Another Indication of Blog Doom?
January 30, 2012
“Blogging Declines Across the Inc. 500” seems to be another indication that blogging equals doom. The story points out that a University of Massachusetts study “as found a huge drop in the number of companies maintaining corporate blogs over the past year.”
If you are following this alleged trend, you will enjoy the data which suggests that some companies have decided that blogging is a waste of money. Now the academic researchers don’t use phrases like “waste of money”, but the message seems to be blogs don’t deliver.
What do companies expect from Web logs? That question is not part of the study, but I think that like search engine optimization, Web logs (blogs) are expected to make revenues soar, create a flood of in-bound calls from prospects, and generally fill in the void left when direct mail lost efficacy for many organizations.
What are companies doing to make sales and build their brand? Social media is the new “silver bullet.” What companies will discover is that social media is not the answer to generating leads and closing sales. Neither blogs nor social media work the way the good old fashioned go-go days of the pre-crash era tools functioned.
Knee jerk reactions are typical in many businesses. Social media is as or more expensive than creating content for blogging. Even more interesting are issues of ownership of social media identities. A misstep in a blog can create a problem. A misstep in a social media channel can be a problem as well.
Companies looking for a way to make sales will have to do more than chase the next big thing. In our work, we think that high value information, consistent communication across multiple channels, and a findability strategy create points of engagement.
Doing one thing, like running a query on one free Web search engine, seems to work. The reality is you need to work to get value.
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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