SmallBusinessNewz

A big thank you to Kelly Feller who emailed me and several others at Intel this article from the Wall Street Journal, “Most Corporate Blogs Are Unimaginative Failures”. This is perfect timing as I am planning to launch a new consumer blog for Intel in the coming months. The following is a tidbit from the article:

Many businesses have launched corporate blogs in an effort to better communicate with customers and capture a little Web-2.0 mojo. But Huffington Post they ain’t: Not only are these corporate blogs boring as paint, but the businesses behind admit they don’t have much value.

The article also cites a Forrester case study which I believe to be the core problem with corporate blogging in general:

Forrester found that most B2B blogs are “dull, drab, and don’t stimulate discussion.” Seventy percent stuck to business or technical topics, 74% rarely get comments, and 56% simply regurgitated press releases or other already-public news. Not surprisingly, 53% of B2B marketers say that blogging has marginal significance or is irrelevant to their strategies—the rest call it somewhat or highly significant–and the number of new corporate blogs among the companies Forrester tracks has dropped from 36 in 2006 to just three in 2008.

I see two problems here. First is that many of these corporate blogs are using a blog as a one-way communication channel. That is, they are repurposing press releases and white papers as blog content. They are also restating the exact same technical specs that can most likely be found on the product pages of the corporate web site. They simply have a blog just because their competitors do. Nothing new, nothing real, nothing cool, nothing engaging, nothing personal.

The second problem is that many of these marketers don’t see (53% according to Forrester) the significant relevance or strategic importance of corporate blogging; and one of life’s lessons is that if you neglect something long enough it will eventually shrivel up and die.

I would argue that a corporate blog might not be the best tool to engage and converse with customers. It really depends on the level of usage and participation that your audience is engaged in with social media. See Forrester’s Social Technographics Ladder of Participation for some really helpful information.

The opportunity is clear. Josh Bancroft who also works at Intel summed it up quite well in his reply to Kelly’s email:

Blogs are at their best and most interesting when they’re conversations, and you can’t have a conversation with a corporation – only with the people in that corporation. And it’s hard for us as members of a corporation to come across as real people. That, I think, is the big problem that all corporate blogs face.

To reiterate … people cannot — I repeat — cannot relate to corporations. They can relate to people. It’s in our DNA to be social and have conversations, and love/not-so-love/dislike certain things and people; and then talk about out why they feel the way they do. It’s human nature.

So here lies the opportunity. In a recent study conducted by ExpoTV, it was found that, yes, consumers do want to “have a conversation” with a brand. The study found that:

• Consumers not only want to talk to brands, they want to establish a conversation: 55% of consumers want an ongoing dialogue with brands

In this case, an ongoing dialogue is not a press release, product specs, white papers or marketing fluff. It is a real conversation between real people. The struggle, which is something I am working on, is finding the right people internally that are passionate about the product(s) they support, passionate about “sharing their story” and that have the bandwith to contribute, even though it’s not in their job description.

Oh, and big ups to Josh for sending this resource to the Intel crew. It’s a blog post written by Dawn Foster; and she gives some great tips on corporate blogging and how to make it a success.

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