Seventy four percent doubt the credibility of blogs for brand building, yet Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, says that it attributes the revitalisation of the brand to its blogging.
Seventy percent doubt a corporate blog can be a sales or lead generation tool, although the Stormhoek Wines blog doubled their sales in less than 12 months.
"The culture of blogging places a high value on communiqués that are honest, spontaneous, provocative and sometimes shocking, in contrast to the controlled communications of business," says Robbin Goodman, EVP and partner at Makovsky & Company. "There is a learning curve that needs to take place."
Never a truer word spoken. Even with all the positive coverage in the mainstream media about blogging, there is still huge corporate discomfort with the idea of speaking from the heart. If they have skeletons in the closet, I guess it's understandable, but even the most ethical and innovative companies who find it hard to let go of the 'messaging' and 'spin' and just talk to their customers. But those that do win hands down. Take a look at the Customer Made trend. This can't be done if you're not actually talking to your customers.
Perhaps it's time to take another look at the idea starting a corporate blog.
Sally Falkow, President of Expansion Plus, an Internet marketing and PR firm based in Los Angeles, CA, will be in South Africa in June to conduct a one day seminar on search engines optimisation, online advertising, corporate blogging, podcasting and RSS Feeds.
