Blogging with Corporations

The newest blog on e-marketer describes the trend of corporate America using blogs to communicate.  Originally blogging was looked down on by journalists, but now any publication that has an internet site has a blog with all their writers.  Blogging is becoming the future of journalism and more and more people are following blogs, while printed editorials following declines at a parallel rate.  The article estimates that 43% of firms will use blogs for marketing purposes by 2012 and currently 34% are.  That's a large increase in a short period of time, and considering that blogs have been around for a decade, this seems to be the wakening for blogs.  It has a focus on lead generation, brand marketing and of course the details of that corporate culture. 

Blogging has had a recent spike in popularity over the last 5 years, but not even nearly as drastic as other social media networks. (Facebook, Twitter) However the beauty of blogging is that it's both uncensored and uncut. As a blogger you don't fall prey to corporate rules or need to worry about it being restricted to a certain space. However blogger beware, this doesn't mean you have free reign on your corporate site.  One third of researchers, 'dig' into corporate blogs for information.  Also it should be said that anything you post on a corporate site reflects not only the company, but it's shareholders as well. 

Marketers alike need to take heed of many warning signs of failed upcoming tools (like the dot.com bust) and use blogging responsibly.  It only takes a few months of over saturation and user disinterest for this new marketing 'midis' to bust.   Tread carefully because if there's one thing that consumers won't tolerate long it's spam and annoyances.  So these corporate blogs can be very effective, but if they get followers they have to be respectful and tread lightly, for they tread on consumers fury.  It takes one wrong message sent or post to send your blog following down the drain, and good luck advertising to 20 people.  It also is worth noting that new markets will arise and blogging will fall victim to other social media, just like it did to Facebook and Twitter.  Technology is a hard market and they key to success is to be always evolving and changing. Staying idle is the same as sitting down in the middle of the freeway.  (It's technological suicide.) Once you have followers on your corporate blog, the advertising can be cleverly inserted throughout and ion the side of your blog. You can also add links all over your blog, but once again over saturation will drive the consumers away. However if your a great marketer, than you get people to want something they never knew they wanted. Like I tell my wife, she's the woman I never knew I always dreamed of. To be more practical Steve Jobs said on his apple blog, “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”