USA Today suggests a choice…”Easy” or a “Relationship”

I lost count of how many people either sent me or handed me a recent article in USA Today titled, “More companies quit blogging, go with Facebook instead.” There’s no mystery to why…they all know I am a HUGE fan of blogging and believe a blog represents the core of “engagement” in Social Media.  So why are companies aborting blogging and moving to facebook, or twitter – did we miss the mark?  Is blogging dead or dying?  Is your blog a thing of the  past because facebook is here to save the day?  Rest assured, none of these are true…but let’s get below the surface and see what’s behind the USA Today article…

If you look at the numbers they discussed in the article, they say the number of blogging companies has dropped over the past year – as much as 13% from 50% and only 23% of the Fortune 500 companies had a blog in 2011.  They also cite the statistic blogging dropped a whopping 2% in the 18 – 33 year old age group.  But perhaps what was most interesting, is after they cited all these statistics, they said, “Blogging requires more investment.  You need content regularly.  And you need to think about the risk of blogging, accepting comments, liability issues, and defamation,” says Ganim Barnes, a professor at Dartmouth.  They also added, “It’s a tool and content you own, which was a big benefit.”

When we dig a little deeper…the examples they cite are primarily B2C rather than B2B, but that’s OK.  However, after all this talk of people aborting blogging, Lou Hoffman, CEO of The Hoffman Agency said something profound, “Many corporate blogs fail to attract readers because they exist solely to pitch products and are badly written! Companies don’t understand that the content on the blog shouldn’t be “about me” – such information tends to be dull.”  AMEN.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

In a world where there is more and stronger competition, pressure on prices, fewer customers, increased operating costs in all areas, wouldn’t you want to find a way to DIFFERENTIATE yourself and become more MEMORABLE than your competition?  As a business strategist, this is the first thing I explore with a company.  Having a blog that “helps your customers” instead of “Pimping your products” is a HUGE differentiator today!  Being able to have a “dialog” on your blog with customers and others who are interested in how you can help them solve their own issues and problems makes more sense today than ever before.  Companies saying they want to “turn off” blogs because they don’t want to deal with comments is just like telling your customers to stop talking to you and let you shove your information at them instead.  Your customers are asking to have a dialog with you when you are not in front of them and talk in front of the world…what if they are saying great things about you???

My advice, STOP BLOGGING if you are set on wanting to “Push” content and “Pimp” yourself or your company!  Lou was exactly right, why would anyone want to read more advertising being thrown at them over many “channels” (social media tools) when they didn’t really care about your brochure the first time? We need to get over ourselves.  The customer doesn’t want to hear this from us.  What they want to hear is how we can “HELP” them be better at what they do.  I you can help them do this, they will “PULL” you, your content, and your blog into their world and THANK YOU for it! Anything else will fail – regardless of which tool you use.  So I completely agree, if you are going to “Pimp” over the airwaves, don’t bother.  And you might as well not write a blog because it is just more work producing something that won’t get read, so stop blogging!

If you decide you want to HELP your audience and give them content and stories and perspectives to grow their business, then the blog is absolutely, positively the best social media tool to communicate this to your audience.  And if you’re still on the fence, just consider this final thought.  Considering all the social media tools available to a business today, if your customer wanted to SHARE something with a prospective customer, would you rather have them share a bunch of stories you have written that would help their business or 140 characters? Answer the question from your own perspective, “what would YOU want to get?” I think you just found the answer to whether or not you should blog…