What are the common mistakes when a company starts their own corporate/brand blog? Steve Rubel pointed out "They're using it as a place to just talk and less of a place for action." It is quite true and common.
1) Talking, talking, talking, without Listening: Let me give you an example. If you visit the official website of Korean Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Family(www.mw.go.kr), you willl notice a new section called "Open Blog for Policy Formation Process." But, by reading this, you will easily notice that it is not "OPEN" at all. The blog is used as a "megaphone", meaning they just throw 'their news' to audiences, not, use it as a conversational tool. They use a blog platform, a "NEW media", but, their mind is still in "OLD mind." This is a clear mistake when an organization launches a blog. It is different from a traditional corporate web site: it was a one-way corporate promotion tool. But, blog is a two-way street.
In a recent book "Groundswell" by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff at Forrester Research, they told the blogging should start by listening. Blogging is similar to a cocktail party, as they wrote. In a cocktail party, when we join a new group of people for conversation, we first listen what they are talking about, and then, talk our own thoughts. Same for blogging. If we launch a corporate blog for a drink, let's say, then, we need to first search what have been said in blogosphere, and then, we got to respond to them (not all, but, at least some) in posting stories in blog.
Let me give some more blogging mistakes.
2) transparency: Web 2.0 is all about transparent conversation. Flog, Fake Blog, is a good example. Walmarting Across America blog sponsored by Edelman was an example, as it turned out to be a "flog." (http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2006/10/16/edelman-rubel-respond-on-walmart-flog) Still, you can see companies pay or give products to some bloggers to review their products. Is it a right thing to do? Still, there are debates on this. But, at least, if a blogger get paid or products to review, then, the blogger should disclose the fact, and the company also should transparently communicate what they do with bloggers, in this kind of cases.
3) story, not just the list of facts: Most companies these days have their own corporate websites. But, do people visit those company websites? No. Even employees rarely visit their company websites. Why? Traditional company websites show lists of facts about their company and products. Simple facts make people boring. Homepages were not for conversation, but, rather functions as a 'web catalogue.' Blog is different. It is a conversation tool, and in a conversation, we share STORIES, not just simple facts. Digital storytelling becomes quite important in web 2.0 era for companies.
4) personality: Blog should come from a real person, like CEO or employees, not, a certain deparment (except when it is a team blog), or anonymous source. Blog is public, but, at the same time, it should be personal. People want to share conversation with real people, not organizations.
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5 comments:
Great post Hoh. There have been quite a few cases of companies paying for fake entries. I believe that there have been a few cases of tampering with Wikipedia entries as well.
An interesting blog is Amazon's Daily blog. It is linked to products sold by Amazon, but the blogs are not hosted by Amazon. I think the rest of the class would be interested to read your evaluation of this site:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/daily/ref=cm_dly_open
I think that the most interesting types of blogs involve discussion of a product between the company and customers. For me, when I make an online purchase, the most important factor in my decision (apart from price) is what other customers are saying about the product, whether it is in a very structured format such as a review system, or more loose like a blog or other forum. If a blog doesn't include feedback from customers, it has limited value to me.
I totally agree that the conversation aspect is extremely important.
Personally I rarely read blogs, but I often read news sites with user comments, and a lot of the time I only read the headline and a paragraph or two of the news item and then skip to the user comments, because that is where you find the nuances and differences in opinions that give you the whole picture, and not just the angle of the original writer.
Thanks Prof. Naveen, and Filip for the comments. 1) I didn't know about Amazon Daily, and visited it to look around. Will post another thought on this. 2) Filip, it's interesting to see news consumption behaviour differences. I guess it would be different between countries, ages, and sexes. For me, when I read news on the net, I don't pay attention to readers' comments, while I read blogs more for personal comments/thoughts of others. It would be interesting to discuss what would make that differences. Good to talk to you.
I'm more on the same line as Filip when it comes to where to get the information. The few blogs i've encountered seem to have allot of extra "fluff", whereas user comments or reviews are more concise.
The whole idea of company blogs puts me off a bit. It feels like it's just an online version of the salesman in the real store who tries to sell you stuff. Companies are not going to be objective when they speak about their products, so to me it feels like a simple spreadsheet with technical specs is enough.
I think a company website and blog uses in differently. A company website is like introduction of firm. So contents could be boring. But if the company try to sell products on web site then web site should design more atract to customer. For normal blog, a company put useful information about priducts. But I think the transaction is the keyword of blog in business.
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