Business Blogging Gains More Visibility

Investors Business Daily is the latest mainstream publication to notice the corporate blogging trend, and brings us the same editorial vision that spent the whole of the Internet boom screaming about impending doom. They start with a reasonable statement:

Proponents of blogs say the medium is an unmatched tool for getting your message to customers. That includes reaching existing customers, prospective customers and ones that might be under the radar.

But then they jump into lazy, thoughtless sensationalism.

But with these opportunities come risks. Unlike a company Web page or press release, which is usually carefully vetted before it is posted, blogging is more of a spontaneous action. Blogs allow instantaneous posting by anyone with password access to a firm's authoring software. Plus most blog postings are quick and short. They aren't typically written with a lot of reflection or caution.

In many ways, blog postings resemble e-mails. But with e-mail, the message goes to a specific group of recipients -- though it can always be forwarded endlessly. With a blog, an inappropriate posting could do more damage.

Post an entry about the attractiveness of the new assistant or whether the company might go public, and it's there for the whole world to see.

While blogs do provide a great way to say stupid things in a very public way, defining spontaneity as the key attribute of blog posts is wrong. I think informality is the key, which is something different altogether.

Blogs give companies a chance to talk about their products and services, and areas of interest and expertise, in a human voice that has been ruled out of most other forms of corporate communications. This is why they're resonating with people - both consumers (no I don't hate that word) and marketers (though I do hate that one).

And just for good measure, IBD includes a completely impossible statistic, but at least they don't even claim that it's true:

There are no exact figures on how many companies are blogging these days. But it's estimated that around 45% of the largest 1,000 publicly held companies in North America have blogs or plan to start them sometime this year.

Posted by Craig Danuloff at April 17, 2005 11:15 AM