One of the unique things about the web in its early days was that, with a simple home page, the smallest local business could occupy the same space online as the largest global corporation. Early web sites tended to be about one page deep, with some contact details and a call to action.
That’s not true any longer, of course. The money spent on web site design and implementation is often blatantly obvious and an initial site visit is enough to distinguish between a major market force and a low-budget player. The trouble now for the large corporation is that large flash (no pun intended) web sites are as useful for marketing and PR purposes as the large stands of greenery in the glass-fronted lobby of their HQ building.
Tell me what I want to know
Why? The main reason is that these sites are all about them. Digital corporate brochures created to convey a sense of gravitas and corporate responsibility. You’ll often find the chairman’s piece from the latest Annual Report or the CFO’s forecasts for growth. All great stuff if you’re planning on buying shares but not a lot of help if you’re simply shopping around for a new rubber-sealed transverse widget and want to get a feel for that company’s take on widgets in general.
If they have a widgets section, it will list the widgets they do, probably suggest some retailers near you, and perhaps play you a rather moody video with a rocking soundtrack showing their latest widgets in action. Find the support area – usually only useful if you have a serial number to hand – and you may be offered a software upgrade for your widget’s interface. Ready to buy now?
How many times will a potential customer return to that site for information on a product? How many times will that potential customer recommend the site to friends, family, and colleagues searching for widget information? Those widgets might just be the best around but our potential customer now needs some convincing. Where does he/she head next?
Where the real information resides
Where? To a blog, a forum, or a competitor’s site with content that establishes trust and confidence. The customer may even end up buying an inferior widget simply because there’s more information about it out there. Imagine that. Imagine losing business to inferior products, not because of price, not because your competitor spent more on advertising, but because you were stingy with your content. By being stingy with your content, you made it hard for a customer to make a choice.
It’s no surprise that some of the most popular blogs are not part of corporate sites. Some companies have attempted to blog and created nothing more than another advertising channel. The independent blog can establish expertise in a particular area and openly discuss the pros and cons of a company or product for an audience that trusts the writer. If a company is fortunate with its products, services, and customer relations, it may find that the blogosphere does a good job of promoting it.
But if a company is to rely on customers to do its marketing, shouldn’t it at least participate in the process? One of the primary ways of generating worthwhile content for its web site – and of building trust – is through a blog. Not, as I said above, a blog that shouts like an advertisment, but a blog that presents a human face to customers.
Blogging is listening, too
Writing a blog is only one half of the equation, however. Blogging is a proactive process, too. That means that your company must be aware of what other blogs are writing about your products and services. Blogs don’t exist in isolation: it’s called the blogosphere precisely because of the vast and intricate network of connections that stretch between each and every blog. That means that you must put as much effort into monitoring other blogs – and commenting and participating in discussions there – as you put into writing your own posts.
This is something companies of all sizes can do. We’ve come full circle on the web, in the sense that a blog from a small company can wield as much power as one from a large corporation. It all comes down to voice, honesty, and the value of the content.
And the conclusion? If your PR strategy does not include blogs – either writing or monitoring them – then you need to change your PR team or your strategy.
