Corporations are struggling with business blogs – at least according to a recent Forrester Research report mentioned by Ken Magill in his Direct Magazine article:
Business-to-business blogging took a nosedive this year, mainly because returns on corporate blogs haven’t matched investment, according to a recent report by Forrester Research.
However, analyst Laura Ramos, the lead author of the report, recommends businesses take a second look at corporate blogs.
“Rather than cross blogging off the marketing communications list, marketers would do better to embrace one of the four strategies prominently used by bloggers to attract readers, build conversations, and engage community members in sharing their experiences with their online peers,” said Ramos’s report, “How to Derive Value From B2B Blogging.”
Still, the number of new corporate blogs has dropped sharply in the last year and a half, according to the report, with 36 companies launching them in 2006, 19 in 2007, and just three in the first quarter of 2008, according to Forrester.
In my online marketing classes, I tell small business clients that engagement marketing is the great leveler; big businesses don’t engage well, but that small businesses do.
That’s a function of several elements, but in simplest terms, small business are often more “real” with customers. Corporations? They fall victim to their inability to escape boring, meaningless “corporatespeak.”
Indeed, Forester’s report speaks to the traits required to successfully engage customers:
Successful corporate blogs “talk openly with an authentic voice,” and are “humble and honest,” two traits that run counter to many corporate egos, said Forrester’s report.
Ouch.
Too many corporations see blogs as merely another pipeline into which they shovel PR materials, or worse – as Web-based showcases for preening executives.
The ugly truth is this: customers and prospects want useful information or thought leadership. While both are available inside your average corporation, the fear of transparency is a barrier most corporations won’t overcome.
Another trap lies hidden within the language itself; many potential contributors to corporate blogs aren’t very good writers, a fact which suggests the need for an editor.
Some organizations have shown excellent returns from blogging (like Patagonia’s Cleanest Line), and the benefits of engaging with customers (binding them to the brand via shared passions and values) are significant – and will grow more so as marketing costs rise.
The fact that growth in business blogs is slowing should provide additional fuel to those who are getting it right.
Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.
Bravo TV has ridden the reality TV wave with a long list of “reality” TV hits, including The Queer Eye For the Straight Guy, Project Runway, Top Chef and others.
“Reality” shows engage readers by offering them compelling characters struggling with real-life situations or competitive pressures (imposed by the programs themselves).
Of course, television isn’t interactive, and in an attempt to bind fans to the shows (which often suffer several months-long breaks between the broadcast of “seasons”), Bravo has embraced engagement marketing tactics; they’ve launched a long list of blogs authored by show participants and judges.
It’s an interesting engagement marketing strategy — one marred only by the poor technology behind the site.
Blogs Everywhere
As I write this, Bravo’s blog count is at 72 blogs and rising. That’s a lot of blogs, and more are added as new shows are released and others move into new seasons.
Still, participation looks good; despite the lack of truly interactive blogs (blog authors rarely respond to reader comments), the more popular posts garner several hundred comments.
Clearly, Bravo is betting heavily on blogs — which makes their flawed implementation of them all the more confusing.
Get the Technology Right
Outside of a very, very cluttered appearance and sometimes confusing user interface, Bravo TV’s blogs have a problem.
Each blog entry is broken up across several relatively short pages, so reading a single entry can involve moving through a lot of pages — and every time the page is redrawn, all reader comments are loaded again.
That means viewers with slow connections (or gasp — dialup) could wait for several hundred comments to load in order to read only a few paragraphs of an entry.
Then they’d get to do it all over again when trying to read the next few paragraphs. It’s either a horrendous oversight, or an attempt to maximize the number of pageviews (usually for advertising purposes) — a shortsighted tactic given the value of engaged fans.
Active Engagement
An e-mail to Bravo TV’s press contact went unanswered, so I can’t speak to the traffic numbers or the network’s own perception of the strategy’s success or failure.
The fact that they’re adding new blogs — and basing so much of their site’s content around them — suggests they’re still happy with the choice of blogs as tools of engagement.
It’s an exceptional engagement marketing strategy; rather than fill their site with content generated by third parties, Bravo jams their online presence with content generated by the very stars of their shows.
Judging by the response from judges and participants, the stars are seizing the opportunity to promote their own brand.
Suddenly, generating arresting content becomes a win/win situation for both network and its emerging reality stars — not to mention the fans, who gain a measure of access they don’t enjoy anywhere else.
It’s an interesting — and compelling — example of engagement marketing on a grand scale.
