Whether to blog or not and exactly how to do it are big questions for many companies that have not jumped on the business blogging bandwagon yet. For companies that want to learn, there are many channels to choose from ranging from the many articles we’ve written on blog marketing and more recently, this roundup of news stories from the social web:
Blogging Becomes Mainstream – eMarketer article by Senior Analyst Paul Verna, “Blogging has become so pervasive and influential that the lines between blogging and the mainstream media have disappeared.” Data from a survey run by Technorati and Decipher.
Why Pharma Fears Social Networking – Not all indusries are keen on blogging and this article from BrandWeek explains the push behind the Pharmaceutical industry to get on board with social media.
RSS Adoption at 11% and it May Be Peaking, Forrester Says – Steve Rubel points out a Forrester report that indicates a strong growth rate of RSS adoption to date, but the future of RSS going mainstream doesn’t look as optimistic.
Blogwell: How Big Companies Use Social Media – If you’re at a big company looking for other examples of large company social media case studies and experiences, then this event October 28, 2008 from 1-5 pm at the San Jose Convention Center is for you. Companies include: Cisco, UPS, Wells Fargo, Intel, Home Depot, Graco, Walmart and many others. TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog is a sponsor of this event and will be publishing an interview with many of the speakers at this event soon.
Network Solutions Solutions Stars Video Conference – Blogging isn’t just for big companies. October, 29, 2008 – 1 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. EST. is the launch of a new series of videos and live discussions featuring 32 of the world’s leading business and marketing experts ranging from Guy Kawasaki to Chris Brogan and even TopRank Marketing, offering small business owners and entrepreneurs insight into how the Internet can benefit their business.
Social Media Strategies – There’s another event in San Francisco Oct 29-30 that brings together an impressive collection of social media marketing experts of which, many will be discussing the place of blogs in a social media strategy. TopRank Marketing is a sponsor of this event and will be posting interviews with speakers in the next week.
Thanks for this short list of corporate blogging links and trends. I’m particularly interested in the large company case studies. Even with all the great data out there it has surprised me how slow large companies have adopted blogging.
Lee — thanks for the mention. But, I am at Intel, unless of course you know something I don’t. : )
Hey Michael, that should be a good a good example for why not to blog too quickly. Fixed. 🙂
I was at a workshop the other day and the presenter said that one of the reasons the big corporations don’t embrace blogging is that they view it as an expense, when in reality it can be an asset. They don’t want to admit that their current methods of marketing and promotion aren’t the most effective, and if the put a lot of effort into blogging, it would not give them a reason to buy big ads during the super bowl and look cool in front of their colleagues.
I thought that was an interesting take on it anyway.
Corporations are missing a huge source of income when it comes to blogging. Most employees have Internet access at their work stations. An employer should pay an employee $7 for every blog article that they write that is approved and posted on the corporate blog. Employees should be given guide lines and encouraged to write an article on something they do at the company. For example, the receptionist would write an article about how to handle angry callers. The mail person would write an article about how to save money by correctly weighing mail.
The old corporate structure where the boss is the supreme “all things to all people” does not fit into this new structure that would be more empowering to employees.
I’d argue that the more successful companies DO empower employees. I agree that no one person knows enough to be all things to all people.
Blogging isn’t for everyone, but those individuals and companies with a compelling story to tell can do a lot as far as giving a corporation personality.
I’ve seen some arguments that say email subscriptions have much better staying power and more broad reception than does RSS.
The average web surfer hasn’t a clue about RSS, but they do get the idea of subscribing to website updates using their normal email.
Email is more powerful as a marketing tool than RSS and I agree, most web surfer’s don’t know what RSS is. However, many do and RSS is a great way to capture tech savvy while RSS to Email like Feedblitz is useful to capture the RSS unaware.