Business Blogs RIP?

Mark W. Schaefer’s post yesterday – New report suggests corporate blogging may be at saturation point– really bugged me. In a good way! Actually, the apparent demise of business blogging has been on my mind ever since, during dog walks and working out at the gym, and I’ve been struggling to find the best way to respond.

In the end I decided to abandon a hefty second comment on Mark’s blog and continue the conversation here.

The Back Story

If you haven’t got time to go back and read Mark’s post (and you should really go back and read it!), he notes that Fortune 500 companies seem to have got their head around Twitter, but really aren’t pushing business blogs to the next level.

Mark wonders if corporate blogs are falling by the wayside because companies struggle “to be responsive and authentic” when they have to get everything reviewed by the legal department.

He then posts some great questions – that I’m now going to answer:

A Blog-to-Blog Interview

Mark Schaefer: What is the role of a blog in the corporate communications structure?

Jon Buscall: I think business blogs are incredibly important to corporate communications. First and foremost, businesses should be listening to blogs! There’s been so much talk of brand monitoring with Twitter that the conversation about blogs has dropped away.

Blogs are still incredibly important to corporations because bloggers still write about what’s going on. 140 words on Twitter doesn’t give you the whole story.

Chris Brogan’s got a great post on Growing Bigger Ears. Corporates need to do that and remember that the blogosphere is still where conversations are taking place.

Blogs are also significant because they offer corporations a great way of showing who they really are, instead of just telling us.

Here in Sweden SaltÃ¥ Kvarn’s business blog shows that they really are passionate people that care about ecological food rather than just trying to brand this with advertising. I love that about them.

But business blogs aren’t just about showing who we are or what we can do; they’re incredibly important for crisis management. Sure, you can achieve similar results with Twitter and Facebook Pages, but the structure of a blog allows you more space to respond effectively.

After Southwest Airline’s handling of the “Kevin Smith debacle“, I would have got them to make much more use of their blog than they did. They could have used it to apologise, laugh at themselves for being such idiots with some cool content, and worked hard to make up some of the ground they lost. Still, the fact they had a blog allowed them to tell their side of the story. Every business needs that kind of channel.

Mark Schaefer: What are the benefits versus the cost of approvals and the time needed from executives to sponsor the work?

Jon: This is a tricky one. From what I’ve seen the more interference there is from lawyers and senior managers, the worse the blog is. It’s far better to go with a policy that outlaws harassing and name-calling in any form what so ever (email, blogs, in person, etc) because it’s not the tools that are the problem — it’s the people.

Foster a spiriting of generosity, transparency, and positivity amongst your team and your bloggers may be less snarky.

Even if you really feel you have to police your business blogger, it’s still worth it given the reach you can achieve with a blog. To speed up the process why not put your communications people on a tailor made law course!

Mark Schaefer: Just how many [business] blogs does the world need any way?

Jon: Hmm. My initial reaction was everyone! That probably says more about me than the needs of businesses, though. I need to tether my enthusiasm for the medium.

It’s just that I truly believe a weblog is a vital communication tool for business. Particularly because they are so useful for crisis management and content marketing.

Facebook Fan Pages can do a lot of what you can do with a blog but the risk with this is that Facebook may (and probably will) wither. In contrast, a blog on your own domain can build an audience for years.

It’s also easier to navigate archives with blog tools than Facebook, and reuse important information. I don’t see microblogs really being able to do that yet!

Blogging won’t work for everyone!

Of course, blogging won’t work for everyone. Especially if a business isn’t committed to online content marketing. It’s also not worth having a blog if you haven’t got a great blogger in your PR / Communications / Customer Relations department. But you can outsource – even to me, if you want

Business blogs CAN do a lot of damage to a company if the blogger is boring, doesn’t update regularly, takes the wrong kind of tone, doesn’t engage, and so on.

So to qualify my initial response, I think that every business committed to blogging (in terms of approach and resources) should be blogging. The research, thinking and creativity that goes into a good blog will at the very least be a useful resource for a business if tapped into properly.

Mark Schaefer: Does the heightened use of video and podcasting indicate companies are turning to new means of expression?

Jon: Yes, I think so. But it’s still much easier to get out your MacBook Pro and bash out five blog posts a week than make video, vlog or podcast.

I’m really getting tired of the term social media. What the new tools really allow businesses to do is communicate socially – across networks and in a variety of formats. Maybe we should be talking about the need for businesses to explore and understand what they can do with social communications: blogs, vlogs, podcasts, etc.

Finally…

Whether or not business blogs are on the wane, you can still use blogs to build communities and engage with your audience. Yes, you can do this with microblogs like Twitter or Tumblr, and Facebook Fan Pages too, but having a business blog of your own is very much about ownership. A blog is a great tool to think deep thoughts in public and invite people to respond.

What company can’t benefit from that?