With apologies to the couple of corporate blogs I do read, corporate blogs suck. I am talking about the SEO fodder, copywriter driven, press release whoring and/or link bait attracting garbage that are corporate blogs today.
I’ll read a lot of lousy blogs and standalone articles but I won’t read your company’s blog because even a guy who consumes as much useless information as I do can’t stand it.
You know why most company blogs just fail outright? They think people are interested in the information they have and they just need a better way to broadcast the information. If that was the problem, corporate blogging today would be great (well, an e-mail list would be better but you get the point).
That’s not what people are looking for out of a blog. Especially not a corporate blog. If you want to do that, you should rename your blog “Announcements” and just leave it at that.
Corporate blogs shouldn’t be about communicating a message or a brand, they should be about connecting with people.
That’s the difference between the few corporate blogs I will follow and all of the other garbage that is out there. The people that write great corporate blogs write as human beings with the purpose of connecting with other human beings. That means injecting self, opinion, personality and all of those other things that companies hate.
These people aren’t always the greatest writers or the best connected but they are good people. Those are the people in my industry that I want to connect with. The same goes for any technology (like Twitter for instance). People want to connect with people.
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April 6, 2010 at 9:52 am
A-freaking-men. Real estate is about location, location, location. Social media (blogging, Twitter, etc.) is about people, people, people.
Help people 90% of the time. Promote yourself 10% of the time. It’s a cool strategy and works pretty well (as long as it isn’t forced and stuffy).
Great post!
April 7, 2010 at 3:53 pm
I like that ratio Ben. Thanks for the comment!
April 6, 2010 at 10:11 am
BLAST! I was so hoping you read our blog. It’s totally okay though – one day! One day you will check it biweekly. Yup – I’m making it a goal.
Would you be willing to share a corporate blog you do follow?
Ben – 90/10 – I like it!
April 7, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Honestly, your blog isn’t bad. Especially as far as HCM vendors are concerned. My biggest complaint is that it is impossible to find from your homepage.
April 7, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Ooooh – thanks for the tip Lance! I’ll be working on the blog/homepage thing!
April 6, 2010 at 10:30 am
Hell yes! The real question: What are the corporate blogs that you actually read?
April 7, 2010 at 3:58 pm
I am going to put together a post that will have a couple of my favorites.
April 6, 2010 at 11:01 am
Hey Lance, can you give a few examples of great corporate blogs? I’d love to learn from the best.
April 7, 2010 at 9:37 am
Hey Breanne-
I know you didn’t ask me specifically, but I wanted to call out Rubbermaid’s blog (I have no professional or personal connection to them) as a great example of what a corporate blog could and should be. It’s relevant, friendly, insightful and valuable to its core audience.
April 6, 2010 at 3:16 pm
CHICAGO 2010—Jason Seiden, the leading voice saying screw it in the face of fear and risk, commented on Lance Haun’s blog today to express his appreciation for Haun’s recent contribution to the blogosphere.
Seiden spent 4 minutes reading Lance Haun’s blog Rehaul (http://rehaul.com) near the end of his day, particularly enjoying Haun’s recent post about crappy corporate blogs. Many of them “fail outright” and are “garbage,” wrote Haun, using language that Seiden could relate to.
“It seems he’s saying many corporate blogs are glorified distribution channels for boring-ass press release content,” interpreted Seiden.
Continuing, he said, “Rehaul is important because gives me a sense of what the Pacific Northwest Millennial HR demographic is thinking.”
Seiden considered sending a private email to Lance before he remembered that real bloggers, including Lance, receive automatic notifications of comments left on their blogs, and decided that a private note would be redundant.
“Not knowing how young professionals roll today is a sure way to fail,” said Seiden. He knows. He wrote the book on failure.
Writes it every day, actually.
For more crap no one cares about, call someone you love. They’ll appreciate hearing from you.
###
April 7, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Wow. There are no words Jason. I love it.
April 6, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Wow. I mean wow! Great post Lance and I couldn’t agree more. (Of course, I have the unenviable honor of following Seiden’s faux press announcement comment, which makes his superstructure of wit trump my pedantic little house of comment Legos by a thousandfold.)
April 7, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Nice illustration (pedantic hose of comment Legos).
April 6, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Right on. Wait, press release whoring?
April 7, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Haha. I didn’t know how well that would come off. My feeling is that press releases are for journalists who want to write a story. Most of them aren’t written in an audience engaging manner so posting them on a blog is just…dumb. If you want to build a post off a press release, that is fine. But the faux quotes and the bravado that goes with it? Ugh.
April 6, 2010 at 6:29 pm
You’re such a press release whore, Lance. You know it.
April 7, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Get out of here!
April 6, 2010 at 6:37 pm
I totally get it! Blogs were meant to be genuine and human…not necessarily systematic..well, that’s at least how I try to carry out my own blog.
Thanks for putting into words what several of us were thinking.
April 7, 2010 at 4:34 am
Very well said, Lance. I have a feeling I’ll be quoting two of your statements to clients for a long time to come: “Corporate blogs shouldn’t be about communicating a message or a brand, they should be about connecting with people,” and “The people that write great corporate blogs write as human beings with the purpose of connecting with other human beings. That means injecting self, opinion, personality and all of those other things that companies hate. to clients many times.” I couldn’t have said it better myself… but I wish I had!
April 7, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Feel free to do so.
I feel bad for companies that discredit social media and blogging because their own blogging and social media initiatives are terrible.
April 7, 2010 at 9:39 am
As social webs expand, quality content becomes less dense and harder to find. I totally agree that more corporate AND personal blogs are bringing the suckage harder than ever. However, I see certain companies and people at least doing certain things correctly. A place like Veritas has put out tons of really great content, but their website sucks and is really boring. It’s almost a waste, but I still read their blogs whenever I see them come through BC. I think corps are just too damn afraid to take risk when entering the blogging realm and to be quite honest… it’s lame. It makes me not want to work for companies who don’t have enough balls to try something new.
April 7, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Uh yeah, personal blogs have been bringing the suck for a long time. That’s another subject altogether!
Risk is the major factor in play. That’s why it is easier to hire a copywriter to punch out cookie cutter articles about “The Five Best Ways…”, “The Top 10…”, “Be More Productive…”
You’ve read them, I’ve read them. It’s predictable, it’s boring. Companies that are taking risks are getting rewarded.
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