The task of corporate blogging encapsulates a plethora of pitfalls. Recently, my consulting work and a number of colleagues have illustrated some of the worst problems plaguing companies who attempt to enter the world of blogging. WIth a little luck, pointing out some of these threats can help to alleviate issues for those who might attempt the endeavor in the future.
- Blogs vs. Corporate Culture
In many cases, a blog is NOT right for your company. Some companies simply don't have the flexibility to tolerate a human voice - their rigidity is a closely guarded asset and one they're unwilling or unable to loosen. In these instances, it's not wise to pursue a corporate, rigidly structured, dispassionate, impersonal blog. Instead, concentrate on your existing formal website and use other tactics to communicate. A blog's unique characteristics don't match with every organization, and it's better to recognize this than to force voice, personality and tech-savviness where it doesn't exist.
- Editorial Control Issues
A blog must have a unique, personal, compelling voice - one that evokes passion, incites connection with the readership and doesn't back down from tough issues or reek of political correctness. In this way, a blog can be thought of as a novel - when too many editors or layers of editing interfere, the qualities that made the writing worthy die out. If your company can't find someone it trusts to be both writer and content editor (the rules on editing don't necessarily apply to proofreading and fact checking), an ugly struggle between writer and editor (or, worse, editors) may severely hamper the blog's quality. - Unfamiliarity with a Blog's Structure
Blogs contain, at a minimum, several unique components that make them recognizable to web audiences as blogs. Though there's always some degree of flexibility, you should be creating easily digestable content on a semi-weekly basis that offers comments, permalinks, categories and clear information about the writer (or writers). Using blog software CMS' makes this process a bit easier, but blogs can certainly be built from the ground up and integrated into already existing platforms (SEOmoz is a perfect example). When companies mistake blogs for newsletters, bulletin-style announcements or simply a news feed, both the user and the publish suffer. - Misunderstanding Your Audience
Repeat after me - "the blog audience is not the same as your typical customer base." Blog readers are universally more tech-savvy, more passionate about your products or your organization. They're up-to-date on industry news, they almost always read other, related, blogs in your industry (which means you should be reading those, too). Blog readers are more often connectors and influencers (for those who enjoy Gladwell) and they're also likely to be highly critical of dishonesty or insincerity. - Crafting a Corporate Voice, Rather than a Personal One
I've mentioned this in several of the points above, but it's definitely worthy of its own bullet point. A blog's tone - the style in which content is crafted - can't be too impersonal or corporate-babble-y. The best blogs connect with people through their writing by creating a human bond - that's basically the entire purpose behind blogging, rather than just issuing daily press releases on a website. If you want to call it a blog, give it a voice that has the power to compel, connect and engage. - Attempting to "Sell" or "Market"
This might be the worst sin of all, simply for its popularity. I can't count the number of blogs I've seen, from companies large and small, that are basically three paragraph ads for one product or another - no voice, no humanity, no connection, and essentially a waste of time for writers and readers. Let's get this straight - blogs are NOT ad copy, and any blog written as such belongs in the same category as splogs. I'm forced to ask - why bother? - Domain & URL Issues
A great number of corporate blogs don't exist on the company's domain. Some clever SEOs think that by having a separate site, they can gain link popularity by linking to their normal domain - hint, hint, it's far better to get the value from all those external links pointing to your blog helping the credibility and global link popularity of your primary domain. Many marketing and public relations executives keep blogs on separate domains (and bury or obscure links to them on the main domain) because they're worried about the association of the blog and the corporate website. If that's a real concern for you - that your official bloggers can't be seen as part of your company's site, then you need to go back to my first rule and decide if blogging is really the right thing for your firm. Just as the link love to a blog on the proper domain will spread good things to the rest of the domain's pages, so too will the positive branding of a blog spread goodwill to an entire company (or, at the least, its website).
A corporate blog is something I've been pushing for for a long time now. There are several issues I need to tackle first.
I know the idea is sound but once i get it rolling, I need to keep the momentum up. Other wise the blog will just sit there getting out of date which is even worse than no blog at all.
I'd appreciate anyones thoughts or help.
The big thing is, as someone said recently, everyone thinks they've got something to say, until you ask them to say it.
A vast number of blogs aren't ever updated. Reason? People thought they'd have something to tell the world, and that other people would want to read it. But actually, no-one cares what you did last night, unless there's some part of it that affects them, or interests them, or that they can learn from. If you tell people about what you did last night, and how it's an example of something in action, that's fine. But there needs to be a point.
So things to take to the person you need to talk to:
1) Prove halo effect. Show how having a blog will make the company more respected, and give a better public image
2) Show how it can help make money. Make them see how it'll give you more credibility with potential clients.
3) Show good ROI. What are the costs, what are the gains. Make a good case for it.
If they say no, leave it for a while. Let it lie. Bring it back up in a few months, with examples of other people doing it, show why it works for them, and make the case again. But respect the fact that actually, it may be it's never going to happen. Some bosses just aren't going to go for this kind of thing.
Hi Pete,
Thanks for your advice. I'll follow that advice, it'll take while. But you're right ROI is the real show of effictiveness for any initiative including Blogs.
As far as having nothing to say is concerned, you may well find that people have a lot to say once they realise how satisfying blogging can be. If people are knowledgable and interested in their work, they'll find things to write about.
You'll never convince people to blog who simply hate writing, but few people don't want to let their views be known...
It took me 6 to 8 months to convince my company they needed a blog, then to actually get it implemented.
Here's what I have found:
Unless you can find someone else who may be passionate about blogging, you will have to do the bulk of the writing/editing work on your own initially.
Once other people see the success of your blog, other people will become more interested in submitting occasional content. (initially, most people will just see it as more work)
It is hard at first in this type of environment, but if you really believe in blogging, you just have to keep plugging away and accept the extra work :)
Michael Valiant
https://blog.1shoppingcart.com
(not a plug :) just want to show you I've been through it!)
Haven't really played in this field, but after being in the corporate environment, totally agree and identify with the issues and concerns, and can see how easily things spiral down the tubes.
One thing I think I would add, and in my mind it applies to any blog, corporate or otherwise, as well as websites in general... good blogs and good websites are made for the visitors, not those producing them.
My guess is that most corporate blogs fail because they aren't really made for the visitor or with the visitor in mind, which may be evidenced by all of these other points.
That's a good point. It's also probably the reason sploggers generally fail. Even though they're copying what should be quality content, the community realizes (fairly easily) that it's an exercise in opportunism. Sincerity seems to count heavily to the blogging audience.
I completely identify with this post. About a year ago, my company started a blog, and after a number of months of breaking every single rule in this post (literally, each and every rule), it was basically mothballed because, big surprise, there was no ROI. We're thinking about heading down that road again, but obviously will tread a little more cautiously, which is probably a good thing.
The biggest question that we need to answer now is whether having a corporate blog for a non-tech-savvy customer base will ever return an ROI, or at what scale. We had previously hired a copywriter that did almost nothing but write for the blog, but that proved disastrous, so I'm thinking that maybe this time it would be less of a risk to assign a number of people at the company to post once a week, or some such arrangement.
In short, though, thanks for the excellent post.
ROI is a huge question that’s going to roll downhill whenever talk about a blog comes up in a corporate environment. Here are a few of the ways I combated this: - Quality information readily available to the public shows our expert status in our industry (we’re an eCommerce ASP) and will increase our sales (although it can be difficult to measure)
- SEO, SEO, SEO, SEO, SEO, SEO… do I need to stress that again? SEO!
- Can provide another medium for (very) soft selling (and very occasional) - * note – bracketed information is kept to yourself and controlled by you in the editorial process!
- Did I mention SEO?
Interesting. Whilst I can't say that I've got too much experience with corporate blogs as it stands now, Adams are looking at implimenting one. And we've been having the same thoughts, as well as a few others...
8) Who Uses It
If you've got more than one department, who posts? Do you have one blog for each department, or lump them all together? Say you've got online and offline marketing departments. In this case, you'd probably be ok lumping all the content in together. Why? Because it's all marketing. And thus people will probably like to hear both sides of it.
If however, you've got a web department, a marketing department, an accounting department, a programing department, a sales department and a workshop department... Well, then I'd suggest you look at something else. Maybe have several blogs, and direct people to the one that they want.
Up sides - everyone is included, broader readership, more people hear about what you do. Down sides - you'll probably have one blog that actually relates to your product or service, and the others will be just information based. Nothing wrong with that per se, but you'll probably want a tie in with your company to get halo effect (where you're seen as experts who aren't selling, just giving away free advice and encouraging growth in the industry).
Or maybe have one blog, with only one or two departments contributing. Or having everyone contribute, but only when they've got something useful to say? Upsides - a rounded blog, broader audience... Similar things to above really. Downsides - some people aren't going to have anything useful to say and may feel left out. May be harder to manage, if the people who are doing what's most bloggable aren't in the office much, or are too busy...
9) When Do People Post
Do you give people half an hour a day to put up a post? Or do they need to do it off paying time (during a lunchbreak for instance)? Or will they have to do it at home? In which case, just how "corporate" is it? You need to make sure your boss is happy with you posting on company time, if that's what you're going to do.
If they aren't ok with it, then explain to them the advantages that they're getting from it (increased exposure, potentially more sales, halo effect...), and why this should come under corporate time, and you really don't want to do it at home/during lunch etc...
That's my thoughts. I could post more on this, but I want to hear other people's thoughts and experiences first.
I've been asked "should we have a blog" by a number of people and my answer is usually "yes, you definitely should!" I believe it's best to have everyone write on the one blog, even if the content ranges in its subject matter.'
To my mind, blogs should always have more than one writer. Here, we sometimes have Matt post really techy content which is very different to what Rand, Scott, Rebecca and I write. I think that's a great aspect. While some people will be more interested in some blogs and not interested in others, the diversity prevents the blog from becoming stale.
I'm not saying everyone from the guy manning the phones to the chairman of the board should be blogging away, but having a small army of bloggers pretty much guarantees that someone always has something to say.
I'd have to agree with most of your points, though maybe I could make a meta point and that is:
Do you want to sell more? Do you want to improve your image? Do you want provide information? Do you want to improve customer support? There are many purposes the corporate blog can theoretically fulfill but if they don't know what the original goal is (or don't understand the, yech, "blogosphere" enough to even know what those goals are) they'll never meet them.
To me the (high level) corporate blog is all about providing a somewhat approachable human face to a company. Suddenly complaints aren't being shuffled the circular bin (well, they probably still are, but at least you know that a human is doing it). Consider the effect Matt Cutts' (sorry Matt, I know you claim its a personal blog but really) blog has had on Google's relationship with the SEO/webmaster community. Even if he only investigates 1 in 10,000 of the things people submit/complain about it's still obvious that something has been done. You can't buy that kind of PR; sometimes one highly visible guy answering questions some of the time is far more effective (perception-wise) than a whole help desk of unempowered drones answering them all the time.
I don't mean to imply that Matt is a marketing flack, in that I get the sense he just likes blogging and what he can do with it (see? see how effective he is??). However everyone at Google would have to be blind to not see the value of what he does, ostensibly in his off hours.
I think in fact, that will be the wave of the present; we already have artificial online help personalities, perhaps the next step will be artificial bloggers. As this means of communication becomes more "owned" by people trying to manage the channel we'll probably see more and more artificial talking heads emerge.
While we have a corporate blog, we are a news site and so the journalists are responsible for the blog.
The writing style has improved and with guest bloggers coming in and helping to show by example. The pieces produced inhouse are much less editorial and much more engaging of late.
I think though that as a news site we are quite different from other corporate sites as we have several writers on staff.
We are about to do a piece on the value of SEO because a publication in the company is apparently going to come out with a negative article on the value of SEO. It's in balance at the moment - it might go negative or positive. Depends on who writes the article.
It's Dave P all over again here - now I must ready the defences!
Rand you should follow this up with "Why corp blogs succeed".
*hint*
I'll add a vote for the other side. I'd like to see the "why corporate blogs succeed" post too,
Here in Spain Corporate Blogging is a profitable business, I know a network of blogger how has found a company and had sucess doing that.
I think reasons you show in your post are referred to the method with which a Corporate Blog should be managed rather than to the objectives a Corporate Blog should have.
I suppose the main reason why a Corporate Blog fails is that its owner has no idea about Blog objectives.
Very interesting.
I write for a corporate blog https://www.ecommercepartners.net/blog/ and due to time constraints (and sometimes lack of topic) I find myself doing a little selliing, a little information/education, and a little link baiting. The selling (guilty as charged) comes mostly from a push from the higher ups to market ourselves and my need for a clever tie-in. Even with the semi-ridiculous post I did on Gmail Theater (https://www.ecommercepartners.net/blog/?cat=4), I felt the need to wrap it up with a shameless plug.
Now, with the advice from randfish and the posts from the other mozzers, I will be prepared for the next post I do.
Thanks guys, spot-on as usual.
I empathize with this Thea...
Since the Blog is generally low priority in the corp. Finding the time for quality posts regularly can be a real challenge.
I'm in the process of trying to get my university department up and blogging about our official events, rather than just sending out press releases. The main issues we are having involve trying to get things done quickly in a large organization where different keys to the marketing/IT engine are controlled by different departments. It can take a long time to get things going. We also have occasional issues where administrators and Ph.D-types want to edit the headlines and overall tone of our communications. If you thought bland corporate-speak was bad for conversions - just wait till you read web copy that was "reworked" to sound just as stiff and intimidating as an academic journal article!
I write for my company's blog, but we're an interactive company and a bit looser structurally than a standard corporation. I've talked with many of my clients about blogging. They all want to know about it -- but as soon as they ask, "should we let people comment?" I know I have a long road with them before they'll ever start talking with people.
I think it will be a while before most of corporate America is comfortable with actual conversation. PR people are just too trained to control the converstation, and corporations are very risk averse. And, frankly, don't seem to trust their employees not to sink the ship.
I think a lot of companies could benefit from a well written blog and gain not only good will but valuable customer insight.
I agree with few of the above comments that some of these issues aren't only limited to corporate blogs. I see questions raised all the time on small business forums about blogs and one common issue people have is how do they write about their products.
I'm always advising not to write specifically about the products or services of the business. That's what the sales pages are for.
At the other exteme are the questions about crafting a personal voice. I think many see this to mean they need to blog diary style about their day to day life. But the best blogs can get across personality without having to always refer to their daily lives.
I wouldn't write a post telling you I had Wheaties for breakfast, but I might write a post about something Wheaties added to the side of the box that I think will improve how many boxes of cereal they sell. By using a real life example I can get across my personality without writing a diary.
It's the way you write that personalizes a blog more so than what you write.
My philosophy has always been, 'Write about the Industry, Not the Product' and that has been pretty successful for us.
That being said, lately I have been posting more and more about our products in a 'Hey I have a sneek peak about new features and updates coming down the tubes' kind of way, and that has also been very successful.
That's exactly what I was trying to say. Thank you for saying it better than I did.
I agree that if you focus on writing about the industry and especially if you cn inject some personality into the writing then you can talk about your products sometimes.
Too much product talk will likely turn readers off, but the occasional mention should work.
The top reason I see?
Executives think blogs are discussion boards. This misguided impression leads to excitement because no work is required on their part. Just stick that blog out there and "the people" will make it a success.
If you are going to blog, commit. If you can't commit, delegate. If you cannot delegate, can I interest you in a newsroom that your PR firm can populate?
I'm trying to navigate these waters AS WE SPEAK. Passion2Publish.com is our company blog and I've been working on my posts. It's tough. I see a big bump in readers with each post, but nothing sustained..... I should ramp up my posts and keep exploring link building, it's just with the rest of my day, it invariably comes last.
I see the same thing. Even after almost a year and with the blog seeing almost as much daily traffic as our main site, it still isn't the priority.
When there's time, there's a post...
But, because I'm passionate about blogging, and really feel this is good for the company, I regularly end up blogging on my own time, from home after a long day :)
I've thought about starting a corporate blog in my company but have resisted for one main reason - that I wouldn't be given the correct level of time needed to justify its existence.
I might be making a sweeping statement here, but I feel that a large percentage of small firms (including mine) love the idea of connecting with customers on a regular basis but simply cannot devote the time and energy to create new and unique content on a regular basis.
So why not use Yahoo! pipes to create a one stop news source for your clients? It may not be you posting, but it's the next best thing.
Interesting! I've never heard of Yahoo! Pipes before. All I need now is an extra tentacle ;oP
Yahoo! Pipes is something that at the moment is almost completely wonderful. I was trying to use it to make a keyword tool earlier (by aggregating results from other tools) but it can't quite manage it yet.
Basically, YP is an RSS feed mashup tool. The UI is nice, but it's not quite as user friendly (yet) as you'd hope. You can use it to enter different feeds from different sources, and then have it output something else.
This means you can use it to do things like create a news feed, where it shows you the location of the news item, and pictures related to that (based on tagging). Or look up travel destinations, and get weather forcasts, a map with hotels, interesting things to see and local news.
It's awesomely powerful, but very new, so no-one really knows what you can and can't do yet. Play with it. It's awesome.
I hear you on this. I'm working with a small client (2 person operation) and he LOVES the idea of blogging to connect with customers and give his company a personal voice, but he just doesn't have the time. Between running a company and customer service he is just swamped.
I might just need to add, "will blog for our company" in my suite of services between marketing and SEO ....
I'm trying t push a corporate blog for ages now... to no avail... :(
Ohh man...I'm right there with you. So much resistance it's crazy.
This is oh so true!
For a start I really think corporate blogging only works in new and interesting industries (like our own!) where there are genuine and research based topics to discuss.
Readers of blogs (by their nature) usually have a good understanding of the web and can spot corporately biased post a mile away.
The important thing is to give opinion, insight and results of research and leave the readers to decide whether or not they like you and what you have to say!
The business will follow...
"For a start I really think corporate blogging only works in new and interesting industries (like our own!) where there are genuine and research based topics to discuss."
Interesting. Personally I'd disagree with this. Some examples from my personal points of view: I'm very into homeschooling, woodworking and metalwork, poi (dancing with balls of fire - google it), and music. All of which could have a good corporate blog.
For homeschooling, you could have one about homeschooling services, methods, styles, ideas, curriculae etc... For woodwork and metalwork, a toolers or merchants could have features on different styles of work, on historical styles, on different methods, different materials, ways of working and so on. You get the idea.
I don't think it has to be a new or exciting industry. Just something that people can be passionate about. If there's passion, and it's in a niche, there will be people who will want to read it.
In terms of what content it needs, again, it's down to passion, and niche. You don't need to have tests, results, and challenges. Just good, solid information that is compelling to read, that targets a niche.
Thoughts?
Point taken. I am probably biased to what I find interesting!
Im looking into "poi" as we speak - this could be for me!
Poi is awesome. I've been doing it for three years. Good to keep fit, thought you do need a fair amount of room. And there's something oddly hypnotic about watching someone do it. It's cool.
Rand, that was right on. I've been on meetings with companies that talked about starting a blog and their first question was .... "Well, how will we come up with at least 3 PR releases a week to write?".
Many companies want to start a blog but once they begin to understand that a blog is somewhat like a diary of the company, they get scared and lose interest in the idea.
This is unfortunate as there are many companies that would have a great experience and ROI if they would start sharing their innovative ideas with their consumers.
I agree. To me blogs have always been about making your business more transparent and more personal. They are a way to connect with people, whether those people are customers or potential customers or simply readers.
I think the hard part for the corporate world is many are unaccustomed to humanizing the company. It can be hard to get away from the lawyerly CYA approach to anything said publically.
I'll add one to the list.
If the company has any sort of issue adapting to change or if your feeling like the leadership doesn't get it then you might just want to leave blogging out of the conversation.
If I had a penny every time i'd heard that in my place........
100% agree here. What's worse is when your manager or director simply love the idea because they have a small understanding of how much it can help, but the CEO is 60+ years old and terrified of what may happen.
I wonder how the corporate climate will change in 40 years when these tech savy 20-something marketers are in CEO type positions.
It's funny, when you think about it, that blogging has been so successful for independent businesspeople and small businesses and yet has fallen so flat for many corporations. I think you're right; it's not the business content, per se, or even the profit-driven nature, but something about the sincerity and passion. If a blog is yet another marketing project, it's going to sound like a sales brochure, and that's not what blog readers are looking for.
My experience has definitely seen the misinterpretation angle tilt towards creating an easy-to-generate center for newsletters, press releases or the like.
I also tend to see clients try to get too involved too quickly. They want the blog to be perfect before they've even started, thus getting so involved in the process of implementation, features, planning etc that they overlook the actual communication component of it.
However that is a great point about the technological saviness of the user - I think that can often go overlooked as well. When we have a client who is interested in blogging, for whatever reason, I always start getting into their space and related verticals to try to see who the heavy hitters are that are blogging, and take regular looks at the conversations.
It's important to have one head editor running the blog who can put their foot down and not be afraid to say:
"The blog is NOT the right place to post that Press Release, and no we can't post that sales letter for your favorite affiliate program..."
It can be a constant struggle sometimes to maintain the 'voice' of your blog.
Thanks for this post, Rand. This is a very timely article. Corporate blogging can be very successful, but when all the stated factors are considered and accounted for. True, it may not be the right choice for every company. I have found though, that there are a lot of companies where it has been very successful.
Identity,
Great points...absolutely agree.