Blogging is getting great buzz right now. Has for months.

But look around, and see if you can find any good examples of blogs being used by businesses to market and sell products and services to mass audiences. They just don’t exist.

For years we’ve heard major corporations talk about studying the use of blogging. In the meantime they have begun using podcasting, and expanded online advertising efforts, but blogging remains an item to study, not deploy. According to an April, 2006 study by SocialText, only 5.8% of Fortune 500 companies have public blogs and a miniscule 1.5% of the Forbes 200 Best Small Companies have public blogs.

Why has blogging caught fire with the Internet community but not with businesses? Easy, it’s simply not worth the effort.

Blogs work famously for a few things, chiefly among them letting one person or a small group of individuals speak out on a focused subject. Sports groups and sports news agencies have really taken to blogging because the subject is narrowly focused and the audience is limited. In fact, news organizations in general have begun to use blogs to give users a way to “talk back” about current events or to give writers and editors a way to dialog informally with their readers or listeners.

Chief among the many reasons that blogs haven’t caught on with businesses is the reason they have become so popular with millions — they are fundamentally free and unbridled.

Few companies or company leaders have the time, patience or unlimited legal counsel to man a wide open blog. It’s just too much work for the gain. In Dallas, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Dalls Cowboy turned successful businessman Roger Staubach are the exceptions. Both use blogs in very different ways, but they are among the few that use blogging at all.

Online news media have begun to use blogging as a quick way for readers to respond to breaking news or controversial events. Article related blogs can be deployed fast, are safe and controllable and can be created and managed by non-techies.

Training and customer support teams have also found a good home for blogs.

Today, less than 15% of all major corporations say they are looking into using blogs for marketing. That’s not an overwhelming vote of confidence.

Now, don’t read this to mean that blogs are not useful, they are. Just be clear about they can and can’t do.

For smaller, like-minded audiences, blogging works great. For specific topics like training and product support, blogging is also useful.

If we can help you determine how blogging, podcasting, or any other of the interactive communications tools and techniques can benefit your organization, give us a call.

Steve Lee
QuickSilver Interactive Group, Inc.
214-999-0301 ext. 20
slee@qsigroup.com