Corporate Blogging. Part 1

I’m going to attend a corporate blogging presentation/dinner tonight, and thought that I’d share my ideas about corporate blogging pre-event and then do a recap after the event.

Here’s how I feel about corporate blogging now:

1. Blogging won’t work for most companies.

Most companies that choose to blog will do it incorrectly. Blogging incorrectly for a corporate blog means making your corporate blog little more than another place to dump your press releases. There has to be some value added. I imagine many of the companies that blog will try it (incorrectly) not have any success and then say that blogging is just hype and doesn’t actually work.

2. Corporate blogs will be overly cautious and underly (that can’t be a word) valuable.

The secret to success of blogs is that they start conversations. Too many Corporations seem to fear conversation - they don’t want to just let people say stuff, what if they say something bad? Unfortunately, if you don’t let the conversation take place your blog falls into the ‘just another place to dump press releases’ category and no one will read it. This level of caution leads to only safe topics being addressed and in the end nothing is gained.

3. Listening to other bloggers is more important than what your own blog says

I cannot stress this point enough. Reading a blog by someone within a company is probably going to be borring, dull, safe material. Others will not hold back in what they say about your or your company. These are the posts to embrace. By addessing a blogger on their blog you will 1) make them feel special and 2) find out where your problems are and perhaps how to coreect them.

4. Most companies will miss out on the fact that blogs are supposed to be interactive.

Again, if you don’t let them talk you’re just pushing more content without the value added of customer input.

5. The best corporate blogs will rarely mention the company to which they belong, instead they will offer insight into the industry as a whole.

Companies are supposed to help people aren’t they? Every succesful company can say we help people do X… even if that X is “look good.” So tell people how it is that they can better do X on their own, and when the time comes for them to buy something to help them do X, you can be sure that they will go to the company that has always been there helping them.

Recap: Listen, take risks, and above all provide some type of value.

- J.D. Amer