The Stanford publishing conference has a fascinating group of participants. Today I've met editors and executives from Time Out, Martha Stewart, the Univ. of CA, TruthDig, ESPN and dozens more. My speech this morning centered around how major brands like these can leverage blogging to create passionate fans and a personal face for their company. Sadly, a lot of the rules of old media still apply.
More than one discussion at lunch focused on the editorial limits of content at many of these sites. In the most extreme example, the Univ. of CA requires that any material puiblished on (or off) the web make its way through 3 unique layers of content editing before it's approved for release. Naturally, even a short paragaph can take a week to be released - this type of environment just isn't conducive to blogging.
When you think abuot what a true "blog" means, it's not about the software or the format, it's about the voice. The best blogs:
- Are a personal expression of subject matter
- Allow for a two-way conversation
- Build a connection between the readers and the blogger/company/brand
When you have layers of communication control, you're essentially shutting out all the things that make blogging valuable or worthwhile. So what's the solution?
According to my new friend Beth - "we'll just have to wait for them (the people who control corporate communication) to die."
To me, that sounds a bit morbid, a touch depressing and far too long to wait for a media revolution. Is there anything we can do to speed up the adoption of blogging from old media publishers and established brands?
I work for what many would consider an old-media publisher, although we will soon arrive at a tipping point where more than 50% of revenues are from online properties.
We are pushing hard to try and integrate UGC & interactive items on all of our sites, and aim to have at least 2 blogs on each of our "magazine" websites by the end of the year. Small fry compared to what some online only publishers are doing, but a step in the right direction.
In my experience it's not the senior management who are the blockage in getting this done, it's the people who are actually being asked to blog - the "old-media" journalists. We have to try & convince them why they should be doing it.
And that isn't always as easy as it should be (we can't say because it's the future and if you don't you'll be left behind!)
Keep outranking them. As their sites (and proffits) dip they will see the light.
In Waiting for your Cat to Bark? the authors point out that most large entities fear the consumer being in control of the information. The irony is they already are. If not on the corp's site then someone else's.
I don't know that blogs are the answer to this, but they are a step in the right direction.
the ´regulars´ and the bosses and manager avoid risks all the time. Since anything new and unknown is a potential risk (in their eyes) they will try to stick with the old familiar way. The one way to work around this, is to make the activities you want to deploy (in this case blogging) not their responsability. Make it the responsability of someone else and allow him or her to fail. This way the attention will be on the success rather than the risks of failure.. and focussing on succes is the only way to succeed..
Coincidentally, I just started reading a copy of the Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil (sp?). She's a well-known blogging consultant for a lot of top companies.
The thesis of her book seems to echo my own thoughts on blogging. If your blog has to go through a review process ... don't even bother blogging. The business bloggers who attract leagues of readers do so because they are speaking as they would in a coffee shop, not as if they were in the boardroom.
I see business blogs that just shovel in press releases and speak in the first-person plural (we, us) and I wonder ... why bother? Don't you have a website for that kind of one-way corporate messaging? It's a big missed opportunity.
Good post. Thanks Rand.
-ASG
A lot of the companies we work with have similarly tight restrictions on what goes out the door. But these companies also have 1-800 numbers, and guidelines for what can/cannot be said. Nobody waits for a week on hold (...much as it feels that way.)
Blogging is similarly "live", so why not apply those standards here?
It's just too bad that it has to be like that. I think in time all things change. I hope it's for the better.
I believe every company should have a made up character. For example a Cartoon Dog. Or even a a Masked Monarch. Comapanies should then let these charecters blog as anything they say would could be purely manufactured in such a way that suits the company without users even questioning how truthful the character is being because that it is quite obvious it is made up :D
I am one of those old farts and was division head of an agency with young turks chomping at the bit to do new things that I didn't quite understand. The old way was reliable and comfortable. The new way was risky. The last thing that I wanted was a loose cannon out there to get me in trouble. As the boss, I was responsible and accountable for anything bad that happend, I'd also get the credit if things went well. lol
To get very new ideas off of the launch pad I needed to see opportunity paired with minimal risk. In the case of words going public I had to develop a great deal of trust in the person and clearly see rich opportunity that clearly offset the risk.
If the boss will not allow blogging then you have a trust problem, which is hard to overcome - or you have some risk/rewards education to do... and I am not certain that you can make a clear case on this. I have a blog and I don't make much money at it - I do it because I like to and because I want to hold #1 in google for the KWs behind the blog... maybe that is called "branding".
But remember that the boss is the boss because he earned that position by building and protecting assets and asses. Young turks don't have such records to protect.
Here's how to succeed. Keep your ears open until the boss says something that could be superbly communicated through the blog. Then remark, if we had a blog we could get that right out to thousands of readers. If he doesn't bite the first time, wait until the second opportunity, then the third. About the forth time around it will be HIS idea and your blog will be approved.
i really like the last idea there. thanks for the advice.
That is truly insightful advice, EGOL. As usual, your experience is priceless. I think I'll have to mention this on stage tomorrow morning.
lol... glad you liked it.
It's sad, but it's totally true. That's the way corporate heirarchy works. Sometimes the new people have to work their ideas into their conversations with management in order to get management to pick up on them as their own invention, rather than a contribution of the new people.
"I am one of those old farts".
Gotta love the honesty. Just note that when you KNOW you're an old fart, you're probably not one.
I smell a primo movie opportunity here! EGOL's on the verge of retirement, only to be paired with a loose cannon (probably played by Chris Tucker)! Talk about fish out of water! Rated PG-13!
Egol, with regards to your last point, very true, but sad. It's a shame if you have to make your boss believe it was his idea in the first place to get something through. Isn't that a trust and communicatiosn issue?
Experience is priceless but so is "new" thinking...you have to take the risk to reap the benefits of blogging I think..
If it is that big of a company that blogs have to go through 3 edits, then whoever is that final editor should be writing the blog.
1. they are held responsible anyway 2. they are obviously an expert within the company/industry so they should be the ones blogging anyway (i want to hear the advice from the president, not the marketing content writer) 3. i think a blog written by the "higher up" would worth their time because that blog would become popular, quickly. (i know the presidents time is valuable.... ideally he would like to blog... i do)
It's like playing that game Telephone. By the time you get through all of the edits, a paragraph about a resume workshop being offered on campus inexplicably turns into "Elephants eat purple cheese."
Good job on your seminar today Rand!
Yes, alot of upper management types in media are deathly afraid of letting the "lunatics" i.e., users run the content. Theyre worried about users cussing and taking the site advertiser's names in vain.
And there is a foundation to the fear. The content hosts face political if not legal liability for content attributed to their site. So if youre a magazine with Advertisers A, B, and C, these advertisers are the ones keeping the lights on. And one of your blog commentators posts a rant on how these advertisers suck, your clients are likely to get really pissed off and not keep your lights on anymore.
Publishers are afraid of relinquishing control of their content to people who may not share the party line. It's why the best blogs out there are the ones written by individuals with no vested interests or overlords.
I think the overlords of most large corporations and media outlets would prefer that their corporate face be almost invisible. They would rather focus attention on the products they market than the business behind it.
Looking at media as an example, many TV and cable news outlets have prominent personalities and/or stars blogging to help promote shows. However, I think FOX News would rather people pretend it (as a business, not a channel) doesn't exist.
Unfortunately what they fail to realize here is that by having a voice to represent the views and opinions of the company (as opposed to the personalities it employs) they could help selectively distance or identify their corporate values with those of their visible talent.
In addition to the problem of "layers of communication control" I've encountered the problem of "But my brand already has champions who will defend and spread my brand online," etc. Many corporations are interested but - A. If their competitors don't do it, they think. "Why should I?" B. They've worked so hard to build their brand that they think it is foolish to "Step into the Wild Wild West of Blogging."
Sometimes I think you don't really see the power of blogging until you own one yourself and some people will never see it until "the old media mindset dies" or all of their competitors do it.
There is an additional front in the war on corporate communication control: customer reviews (or other user-generated content in general). Our company has been soliciting and capturing customer reviews on all of our products for a while now. Without any promotion, we have collected reams of valuable user generated content. The problem is, not all of it is "positive", meaning some of the customers' opinions mention problems they have had with some product lines we carry, not our individual products. We do not manufacture our products; we buy, recondition and resell others' used inventory.
What the decision makers are failing to recognize is that even though some reviews aren't 100% glowing recommendations, we're doing the customer a disservice by withholding valuable information that may help inform their purchase decision and enhance their experience on our site.
I would love to hear any success stories or examples of overcoming this in your organization.
"Is there anything we can do to speed up the adoption of blogging from old media publishers and established brands?"
Use the members of SEOmoz.org as a hiring pool!
Three layers of content editing and approval is very much a reality in many organizations. I've been subject to it before. In worst case scenarios, each authority will further obfuscate the message by translating it deeper into third-person corporate or academic doublespeak.
I don't blame powerful neophobes for seeing the blog as a live wire waiting to get stepped on, or a PR crisis waiting to blow up.
The blog is no company newsletter. It's radical, informal, fast, and it greatly empowers the consumer - a very non-corporate concept!
Some people will have to retire (or die) before it ever gets universally adopted.
And by that time, a blog could well be an ancient thing of the past.
Just three years ago I was using Internet Explorer, rocking to my Sony MiniDisc player (320 minutes of music storage, wow!) and I had never heard of a blog.
Yep, yep, and yep. Now I only use IE to double-check a client's website, my minidisc player is currently gathering dust in my office, and as for blogs? Well, you know :)
In the SOCIAL DARWINISTIC business climate that exists - everything happens for a reason - why else would the law of social inertia be broken?
There are probably files and files of horror stories - and litigation and phrases taken out of context - then made provacative and widely publicized - potentially, hurting stock. :-o
We can only see the proactive end result of their litigation fears and experiences.
Help new blood get a higher position in old media publishing companies and established brand companies. A higher concentration of "new thinkers" with the same or more technical qualifications as their predecessors will cause the corporate psychology paradigm shift. Since this is quite difficult, another solution is to overwhelm a single leader in any given industry with the corporate blog openness proposition, get them on the "new thinkers" side and do all that can be done to help them succeed. Watching their corporate blogging succeed, it will create momentum and competitors will have to jump on the bandwagon.