Corporate Blogs – Still Lightyears Behind Independent
January 13, 2011 
Author 
In Mark Schaefer recently shared a list of his opinion of the 10 best corporate blogs in the world. I Tweeted to Mark that they’re not bad, but still lightyears behind the best independent and personal blogs. Mark responded to me and asked me to flesh out that comment a bit more. So here we go.
First I think Mark and I both agree on why you should blog (or really, produce digital media with frequency to build a community – call it blogging, content marketing, whatever you want). I went back into the PR world from marketing for this exact reason – that every company is a media company and PR is the specialization that makes the most sense to lead these efforts. PR people can, naturally, create more sharable media than marketers because they have to in order to receive any coverage for clients. They have the mindset of creating ideas that are compelling first and selling second. Marketers have it flipped because of their respective histories:
- PR had to create ideas worth sharing to entice media to have interest in the story.
- Marketers had to create content that would persuade and sell – but it didn’t always have to be genuinely interesting because the world was a numbers game (consider AOL spent $300 million on direct marketing throwing as much spam as they could in the ’90s as an example).
With that said, the two specializations have reached an intersection point and need to work together. Traditionally used tactics for both are already dated. Marketing needs PR to create good content with consistency and truly flip their thinking from push to pull. But PR hasn’t previously had this type of control, their ideas historically had to within the design of others. This is where PR needs marketing – they need structure, process and analytics. And everyone needs better digital strategy. Direct selling and advertising is spam, companies need to build permission and communities.
The above sums up why corporate blogs are lightyears behind independent blogs. So few (if any) traditional companies have pivoted their marketing and PR to embrace the shift. Even less companies have truly phenomenal blogs that are on actually better than pure media plays in their categories. That is how I would define a superlative such as best, because everything is media.
Yeah I’m asking a lot aren’t I? Basically, for companies to compete against pure media. They have to: attention is finite and all media (independent, ad-based, and corporate) are in the mix together as power of distribution is democratized. Yet there are many independent blogs that are on par, in many cases even better than traditional counterparts. Businesses for the most part aren’t even close to competing with either and could learn a lot from both.
Some very few examples of companies that can also be considered tier-1 media in addition to their core business includes 37 Signals, Techdirt and SEOmoz. They have a true editorial voice and executive perspective on content. Their entire categories follow them, and those who don’t should. Their ideas are emotive, opinionated, well-researched, thoughtfully analyze the world around them (for the most part not even talking about themselves) and take a stance on issues. Again, they are extremely standout examples. And the funny thing is being this good is within your control – but almost no one is willing to follow through.
On the whole, independent blogs are not just a little, they are lightyears ahead of corporate blogs. From design, creative content, unique voice, agility, empowered community and devotion of resources. I think the resources issue is a big one: think about how much many of the brands Mark listed devote to their owned media vs. paid or placed – it’s absurdly off proportion which shows how little these brands really embrace the shift. Conversely those fully embracing an owned strategy spend a tiny fraction of funds on paid or placed because they don’t need to.
The problem is that most companies suck at embracing owned media, while it has quickly become a more potent play than paid or placed if you want consistent, organic attention. I’m not going to call out any blogs in particular in Mark’s list because my intention today isn’t to be antagonistic with specific brands about the issue. I’m just saying in the majority of content categories no one is excited to read corporate blogs ahead of specific industry trades or consumer publications. Until that’s flipped, the superlative of “best” in any sense is a bit silly. It’s like being the best junior high basketball team instead of the best NBA team.
Dayne Shuda replied | Jan 13, 2011 (45 comments)
This post hits home for me Adam. I work both in the marketing world and the personal blogging world.
I see disconnect from both sides, which makes your statement that PR and Marketing need each other even more interesting.
From my small perspective the effort by most companies for a digital strategy is minimal, but the companies that are putting even a small effort into digital strategies like blogging are light years ahead of their competition. The next step, as you allude to, is recognizing all forms of media as the competition – not just direct competition.
The analytics side of things is what’s important to the marketing decision makers. Traditional media – now spam – still pays. It’s about the profit as it should be. Until people – I suppose me included – are able to show the benefit to the bottom line of digital strategies like blogging there will be a divide.
The examples you provided help in that discussion. Not having to spend on paid or placed is a big discussion point I think.
Good stuff as always.
@mediasres replied | Jan 13, 2011 (1 comment)
Great points. I would add that makes blogs go are not only editorial voice and content – a kind of vertical expression – it is the horizontal cross-talk, the way in which content and voice are affirmed by the interaction with a community of interested others who speak on a equal footing. I think that this is one of the hardest things for corporate blogs to appreciate is that blog content cannot be read effectively as competition. The moment it starts to sound as part of competition it loses its blog-appeal.
Matt Kostan replied | Jan 13, 2011 (9 comments)
I believe the disconnect may be attributed to the lack of individual ownership of a corporate blog.
An independent blog may have writers with personalized styles that an audience can relate to, get to know and want to follow. This help build and foster a relationship.
Professional organizations and corporate blogs are typically tied up to be politically correct. No one wants individual ownership of something that may be viewed as controversial for fear of repercussion. They just don’t seem “human” enough for readers to relate to. Have you ever seen a corporate blog use words such as “yeah” and “suck”? (Adam uses both in this post)
Another example is the CMA’s blog at http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/. It’s painful to read…
My solution?
Have the corporate blog head up by a single entity with creative freedom to produce digital content that may be daring, controversial and interesting!
Dayne Shuda replied | Jan 13, 2011 (45 comments)
I agree with you on this, Matt. Ownership of the blog makes sense. Perhaps that’s why traditional media setup individual columns for their writers. It gives them a sense of ownership. And yes, ownership needs to be encouraged in the corporate world.
Mark William Schaefer replied | Jan 13, 2011 (1 comment)
Wells said Adam, and thank you. I agree with you but think you missed a few points. Perhaps i shall repond with a post about your post about my post and make everybody dizzy.
Paul Bennett replied | Feb 12, 2011 (7 comments)
Hi Adam,
I worked in the web department of a local govt organisation a few years ago and was always amused by the conversations around blogging.
The CEO or mayor would, from time to time send through a request to set up a blog. Each request was skillfully declined by my manager who (even in 2009) thought all blogs were “rubbish”. The one tactic she used to dissuade anyone interested in setting up a blog was that we’d have no control over who would comment and the mayor or CEO’s communications staff would have to spend hours dealing with rogue comments.
Blog commenters were painted out as being hairy, cave-dwelling savages who’d jump at any chance to abuse or malign anything the organisation said, or who’d personally attack the mayor or CEO with reckless abandon.
Ironically, this was an organisation that spend tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours creating media campaigns (including weekly full page spreads in a national newspaper) to “engage with the public” and then spent more money every year commissioning expensive phone and postal surveys to measure how effective this “engagement” was.
Embracing social media would have given them a simple, extremely cost-effective platform to both engage with and measure the engagement with their constituents, but this was always rejected due to the fact that they’d lack “control” over the conversation.
It saddens me now to think of how much of a positive impact opening up the organisation to communication with the public could have had, and the opportunity they lost (and seem to continue to do so) simply because one person has a misaligned, simplistic and incorrect view of social media.