Can You Manage a Corporate Blog?

…and would you want to?

Heather Green of Business Week‘s Blogspotting cites a Forrester Research report that finds corporate blogs have the lowest trust rating of any content surveyed. Green’s question: Are corporate blogs worth doing?

Harvey Schwadron, 2004.05.18, © Tribune Media Services

If your corporate blog is nothing but an extension of your marketing department, then probably not. Online readers aren’t going to come to your site to read rehashings of press releases and ads that already show up in other websites and media. Web readers (like your instructors!) want fresh, useful, authentic content.

Still, corporate blogs can build connections internally and externally. Employees from the shop floor to the board room can share ideas, frustrations, and plain old happy thoughts that spread knowledge and esprit de corps. Firms can reach out to customers and the general public to build trust and even (if you’re ready to take a big bite of the Web 2.0 enchilada) seek feedback on how to be a better company.

General Motors posts GM FastLane, which features some relatively straight talk from GM execs about what’s happening in the company, plus some even straighter talk from employees and others in the comments sections. Some particularly good posts come from GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who seems to understand how to speak authentically in the modern Web. Southwest Airlines takes a looser approach to the corporate blog with Nuts about Southwest, a blog that is open to all employees and even customers to say whatever they want about the company (almost).

Some firms create multiple blogs for different audiences. General Electric posts GE Reports to put out positive marketing stories about the company in general. GE Global Research produces From Edison’s Desk, a tech-nut’s dream, as GE researchers talk about the inventions they’re working on. (Where some blogs’ tag lists read like People headlines, the tags on From Edison’s Desk include Batteries, Ecoassessment, Holographic Data Storage, Pulsed Detonation Engine, and Superhydrophobicity. Put that in your Scrabble pipe and smoke it!) GE also dedicates a blog to its Information Management Leadership Program, “a 2-year rotational training program that allows recent college graduates to gain valuable experience in the field of information technology” (hint, undergrads!).

GE Reports catches some grief for sounding like a product of the company’s PR team, but it gets credit for opening comments to the public. GM and Southwest get kudos for similar openness. Done right—i.e., with content readers will find engaging, useful, and (the key word) authentic—a corporate blog can add value for you, your employees, and current and potential customers.

Learn more: see Josh Catone’s list of “15 Companies That Really Get Corporate Blogging.”