{"id":380,"date":"2007-12-08T06:21:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-08T13:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgillin.com\/2007\/12\/corporate-blog-council-should-swallow-hard-and-learn-from-critics.html"},"modified":"2007-12-08T06:21:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-08T13:21:00","slug":"corporate-blog-council-should-swallow-hard-and-learn-from-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/corporate-blog-council-should-swallow-hard-and-learn-from-critics\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Blog Council should swallow hard and learn from critics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The newly formed Corporate Blog Council<\/a> is getting slammed in the blogosphere this week. The council is a self-described \u201cprofessional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging.\u201d It includes some very large companies, although overall membership is small and skewed toward tech and media firms. <\/p>\n

The blogosphere has been fairly merciless. Dave Taylor remarks<\/a>, \u201cMy translation: \u2018we’re all clueless, but don’t want anyone to realize just how unplugged our organizations have become from the world of \u2018marketing 2.0\u2019, so we created a club so our ignorance can be shielded from public eyes.\u2019”<\/p>\n

Scoble is skeptical, too<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019ve done enough speaking to enough corporations now that if they don\u2019t get why they should be talking with their customers already I don\u2019t get how hanging out at yet another boring industry conference is going to help them to get it,\u201d he says, pointedly.<\/p>\n

Brian Solis<\/a> says the focus on blogs shows that corporations still don\u2019t get the concept of conversation. He asks if we\u2019re also going to have a Viral Media Council, and a Conversation Council. <\/p>\n

Marketing Pilgrim counts comments<\/a> 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\u2019s site and that the council used a conventional press release to announce its existence.<\/p>\n

Commenters are piling on, mostly trashing the whole Blog Council idea.<\/p>\n

I hope the people that put their companies\u2019 names on this initiative won\u2019t be scared off by the thrashing they\u2019re 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\u2019t take it personally, you can learn a lot.<\/p>\n

Having worked with major corporations for many years, I\u2019m 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. <\/p>\n

Critics will say that that\u2019s the problem: corporations have to water down and approve everything and that\u2019s why they don\u2019t get social media. That\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019s going on out there. <\/p>\n

If the Blog Council is smart, it\u2019ll 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. <\/span>Bloggers can be quite blunt, but they can also be very forgiving. If the council demonstrates that it\u2019s really serious about this venture, then the tone will turn supportive with remarkable speed.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The newly formed Corporate Blog Council is getting slammed in the blogosphere this week. The council is a self-described \u201cprofessional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging.\u201d It includes some very large companies, although … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[5,8,18],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-68","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}