What makes a successful corporate blog? Can there even be such a thing? The Guinness blog, written by Guinness UK marketing managers, is quite clearly a part of the brand’s marketing efforts, but tries hard not to shove Guinness down your throat (chance would be a fine thing). Instead, they cover the places they have been, the campaigns they are working on and people they have met. Recently, their trip to the World Cup has been in focus. As you might expect, many of these anecdotes end with a ‘cool pint of Guinness’ in a local watering hole, but the virtues of Irish stout are only a very small part of the content.
Putting a human face on Guinness and communicating some idea of the sort of company it is are far more pertinent goals. In any case, why would anyone read the blog who was averse to the idea of a pint?
The site has also allowed them to create a public debate out of the correspondence they were getting in emails and letters. The volume of suggestions for product improvements, good ways to market the drink and requests for information was too high to allow for personal responses. The blog, creating a meeting place between the team and the public, both allows customers to feel they have a relationship and the marketers to deal with that volume of input.
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Weblogs for businesses are a waste of time. Full stop. People are so resistant to attempts at marketing to them that none of this can come through. What would you prefer, someone ignoring you, or someone pretending to be your friend?
You may be right, Rob. But let me put it this way, if large companies *don’t* attempt to have better communications with their customers, then that is a lot worse, isn’t it? Yes. If blogs are insincere or done by people who appear totally brainwashed, then they will fail. That doesn’t have to be the case.
You may want to check out the Dell blog in the light of my last comment. Two posts up from this one.
They do occupy a space. How important are they? I don’t know, time will tell.