Why you should rethink your corporate blogging: be a parasite by commenting on blogs instead

In corporate blogs they don’t trust

According to Forrester Research Corporate blogging is ranking at the bottom of trustworthiness.
People just don’t trust company blogs states Josh Bernoff after his research as only 16% of those who read them trust them.
You can download the report here (registration required).

AttentionMax is the opinion that Forrester has it completely wrong as blogs are a communications channel and a medium.
This is pointing to the Cluetrain Manifesto that has been defined 10 years ago that markets are conversations to start with.

Rethinking corporate blogging

Thus it may be time to rethink your corporate blogging as it is a serious investment for any company; moreover most corporate blogs are boring as Debbie Weil points out.

On the other hand, according to Chris Bagot; if you can tell stories that your customers or potential customers recognize, then you have the change to have an audience.

As Mitch Joel writes, real blogs need to be written by real people and will require time and effort to build a community and to engage in it.
You have to build and earn trust over a longer time frame. 

Corporate blogging requires continuity, quality content, and dedication and in the end the result can be minimal as hardly anyone trusts your writings.
Moreover the blog cannot change the subjects too much as then it starts addressing a different audience and thus losing the already acquired community.

Solutions: micro blogging or posting comments

The quick and easy: Micro blogging
Instead of writing and editing long blog posts, micro blogging is easier, faster to produce but will have the same problem of trustworthiness and the requirements to obtain an audience (the Followers) and stay within the same matters and subjects in order not to loose them (Quitters).

Be the parasite: Posting comments
Posting comments is of a different kind, as they don’t require continuity:
A comment is a one time event that doesn’t require having the same quality all of the time.
Commenting can be seen as a parasite living on the work and popularity of others.
- You don’t need to build a community
- You don’t need to generate the same level of quality
- You can address different subjects and matters as each of the blogs have their audience and community.

The comments live upon the popularity of the blogs like parasites.
If your comments are valuable, they will generate traffic to your company or product website from many different sources.

Still each comment on a post is retrievable by name and subject and the Internet together with the search engines have a long memory.

Never forget that your comments need to match and be appropriate to the blog post in order not to be considered as spam.

Comments can also be used against your company, products or solutions as they address the public beyond your potential or current customers.

Advice

The take of ReadWriteWeb on the Forrester company blog research is:
If your corporate blog is successful and meets its goals, keep on going. If it doesn’t, then can it.

Our additional advice is: if blogging doesn’t work, then consider to posting comments on blogs that are popular and are addressing your market( See: Alltop blogs by market)

Will you keep on blogging?
Or will you switch over to posting comments like a parasite?