Low trust for corporate blogs

The report by Forrester Research, which is based on data from Consumer Technographics, reveals that just 16pc of people who use company blogs say they trust them. In fact, trust levels for corporate blogs ranked lower than any other form of content asked about in the research, including broadcast and print media, direct mail and email from companies.

Despite this fairly negative reaction, Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff (pictured) is not recommending that companies give up on their corporate blogging ideas just yet. Instead, he says, they need to adopt a more strategic approach. “Blogs make sense if they demonstrate thought leadership; fit into a larger groundswell strategy with communities, videos, or the like; or allow PR groups to respond to groundswell threats,” he points out in the report.

“Blogs that talk mostly about your products often aren’t worth the effort,” he says. “If you’ve already created a blog like this, we recommend that you carefully measure results from that blog. Traffic is nice, but are the people visiting changing their attitudes about your company or buying your products?”

According to Bernoff, a blog that generates leads, links, positive reviews, buzz or PR is probably worth keeping. On the other hand, if it is not doing any of these things, or if it’s not possible to work out how to measure its value, it may be more effective to shut it down.

Bernoff believes that corporate blogging can work, just like any other marketing channel, but that it must be about the customer and not about the company. One of the approaches he recommends for avoiding low levels of trust is to blog about customers’ problem or something that they care about. He cites Rubbermaid, which blogs about getting organised, and Emerson Process Experts, which blogs about factory automation, as prime examples of this. “If you can bring value to your customers around their problems, they’ll remain interested in you,” he says. “Blogging about your customers’ problems makes it far more likely that bloggers in your space will link to your blog, which increases both traffic and search relevance.”

He lists a number of other ways that companies escape the ‘low-trust trap’ including: blogging to fans and enthusiasts if the product is particularly popular; blogging about issues that matter to the community, if the customers form a tight-knit group and have a lot in common; getting employees involved in the case of B2B companies; and, in media, using blogs to expand the content and the audience.

Bernoff says it is becoming ever harder but increasingly important for blogs to really stand out from the crowd. “Company blogs are in a vicious cycle now,” he says. “Those companies that selfishly blog about their products will reinforce the idea that corporate blogs can’t be trusted. This will make it even harder for new corporate bloggers to be seen as anything other than company shills.”

He believes that honest and transparent blogs will get noticed, while those who write in a corporate voice will be ignored and ineffective. “What types of blogs will consumers trust? Those that reveal some titbits about what’s going on inside the company, those that comment intelligently on customer problems and competitor products, and those that speak like people. Robert Scoble pioneered this technique at Microsoft years ago, but it’s still hard for companies to figure out. That creates an opportunity for you to stand out.”