There’s something personal and informal (conversational even) about a blog. That’s why most bloggers are individuals. There’s added value when the individual represents an organisation – but we still tune in to hear the individual’s voice.
Corporate blogs don’t make much sense. Whose voice are we listening to? If it’s an anonymous copywriter, then there’s something dishonest in the fiction. It it’s a senior manager, then why not name names? There are ways to aggregate individuals into a group (like Hill & Knowlton’s Collective Conversation), but in general corporate blogs don’t excite.
Yet there’s been postive commentary on a new Coca-Cola blog written by the company’s archivist. MSc Marketing students who weren’t too enthralled with my talk based on The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR might like to take a look at this. How does this blog support Coca-Cola’s brand strategy?
PR Studies 
Hi Richard,
You raise some interesting thoughts, especially as I’ve just helped my client Graco launch their corporate blog, and in doing so their parent company Newell Rubbermaid made it 10% of Fortune 500 companies now blogging (according to the Fortune 500 blog wiki).
The Graco blog is at http://blog.gracobaby.com, I invite you to take a look.
They’ve taken a group blog style and they’re one of the first corporate blogs joining the vibrant parenting space. They are a company made up of mums and dads, and they position themselves as a parenting resource (as do the hundreds of mom blogs, forums and social networks out there that draw the attention of 32 million moms online in the US last year).
The blog is one step in an overall strategy to authentically engage with the online parenting community. So far, we’ve been happy with the results, and more importantly – the brand is constantly learning from their community of customers.
The most important thing to realize – a blog is not a publishing tool, but it’s a stepping stone to conversation with your customers, stakeholders and brand ambassadors.
Hi Richard,
I hear what you’re saying, but take Coca Cola’s main rival’s Pepsi and what they did on facebook, and you start to think about if this type of promotion is respectable.
http://spoofortruth.blogspot.com/2007/12/fizzy-and-new-or-old-flat.html
This link will take you to an old post I wrote on the matter. I understand that it gives the company a 3rd dimension, but I think it’s all a bit of fun, maybe the marketing guys are getting lazy?
I don’t really understand the purpose of the blog/ facebook profile. How can it be measured?