Corporate Blogs: the Realities and Purpose
A business acquaintance was telling me that he hoped his company might emulate the style of Dell Computer’s corporate blog. Not wanting to throw cold water on his hopes, I kept silent. But Dell’s blog is not my concept of a contemporary transparent and open interface with customers. Rather, it is more focused on product promotion, chockful of predictable corporate hype and jargon. Example - “Providing Mission Critical Assistance to ProSupport Customers …” That’s self-aggrandizing ad copy, and simply not believable or credible.
Here’s a clue that Dell’s blog is not engendering great support - the miniscule number of comments. Corporate blogs that are successful focus on creating a transparent, interactive online environment. Dell, on the other hand, appears to be using its blog as another advertising platform to push corporate sales fluff.
Here are eight tips to successful corporate blogs:
- Ask “why” - Why do you want to have a corporate blog? What’s the real purpose, the objective? If it’s to sell, advertise or overtly promote, go buy an ad. The objective of a CEO or corporate blog should be to engage customers/clients in an online discussion, no-holds-barred. If a company has a damaged brand image or reputation, a corporate blog is a good way to give unhappy customers a voice and hopefully win new friends.
- Post often - get to the point - be brief - invite comments. No one will bother to read long-winded corporate jabber. Make it clear that you want to hear what people really think, especially if they don’t agree.
- Develop a thick skin. If a corporate blog is genuinely successful, it needs to be a forum for anyone to express any opinion about the company, profanity excluded.
- Be responsive. A key is to engage customers in a conversation in the Comment section of a blog posting. Actively converse. Praise an open discussion. Deliver solutions that make them happy.
- Develop a personality. It’s okay for a group of professionals or corporate leaders to collaborate on a blog but show their pictures and a little about them on a page of the blog.
- Create a scorecard. Use the blog to measure improvement in corporate image. Develop a simple method for customers to grade how good you are at responsiveness and finding quick solutions.
- Few CEOs have any business having a blog. In my opinion, if a CEO has time to actively blog, he or she is not spending enough time doing their job. Besides, in most cases, the CEO is not the person who is really maintaining the CEO blog, and, guess what? We all know that, and it detracts from credibility.
- Promote a corporate blog only AFTER it starts building traction and a following, not before.
About the Author: David is a veteran communications strategist ... writer ... blogger ... online publisher ... and Emmy Award winning former CBS Network News correspondent. He lives in Washington, D. C., area and works worldwide.
Lionel Menchaca | Jun 20, 2008 | Reply
David: I appreciate your perspective and will spend some time looking at Outpost Worldwide to learn how we can improve overall.
I also couldn’t agree more about the # of comments being a key indicator since good blogs should be about conversations.
That said, I would encourage you to dig a little deeper. While I know we can continue to improve, our candor and transparency is part of the reason we’ve received recognition overall. We’ve used the blog to have some tough discussions about product issues that affect our customers. And lots of those posts have many comments. Some, even thousands. For examples of the kind of posts I’m talking about, take a look at the What You Need to Know category: http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/tags/What+You+Need+To+Know/default.aspx
As far as content, I try to balance it between three things 1) Content ideas from Dell bloggers 2) Blog posts dictated by comments from Direct2Dell readers and 3) Content that is driven by the what we’re hearing from our customers online outside of Dell. No question #2 and #3 should be the emphasis, and that sometimes I’m off on that balance.
Thanks,
Lionel Menchaca
Chief Blogger, Dell Inc.
[Reply]
David Henderson | Jun 20, 2008 | Reply
Lionel,
Sincerest thanks for your comments. Much appreciated. I applaud what Dell is doing with its blog but I would disagree with you about digger deeper. Quite the contrary, the company’s work at candor and transparency should immediately shine forth to any visitor.
That said … keep up the good work. The fact that you are working on these issues says a lot.
David
[Reply]
Chris Baggott | Jun 26, 2008 | Reply
I think one needs to consider the overall realistic goals of Corporate Blogging. It’s one thing to be a giant brand, but what are the right strategies for the other 20 million U.S. Businesses that are not in the fortune 500.
Business need to have measurable and achievable goals for every activity they engage in. We encourage our clients to focus first on search engine optimization, new visitors and engagement.
Blogs (yes for the most part it’s never a good idea to only have one) should have the same responsibility as any other web page. Pull visitors and hopefully convert them to the next step in the relationship.
Blogs are perfect in this role when you engage your employees and focus blog topics on the keywords that drive your business.
Richard Edelman says that employee bloggers are 5 times more credible than C-level bloggers.
And don’t use ‘traction’ as a benchmark. Most Corporate Blog visitors will never be back. With all due respect to Dell…why would I ‘follow’ a Dell blog as a normal person? I have a problem or a need, I make my search using any of thousands of possible keyword phrases.
hopefully I hit a blog post that matches my search intent, written by a great, passionate and smart employee that compels me to take the next step in the relationship. But I’m not subscribing…like any page, you have one shot to get me to the next step.
Best,
Chris Baggott
CEO
Compendium Blogware
http://www.compendiumblogware.com
[Reply]
David Henderson | Jun 29, 2008 | Reply
Chris,
Excellent perspective! You Edelman-blog example is right on the money. Thank you.
David
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