The newly formed Corporate Blog Council is getting slammed in the blogosphere this week. The council is a self-described “professional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging.” It includes some very large companies, although overall membership is small and skewed toward tech and media firms.
The blogosphere has been fairly merciless. Dave Taylor remarks, “My translation: ‘we’re all clueless, but don’t want anyone to realize just how unplugged our organizations have become from the world of ‘marketing 2.0’, so we created a club so our ignorance can be shielded from public eyes.’”
Scoble is skeptical, too: “I’ve done enough speaking to enough corporations now that if they don’t get why they should be talking with their customers already I don’t get how hanging out at yet another boring industry conference is going to help them to get it,” he says, pointedly.
Brian Solis says the focus on blogs shows that corporations still don’t get the concept of conversation. He asks if we’re also going to have a Viral Media Council, and a Conversation Council.
Marketing Pilgrim counts comments and finds that blogs run by the council members perform pretty dismally. She and several others point out that comments are disabled on the Blog Council’s site and that the council used a conventional press release to announce its existence.
Commenters are piling on, mostly trashing the whole Blog Council idea.
I hope the people that put their companies’ names on this initiative won’t be scared off by the thrashing they’re getting in the blogosphere. To veterans of the polite and deferential world of traditional corporate communications, this trash talk sounds juvenile and hateful, but it is really just the way people express their opinions in this medium. Conversations here are raw, blunt and sometimes offensive, but they are always genuine. You need a thick skin to play, but if you don’t take it personally, you can learn a lot.
Having worked with major corporations for many years, I’m inclined to be more generous to the Blog Council. Yes, everything the bloggers cited above have said is true, but the fact that these companies are taking action of any kind (and scheduling an event for next month, apparently) is significant. It probably took months just to get to the announcement phase.
Critics will say that that’s the problem: corporations have to water down and approve everything and that’s why they don’t get social media. That’s also true, but these companies have worked this way for a very long time. The fact that the world has changed around them in the last four years doesn’t mean they can respond in that timeframe. There are plenty of people within these companies advocating conversation marketing and meaningful change. They are being heard, but it takes a long time for voices to work their way up the hierarchy at big companies. And the people who head those companies are the least likely to understand what’s going on out there.
If the Blog Council is smart, it’ll ignore the tone and listen to the message. The blogosphere is delivering some important early feedback on the whole idea of the Blog Council. The members should listen, adjust and move incrementally forward. Bloggers can be quite blunt, but they can also be very forgiving. If the council demonstrates that it’s really serious about this venture, then the tone will turn supportive with remarkable speed.
Well said, Paul.
The “feedback” we’ve received is pretty intense, considering all we did was announce that an organization exists.
Plenty of important suggestions that we take to heart, and a ton of conspiracy theories, odd issues (our name proves that we’re evil?), and attacks on things that we never did or said we were doing.
Our purpose, in a nutshell, is to support those who advocate for blogger values and ethics inside a corporate environment. We’re here to help the good guys fight the good fight.
Andy Sernovitz
Blog Council
Hi Paul, your post sends the message that they should hear. Well done.
Andy, the announcement that an organization such as The Blog Council exists, whether downplayed or not, also sends an important message. And, since we now live in a world where content is democratized, that message is interpreted, analyzed and summarized differently across the web. Engagement helps people get it.
In the eyes of many, you did much more than announce an organization. You called attention to the fact that big companies want to help each other in the blogosphere, which is commendable and revealing in a good way. We need to remember, though, that blogging is only one piece of the puzzle. The entire premise is driven by people nowadays.
The first step in Social Media is to listen before engaging.
If we’re to measure the merits of The Blog Council on intent, then I applaud your decision to improve how companies engage with the blogosphere and the people that define it. But conversations take place in and around the blogosphere and that is why it’s called Social Media.
My only point is that in order for “good guys to fight the good fight” as you say Andy, think of it more as conversations. And when you do, you’ll see it’s much bigger than just the blogosphere, and blogger values and ethics. It’s about people and the communities where they go for information. Blogs are only representative of just one channel…This is an important point to make to all Council members because it helps them think about other ways to join the conversation using the same principles, values, and ethics you discuss in the world of blogging – it works across other forms of Social Media as well.
Brian & Paul –
Good feedback that we value.
The hard part … we tried to start a conversation. We only got to “Hello” before we were shouted down and told we had no place in the conversation. Conversations take two sides.
We’ll say hello again and start fresh.
Andy
“The first step in Social Media is to listen before engaging.”
Spot-on, 100% correct. This is good advice, Brian. In fact, I would recommend you share it with the authors of the 100+ (and counting) negative posts that our announcement generated.
Not one — not one! — e-mailed or called to ask questions or “listen” first.
That’s right. Instead of asking questions or “listening,” most bloggers criticized and called it a failure. Instead of reading the FAQ or e-mailing or calling to ask questions about intentions or future plans, the so-called “conversation” degraded into personal attacks filled with piss, vinegar, and vitriol.
As someone who has worked with Andy for a good portion of the last several years, the hate spewed toward him personally is disgusting in the extreme. There’s certainly not a lot of “listening” going on there.
If any of these “experts” were “listening”, it was to each other and the echo chamber of their own design. By now. most of the posts are quoting each other and not the site.
Let me be clear — I agree with you, Brian, that social media is about listening first. I just wish the experts in the blogosphere would follow this advice, too.
… Michael
michael@blogcouncil.org
disclaimer: I work with Andy, but these are my own opinions and words.