly assuming your company or solution is associated with salesforce.com, you may not use any corporate or brand name that is likely to be associated with any salesforce.com Brand Family. Please regularly visit our Trademark List for updates.

Ex: Force Family includes Salesforce, Dreamforce, Cloudforce, Developerforce, Visualforce, etc. You MAY NOT use conflicting names/brands such as Partnerforce, Actionforce, Integrationforce

Ex: Cloud Family includes Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, etc. You MAY NOT use conflicting names/brands such as Partner Cloud, Advertising Cloud, Information Cloud, etc.

Ready to blog? Contact

jburnham@salesforce.com