Why I Love Corporate Blogs (And You Should Too)
Sure, most of these corporate blogs play the PR game and would rather tell you how wonderful they are than how awful they’ve performed over time, but who cares? Do you really go to a corporate blog looking for the company to bash itself? I seriously doubt the shareholders would be too happy with that.
Instead, corporate blogs provide me with some insider knowledge into what’s really going on behind the scenes at some of these companies. And while some make the complaint that transparency is an issue and corporate blogs keep things guarded, most corporate blog posts are actually quite transparent if you read between the lines.
Is the company trying to hide something when it uses some clever
language and side steps some major issues? Is the company saying
something different than it’s writing by including some innuendos?
These are the questions you need to ask when you read a corporate blog
and generally, the answer is yes.
That said, not all corporate blogs are created equal. Zillow has a great blog and Garmin has done a fantastic job of adding some personality to an otherwise vanilla landscape. Twitter has a nicely informative blog now that it’s trying to have a dialogue with its users and explain its issues and Google is easily one of the most entertaining companies in the corporate blogging space.
These blogs, much like countless others from companies across vastly different industries, may not offer something compelling with each post and sometimes they’re nothing more than an extension of the PR team, but even the most self-adulating blogs tend to offer some entertaining and extremely informative posts that not only act as the backbone for news stories, but for shareholder consumption as well.
Who can forget Palm CEO Ed Colligan’s response to Engadget’s open letter? Who else finds value in Garmin’s answers to reader questions? How about Zillow’s celebrity listings that show you how much some of your favorite celebrities’ homes are worth?
See, it’s not that I love corporate blogs because they only talk about a company, but I love corporate blogs because they give a company some personality and they offer you some insight (no matter how guarded) into the people behind an organization that seems so cold and calculating.
Lest we forget, tech companies are moneymaking machines. Sure, some may not turn the kind of profit Microsoft does and others don’t seem to have their finger on the pulse of consumers like Apple, but each is managed by individuals with unique identities and something interesting to say – if we’ll listen.
I don’t love corporate blogs because they spread propaganda – that’s a guarantee that you should be aware of before you head to the site – or because they tend to gloss over some of the less glowing facts. I love corporate blogs because at the very least, they provide a human element to something that is devoid of emotion, understanding, and personality.
On top of that, I love corporate blogs because they’re the easiest way to file a complaint and tell more than a recording or a customer service agent that something is wrong. In a matter of seconds, you can file a complaint in the comments and if people agree, they’ll jump on the bandwagon and in one fell swoop, your singular issue becomes a major problem and someone will be forced to listen.
I understand that most people look at corporate blogs as nothing more than another propaganda machine, but I don’t. Sure, they’re inundated with useless crap from time to time, but I see them as more than a place for a company to write things about itself. Corporate blogs give you clues about the organization’s culture, its people, and why (right or wrong) most of its employees believe in what they’re doing.
And if you ask me, there’s nothing wrong with that.
