Agenda of the Corporate Blog
I got into a debate with a client recently about their corporate blog.
The client contact meritoriously defended the idea that folks who visit the corporate blog “expect to read stuff about the company.”
He isn’t wrong. Any corporate blog certainly ought to contain a hefty dose of news, information and analysis by and about the company. But does that need to be the end-all, be-all of the corporate blog? After all, it’s a blog, not a newsletter.
Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester posted on this same topic this week. He succinctly noted that a “horrible” corporate blog, “exclusively talks about the company.”
(Jeremiah made a lot of other great points, too. If the subject of “corporate blogging” is of interest to you, I’ll admit right now that you’d be even better served by hopping over to his blog immediately!)
A corporate blog is intended to highlight the human side of the company.
Humans have varied interests. When something goes wrong, they want to talk about it. If one of their competitors does something brilliant, they might want to whine about it — and exhort their corporate peers to greater heights. If an industry issue is nagging at them, they want to work through it. Yea — even in public. It’s the transparency, the humanity — the willingness to jump off the deep end every now and then — that makes a blog a compelling read.
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Todd-
I read Jerimah’s post as well as Josh Bernoff’s about this subject. The more I read it, the more it resonates with me, the more I want to be sure we’re not just another ho-hum corporate droning blog. Personally, I think it’s much more exciting to read (and write) about things that aren’t so stuck on who we are, but more about what’s going on around us.
Precisely right. Blogs are supposed to humanize a company, not advertise them.
But, it’s clearly fish-out-of-water for most corporate execs (even in small biz) to let down their guard enough in a public forum to show a three dimensional representation.
That notion of “my business life is business, and my personal life is personal” is one of the major challenges facing social media adoption mid-term. The guys writing the checks largely don’t use social media not because they don’t believe in their ability to help their companies, but because they are personally freaked out about putting themselves out there.
Great post, and a thought provoker.
j
Always good to hear you fighting the good fight. It’s tough when clients don’t understand what’s best for them. If customers really did “expect to read stuff about the company,” we wouldn’t see such low trust ratings in Bernoff’s report.
As we’ve learned through all social media avenues, a human face/voice behind the company does wonders. It can’t be a static or sometimes-updated brochure. A corporate blog should be all you listed above. It should also be organic and top-of-mind as a communication tool to engage, not sell.
Twitter Comment by @prblogs (prblogs)
PRSquared: Agenda of the Corporate Blog:
I got into a debate with a client recently about their corp.. [link to post]
– http://twitter.com/prblogs/statuses/1049703208
– Posted using Chat Catcher (http://www.chatcatcher.com/)
So…if the client can say that from having discussed content with visitors, then sure. I assume that’s not the case. Which means they’re using their blog as a microsite, not as a customer collaboration tool. How would they feel about their shiny new toy being called a tired old microsite?
Nice post Todd.
This is one of the reasons I advise corporate clients to focus on an area of the business where they a) can be comfortable with the required level of transparency and b) can find a unique/unmet information need in the market. The blog doesn’t have to be about EVERYTHING the company does. The more focused it is, the more likely it is to succeed.
Twitter Comment by @TheRecruiterGuy (TheRecruiterGuy)
RT @jowyang: @tdefren writes about the “Agenda of the Corporate Blog” [link to post]
– http://twitter.com/TheRecruiterGuy/statuses/1050215039
– Posted using Chat Catcher (http://www.chatcatcher.com/)
How about asking the blog’s readers what kind of stuff they want to read on the corporate blog?
Twitter Comment by @tylerbreed (Tyler Reed)
Nice take on the “corporate blog” by @TDefren today [link to post] Obviously of interest to me…
– http://twitter.com/tylerbreed/statuses/1050474506
– Posted using Chat Catcher (http://www.chatcatcher.com/)
i think the first step corporations need to take towards building a successful social media presence is internal. create an office culture where open dialogue is encouraged and employees feel it is okay for them to question some of the decisions being made at the top levels.
you’ll never get the transparency and openness so vital to great social media interactions when employees feel speaking their mind, whatever the medium, will get them in hot water.