Have you been told to stop the corporate blogging project? (Image by ColinBroug via stock.xchng - http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1219058)
At many companies, if you propose a blog you will get a lot of resistance. It may come from older, senior executives who don’t read — or think they don’t — blogs. It may come from traditional marketers who don’t believe you can demonstrate ROI from a blog. It may come from lawyers who are worried about compliance issues and new risks. It may even come from some completely unexpected source. Here are some common arguments against corporate blogs, and some suggestions for countering those arguments.
“Our target audiences don’t read blogs”
That’s probably only true if you’re target audience isn’t online at all. The estimates vary, but in the U.S. tens of millions of people read blogs, with the estimates ranging from roughly 50 to 75 percent of all Internet users. Blogs are now commonly published on larger web sites for media outlets, universities, companies and other organizations that it’s unlikely that a typical Internet user doesn’t read at least from time to time.
And the numbers may even be higher than the statistics indicate. It is possible, that people read blogs and don’t realize it. Lots of news now gets published first on blogs, but I have heard even web-savvy people identify those blog posts as articles. Your target audience doesn’t read blogs? Only if they’re not online at all.
“We would be subject to comments we can’t control”
Many people in corporate environments associate blogs with unfettered criticism and comments — conversation they don’t want to publicize further. But the truth is the Internet is a bastion of free and unfettered conversation, and offline and online your organization is already subject to comments you can’t control. If you think you’re not, it probably means you’re just not aware of it. If those comments are on your blog, you can monitor what people say about you more closely. You can respond more quickly and more aggressively to correct untrue assertions and make a case for your viewpoint.
On your own blog, you also control if, when and how comments are left on your blog. While it’s not considered good form for most, some high profile bloggers have even shut off comments entirely on their sites. In many cases that’s probably not the best solution for a corporate blog, but if you get libelous, untrue or other problematic content showing up in comments, it’s easy to prevent that from showing up on your site.
“We wouldn’t have control of where the blog content ended up on the Internet”
As with comments, you already don’t have control of where your web content shows up on the Internet. Blogs are no different. The nature of information online is that it spreads. If you are publishing content that you think is worthwhile, important and relevant — why would you want to limit its spread? If you don’t want people to be familiar with your brand, to know what kind of expertise you have and to be exposed to your ideas, then you probably shouldn’t have a blog. But if you don’t want those things, you probably shouldn’t have a business, either.
“We can’t measure the ROI on a blog”
There’s an old joke in advertising: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. Trouble is, I don’t know which half.” Actually, things are a lot better now than when John Wanamaker, an early department store entrepreneur, tossed off that comment. Many big companies measure how effective and efficient their advertising, public relations and other marketing-communications efforts are (small companies should, but are often reluctant to spend a little more on measurement). Blogs are no different than any other marketing-communications tool, and you can measure the ROI on a blog just like anything else.
If you want to measure how many people you reach, track unique visitors to the blog. If you want to measure your influence in the industry, track how many people comment on your posts and share your content on other web sites. If you want to measure how a blog affects your sales, track how many people click through to your e-commerce site or how many customers cite “blog” when asked where they heard of you. If you want to do this formally (a good idea in a big organization), you might start with Katie Delahaye Paine’s excellent social media measurement checklist.
“A blog is not really the most important priority right now for the company”
The blog itself may not be a priority, but like many communications tools, a blog may be able to support whatever the company’s current priorities are. No one should start a blog just for the sake of having a blog, but tying in your blogging (and other communications activities) to overall organizational goals ought to be the first thing you do.
“Blogs are good for B2C marketing, but we’re a B2B company”
Blogs are designed for communicating to other people — period. B2B communications are aimed at real people, and there is little evidence that people buying for businesses make decisions differently than people buying for themselves. In fact, given the existence of services like business class airfare, I’d say there’s an argument that people buying for businesses are sometimes less rational than people buying for themselves. (Note — I’m in favor of business class airfare, but not because it saves anyone money. It makes business travel, which can be unpleasant, a little less arduous, and happy employees are worth a lot.)
“We don’t have the resources to create content for a blog and then spend all that time monitoring comments”
If a blog fits your communication goals, it might actually be less costly than other channels. While it takes time to run a blog, just as it takes time to run an advertising campaign, the primary cost of a blog is time. Other communications channels frequently have additional costs beyond time — advertising spend, printing, postage, etc.
If the concern is only about employee time (which is now, more than ever, in short supply), there are plenty of freelancers, consultants and agencies (like my employer) who would be happy to help.
“No one takes blogs seriously”
Really? Do people still say this? Yes, I suppose some do. Dell didn’t take a blog too seriously, until complaints about its product quality and warranty service became endemic and threatened the company’s reputation. Microsoft hired blogger Robert Scoble a few years ago, and he helped give the not-so-loved software giant a human face and an improved reputation. A few years ago Apple sued bloggers about confidential information they published. Turns out that these very large, very successful companies took bloggers very seriously. You should, too.
“We really need to be putting our efforts into Facebook, Twitter and social media”
Yes, you probably should be putting some effort into the newer social media platforms, which are becoming centers for conversation by your customers about your products and services (if not now, then eventually). But blogs were among the first of the “social media” channels, and still play a central role in many social media strategies. They allow you to publish more content, and have more control over it, than shorter-form sites such as Facebook and Twitter do. If your company is on Twitter or Facebook or other sites (or wants to be), than your company should be considering a blog as part of that strategy.
“IT can’t/won’t support a blog”
No problem. Host the blog on an outside server, with a separate domain if necessary, and hire a consultant who specializes in blogs to support it. Plus, many web hosting companies, including my hosting provider Dreamhost (affiliate link), make it easy even for people with few or no technical skills to set up a blog.
Don’t like the DIY solution? Well, why won’t IT support a blog? Chances are your IT staff support email, spreadsheets, smart phones and other applications and services. Chances are the IT staff has the skills to support a blog (whether they want to admit it or not). If IT won’t support your blog, that probably means you haven’t gotten true buy-in from all the executives you need to.
“Blogs are amateurish and embarrassing, and don’t match our brand”
Some blogs are amateurish and embarrassing, but your blog can be whatever you want to make of it. Many blogs are well designed, well written and popular; yours can be, too. All you have to do is make the effort, commit the resources and sit back and reap the rewards.
What arguments have you heard against blogs? How have you responded? Please share in the comments.
North Carolina-based PR & marketing professional who focuses on digital strategy. Also a father, wannabe novelist, amateur cook
Eight steps to launching a corporate blog
Developing the right team is an important step in launching a corporate blog (Photo by alemjusic at stock.xchng - http://www.sxc.hu/photo/693414)
A lot of what I write about here applies to individuals — individual blogs, personal branding and personal use of social media. But businesses, large and small, can also use blogs and social media to strengthen their brand, reach new customers and grow sales. And some kind of corporate or organizational blog is often an important part of the social media strategy.
So, let me suggest a few tips on ways to ensure your corporate blog is effective.
1. Get buy-in.
Make sure your executive leadership, including the corporate counsel and the CFO’s office. At large companies this process could require months. Nonetheless, getting buy-in on the benefits of having a corporate blog (and the risks, and a plan to manage the risks) is a lot easier to get ahead of the time then to ask for later.
Chances are blogging is actually not the riskiest thing your company does — far from it. But to many senior executives it may sound risky, so educating them is important.
2. Develop a strategy.
Identify your audience (investors, employees, current customers, potential customers or maybe all of these?) and get clear about what the goal of the blog is. What are you trying to achieve by having a corporate blog? Are you trying to drive leads to sales? Increase awareness? Foster conversation with key influencers (such as analysts and journalists)? Figure that out.
While you’re at it, develop some metrics to go along with your goals. Is it merely traffic, the level of interaction, or the profit from new customers?
3. Decide on the team.
Having a blog team makes it much more likely that your organizational blog will keep going, even during times when other stuff crops up and threatens to take your focus away from your blog (I speak from experience on this). Choose team members with the right skills, an interest in blogging and social media, and the ability to get the job done. Your team might include an editor/team leader, one or two contributing writers, someone from IT to help with the technical side of things and a designer to ensure the blog looks good.
4. Establish an approval process.
The quickest way to slow down posting on a blog is to have an unclear approval process. Or worse yet, no approval process at all. The first time some dumb error slips through the blog will also be the time when the CEO just happens to be reading it. You want an approval process — a system — in place, or else you run the risk of having one imposed on you.
Who on the team writes the draft of a blog post? Who edits it? Does anybody outside the blog team need to review it? If so, who sends it to that person? Do outside reviewers understand your blog deadlines?
5. Brainstorm blog post ideas.
Get your team, get your plan and go hole up in a conference room. Then come up with lots and lots of ideas for blog posts. If you want to prime the pump for this exercise, consider my post yesterday on 10 ways to generate ideas for blog posts.
You may only have to do this once, because often the act of writing a blog post results in more ideas for future posts. However, if you find your bank of blog post ideas getting a little thin, you may want to schedule a new brainstorming session periodically. Also consider the value of bringing others into these sessions — other employees, business partners and vendors, and perhaps even members of your target audience (for example, potential customers).
Once you’ve done your brainstorming session you’ll probably need to go back and winnow the list down, picking out the best, strongest ideas for blog posts. But brainstorm first; it’s easier to pull out strong ideas from a really long list produced by a good brainstorming session.
6. Create an editorial calendar.
Once you have a bunch of blog post topics, schedule them and assign them to members of your team (including yourself). Make sure everyone understands who’s writing what, who’s editing what, and when blog posts are scheduled to be published. Having a clear schedule with blog posts already plugged in ensures that you won’t be scrambling around for a post when you realize the entire blog team is going on vacation at the same time.
It’s OK to add things to the editorial calendar at the last minute, based on new announcements or developments in your company’s business. But in case you don’t have news to fuel the blog, an editorial calendar will help you keep it on track.
7. Train people on the software.
Whatever blogging software you use (I recommend WordPress, but Movable Type is also an option, and there are a host of other robust content management systems available), train your team on it. If there’s only one person on the team who knows how to actually post content, then you’re blog is going to grind to a halt whenever that person is away.
At their heart, blogs and social media are all about empowering people. So empower your team, even the blog virgins who have never used blogging software below and need some training.
8. Decide on a comments policy.
Decide on how you’ll handle comments. And in particular, decide on how you’ll handle negative comments. If your blog is at all successful, you will get negative comments. So will you publish those? If you publish them, will you respond to them? This is the hardest part for most traditional companies to figure out. Businesses are usually just not comfortable with the idea of responding to negative comments in a forum that’s visible to everyone.
But, not allowing negative comments may make your blog appear less transparent and less credible. And not responding to negative comments may allow false perceptions to take hold in your audience. Nonetheless, this is tricky for businesses. As I said in step No. 1, getting buy-in from senior executives is the most important part of this process.
There’s a lot more corporate bloggers can and should do, of course. But if you’re just launching a blog, going through these steps will give you a strong foundation for a successful blog. What are your tips for launching a corporate blog? Please share them in the comments below.