7.2 Blogs

BlogsOnline journal entries, usually made in a reverse chronological order. Blogs typically provide comment mechanisms where users can post feedback for authors and other readers. (short for Web logs) first emerged almost a decade ago as a medium for posting online diaries. (In a perhaps apocryphal story, Wired magazine claimed the term “Web log” was coined by Jorn Barger, a sometimes homeless, yet profoundly prolific, Internet poster.) From humble beginnings, the blogging phenomenon has grown to a point where the number of public blogs tracked by BlogPulse has surpassed 160 million.BlogPulse.com stats, June 1, 2011.  This is clearly a long tailIn this context, refers to an extremely large selection of content or products. The long tail is a phenomenon whereby firms can make money by offering a near-limitless selection. phenomenon, loaded with niche content that remains “discoverable” through search engines and that is often shared via other types of social media like Facebook and Twitter. TrackbacksLinks in a blog post that refer eaders back to cited sources. Trackbacks allow a blogger to see which and how many other bloggers are referring to their content. A “trackback” field is supported by most blog software and while it’s not required to enter a trackback when citing another post, it’s considered good “netiquette” to do so. (citation links back to original blog post) and blog rollsA list of a blogger’s favorite blogs. While not all blogs include blog rolls, those that do are often displayed on the right or left column of a blog’s main page. (a list of a blogger’s favorite sites—a sort of shout-out to blogging peers) also help distinguish and reinforce the reputation of widely read blogs.

Most blogs offer a two-way dialogue, allowing users to comment (a sort of “letters to the editor” section for each post). The running dialogue can read like an electronic bulletin board and can be an effective way to gather opinion, brainstorm, and vet ideas. Comments also help keep a blogger honest—a vigorous community of commenters will quickly expose a blogger’s errors of fact or logic.

Blogging can have significant appeal for an organization looking to be heard. Corporations that blog can enjoy immediate and unfiltered distribution of their ideas, with no limits on page size, word count, or publication deadline. And they can gather immediate feedback from readers via comments. Corporate blogs can be published directly to the public, skipping what bloggers call the mainstream media (MSM) and presenting their words without a journalist filtering their comments or an editor cutting out key points they’d hoped to make. That appeal has attracted some of the most senior executives to blogging. Hotel chief Bill Marriott, Zappos’ Tony Hsieh, Timberland’s Jeff Swartz, and Forrester Research’s George Colony are among those CEOs who use their blogs for purposes that include a combination of marketing, sharing ideas, gathering feedback, press response, image shaping, and reaching consumers directly.

Given the advantages of blogs over traditional broadcast and “dead tree” print publication, it’s not surprising that most mainstream news outlets also supplement their content with blogs that offer greater depth, more detail, and deadline-free timeliness. But they’ve got competition, and many of the most popular blogs have transformed into robust media enterprises. The political/news blog The Huffington Post grew to be more popular than all but eight newspaper sites and was acquired in 2011 by AOL for $315 million, a valuation significantly higher than many publicly traded papers.E. Alterman, “Out of Print, the Death and Life of the American Newspaper,” New Yorker, March 31, 2008; and M. Learmonth, “Huffington Post More Valuable Than Some Newspaper Cos.,” DigitalNext, December 1, 2008; V. Kopytoff, “AOL’s Bet on Another Makeover,” New York Times, February 7, 2011. Keep in mind that this is a site that lacks much of the sports, local news, weather, and other content offered by the locals.

Ratings like this are hard to achieve—most bloggers can’t make a living off their musings. But among the elite ranks, killer subscriber numbers are a magnet for advertisers. Top blogs operating on shoestring budgets can snare several hundred thousand dollars a month in ad revenue.S. Zuckerman, “Yes, Some Blogs Are Profitable—Very Profitable,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 21, 2007. Most start with ad networks like Google AdSense, but the most elite engage advertisers directly for high-value deals and extended sponsorships.

Despite this increased popularity, blogging has its downside. Blog comments can be a hothouse for spam and the disgruntled. Ham-handed corporate efforts (such as poor response to public criticism or bogus “praise posts”) have been ridiculed. Employee blogging can be difficult to control and public postings can “live” forever in the bowels of an Internet search engine or as content pasted on other Web sites. Bloggers, beware—there are dozens of examples of workers who have been fired for what employers viewed as inappropriate posts. The voice of the blogosphere can also wield significant influence. While not all blogosphere commentary deserves a response, firms ignore social media at their own peril (see sidebar below)! Tips on how firms should organize for social media engagement, issues to consider when developing corporate social media policy, and examples of effective and poor social media use are covered in Section 7.9 "Get SMART: The Social Media Awareness and Response Team".

Like any Web page, blogs can be public, tucked behind a corporate firewall, or password protected. Third-party blogging services include Google Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, and Posterous, with most offering a combination of free and premium features. The most popular platform for organizations choosing to host their own blog server is the open source WordPress system. Firms often choose this option to gain more control over security and formatting.

In the end, the value of any particular blog derives from a combination of technical and social features. The technical features make it easy for a blogger and his or her community to reach out for an ongoing conversation on some topic of shared interest. But the social side means that unless a reader base discovers a blog and is engaged, an effort will have little impact.