Blogging in the Corporate World
In my inbox today, I saw a MediaPost article titled, “Execs Mull Pitfalls Of Corporate Blogs.” It stemmed from the author attending a panel at OMMA Hollywood in which the participants discussed blogging as the new CRM. The topic – corporate blogging – might not have the Tech 2.0 appeal of podcasting or building buzz in the video sharing world, but it can, and in some ways already does, impact your business. This series of articles address blogging in the corporate realm, and in particular, look at two very different, but equally important, areas of corporate blogging – the company blog and employees who blog. The basis of this text comes from a workshop I did on “Harnessing the Blogoshphere: Corporate Blogs and Employee Bloggers.”
Blogs did not become so popular or so powerful because of the technology behind them. Their real innovation was standardizing personal expression. This fueled, initially, their widespread adoption by users, but we’ve reached a point where blogs have proven themselves as no longer just a tool for citizen journalists. They are for companies too and they offer more than the ability to connect to current and potential customers. Blogs provide a means for thought leadership and market dominance. Your customers are already shaping the perception of your brand online; blogging provides you a chance to join and shape the conversation in a quick, inexpensive, and accepted manner. With respect to reaching and influencing your audience, blogs carry another benefit. They come pre-wired for one of the more important innovations in this Web 2.0 era, syndication. With syndication (RSS) users can automatically receive your updates in a 100% spam free manner, one that won’t clutter their inboxes.
Before we dive into the topic of company blogs – who does it and how – it’s worth mentioning why this article distinguishes between company blogs and employees who blog. They are at their core very different animals and must be treated separately. A company blog is a controlled environment, the official say of the company; an employee blog on the other hand is more like peer-to-peer software; it’s a decentralized and distributed means for the company to achieve thought leadership. Both the company blog and employee’s blogs can, and do, exist independent of one another; and, engaging the blogosphere does not mean choosing between the two. It means understanding each because while it seems best to control what gets said, the world does not work that way. The rules of blogging existed before the companies that may choose to join the dialogue, and to be respected means to observe them.
So, which corporations can count themselves among the bloggers? The answer is more than it might seem. From Google to Wal-Mart, companies new and old have a corporate blog. We almost expect the five person Web 2.0 company to blog, but today you will see the fifty-thousand person one doing it as well. While company blogs have gained in popularity and use, not all companies have or will adopt them. GE, Citibank, and even the movie studios do not have a public facing blog. McDonalds and several other Fortune 500 companies have blogs that act like intranets but have yet to create one for the general populace to consume.
Of the company blogs in existence, they appear to fall into three categories – 1) a main company blog, 2) a product specific blog, and 3) unofficial company blogs. Main company blogs can be built on internal or external technology (e.g. WordPress, iUpload). The URL that the blog resides on does not matter – it can be blog.companyname.com, companynameblog.com, or even somethingunrelated.com. Regardless of the technology and the URL, a company blog is not for the thin-skinned. Once you become part of the broader context, you will most likely attract criticism along with praise, and there is nothing you could or should try to do about it. Here are two screenshots of company blogs, each of which represents their brand well.
Picture 1: Google and Wal-Mart Company Blog
Product Blogs are the second type of company blog. They are not for the blogging beginner as each only increases the amount of overhead. They can help companies who have diverse product lines, each with a distinct customer base. Google is a great example. They have product blogs for almost everything they make, and for many it makes sense. Those who have an interest in their AdWords API most likely differ from those wanting to know more about the Google Reader or Blogger. They have so many products, many so different, that trying to cover them all on their main company blog would most likely satisfy the needs of none. Yahoo, too, uses product blogs, and only product blogs. They have YSearchblog.com and YMusicblog.com but no main company blog. Overall, use product blogs when needing to speak to different audiences in a focused and substantive manner.
Picture 2: Example Product Blog (Logos) from Google and Yahoo
The third implementation of the company blog comes not from the company but from fans, critics, even ex-employees. These blogs fall into the unofficial company blog category. These blogs discuss rumors, news, product updates, and whatever else they can find. Don’t expect company blogs for every company. Only the larger companies will tend to have them created. Examples include the Google Rumors Blog, Google Earth Blog, Wake-Up Wal-Mart, The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW), and Wal-Mart Watch Blog. Companies should not see the unofficial blogs as a threat but a chance to understand their audience. Netflix is one company that understood this as seen through their treatment of the unofficial site, Hacking Netflix. The blog’s name is anything but an inspiring name for a blog, conjuring up ideas of a site dedicated to ripping off the company; yet, as reported by the site’s founder, "“When I first contacted them two years ago they really didn’t know what to do with me, but they’ve since been very accommodating to my requests for information and accuracy and have never asked me to pull a story from the site.” Notice that Netflix has been “accommodating” and “never asked…to pull a story.”
Picture 3: Screenshots of Unofficial Blogs
Our discussion on blogs in the corporate world, specifically company blogs continues with Part 2 located here. It contains the Pros and Cons of having a blog, Best Practices, Key Takeaways, and helps outline if having a company blog is right for you.
