B2B story on corporate blogging

I found this bit interesting.

BtoB recently interviewed key bloggers and social media experts at these companies to take the pulse of corporate blogging. The conversations reveal the following trends: the emergence of “chief blogger” as a corporate job title; the globalization and segmentation of corporate blogs; the emergence of accepted metrics for measuring the success of blogging efforts (see sidebar, page 48); and mixed feelings about CEO blogs.

The article proves my essential point about corporate blogs – very few corporate blogs think about any of this before setting up the blog.  There’s a lot of “emerging” going on.  A “chief blogger” as a corporate job title shouldn’t “emerge” after you’ve got a blog.  It should exist before the blog is launched.  Segmentation, metrics, and mixed feelings, all should be aired out long before the blog is launched, not encountered as it “emerges” on your corporate blogosphere presence.  That costs money.

Another story appeared in my home paper, about blogging, and it points out a lot of the pitfalls and opportunities.

The greatest benefit a good blog or community forum can offer is suggestions, said Scott O’Leary, managing director of customer experience for Continental Airlines…

But blogs have forced her to play another role. Now she coaches her clients on how to handle negative blog postings about their businesses.  People are more likely to take the trouble to post comments when they’re upset about something….

Still, participating in blogs is time-consuming, and he was skeptical about starting his own blog until a year ago. He expected two-way conversations. That doesn’t happen much….

Expectations?  Most businesses enter the blogosphere without having spent any significant time blogging, or reading blogs, or even learning about them.  How can they have “expectations”?

In the political blogosphere, one enters the fray out of interest, and an expectation that you will engage.  That has set the basic rule set for the blogosphere as a whole.  I learned early on in my political blogging that whatever you say, someone will be out there to disagree, agree, argue, or applaud.  That kind of environment necessarily forces the blogger to expect very little, other than the conversation, and the social interaction such a new media delivers.

The defining human quality of social interaction is its unpredictability.  The best way to prepare for that is to set the goals for your corporate blog presence before you start the blog.