This report from Lewis PR takes a global look at corporate blogging and has some interesting conclusions:
Less than 5% of companies worldwide have a corporate blog On individual business objectives (i.e. increasing morale or networking – no word on marketing or increasing sales) blogs score worse than traditional methods on a value-cost basis (which actually makes me wonder what people are spending on these other items – blogs are relatively inexpensive)
Lewis surveyed 300 companies in 10 different countries, and because they found such low rates of adoption, shelved plans for larger-scale research. The document also outlines their four-step approach to determining whether you should set up a corporate blog and includes a number of confusing charts and wheels.
CEO blogging is also very much on the minds of the Internet this week, with this great and insightful article from Wired (hat tip to James Koole) and news that Jonathan Schwartz thinks all CEOs should be blogging within five years. But I have a question? What if they’re boring and/or can’t write? What would be the purpose of blogging then? If he means that all CEOs will be using blogging platforms as part of their SEC disclosure requirements that would probably be a lot more accurate/realistic.
Isn’t that where people like you and me come in? Someone who understands it all is going to be needed to help these un-plugged, non-techsavvy CEO’s figure out what to do with all this stuff.
The scary thing is that a minor misstep can turn viral in a big hurry and really do some damage to the company. These days a dismissive blog post or an ill-advised forum rebuttal hits a site like Digg or Reddit, and within hours the masses have read it and made judgments about you, your business and whether to continue supporting it with their wallets.
It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and write the whole social media trend off as something for “the kids” but there’s some scary power out there on the Internets…
Maggie, you ask a very valid question: What if they’re boring and/or can’t write? Whenever I see a blanket statment: “ALL CEOs SHOULD…” I cringe. Blogging is not for every senior leader. For a passionate communicator, it can be a powerful tool in the right setting. And as your commenter James Koole notes, there are other dangers aside from boring people. An off-the-cuff comment can have serious repercussions, especially when the CEO blogger is new to the blogosphere and hasn’t yet built up some trust.
I really enjoy your blog, by the way!
Melcrum, the research organization I work for, have just released the findings of a global study into adoption of social media by large corporate and found that 55% of over 2,100 respondents worldwide had already launched or were planning to launch corporate blogs.
You can read about them on the Melcrum blog:
http://www.melcrumblog.com/2007/03/social_media_is.html