Blog or Die?

In the second half of Naked Conversations Scoble and Israel continue to vilify traditional one-way marketing, while hailing the blog as the “revolution” of how companies communicate with customers. In chapter 9, the writers finally admit “blogging has its prickly issues.”

Shel’s newest blog post on social media seems to pick up right where the book left off, “Regular social media followers understand that Microsoft, for example,  does not, think with one mind, but with nearly 60,000 of them that GM does not speak with one voice or language, but with over 275,000. The 85,000 or so Intel employees do not march in step with each other and their taste in the drummers marking cadence is quite diverse. So if you blog with transparency and candor about your corporate job and the guy down the hall is devising a character blog by a talking moose to extend brand, he or she may hurt the brand or simply waste company resources, but that effort will not hurt yours, and that is why, in the long run, the simple, interactive credible path will prove to be the wise course for most companies whose employees take pride in their products and services.”

While Shel’s post is natually well written and thought provoking, several questions arise. While these thousands and thousands of employees all have different, and no doubt, interesting perceptions and viewpoints of their company, is it realistic to assume all of them, or even a large chunk of them, could blog or social network while maintaining the neccessary order and structure of the company and without significant legal ramifications? When does the conversation become too large and spread out? Doesn’t it cheapen the merit of blogs and convolute an already communications-saturated world. Though supposedly “anyone” can blog…should “anyone” blog?

This week on PR 2.0, a blog post aimed at PR professionals, Brian Solis asks, “Should PR Agencies Blog?”  BL Ochman offers a list of some new far from boring blogs and answers the question “Should Every Company Blog?” with an emphatic HELL NO

So, is it “blog or die?” “change or die?” Or even, “blog or become irrelavant?” I would venture to say no. I’m not going to deny the importance of blogging as a tool in corporate communication, I do argue that it is just that – a tool, not neccessarily a “revolution” as Scoble and Israel claim. Blogs cannot and will not replace “traditional” integrated marketing and PR strategies (many of which are far from traditional). A company interested in maintaining or devleloping an open channel of communication with its customers and constituents as a whole can utilize corporate blogs as part of their strategy. However, blogging cannot stand alone and cannot replace certain important marketing functions, at least not yet. While Microsoft marketers do use blogs, podcasts, streaming video,and social networking as part of an integrated strategy, we unquestionable still use direct marketing, email, events, promotions, PR campaigns, traditional sales pitching, etc. And we are an actual technology company – we cannot forget about those companies who are not and whose customers are vastly different.

The population of blogging and blog-reading citizens still pales in comparison to television viewers and even newspaper readers. Many companies with traditional cultures and traditional customer bases will not neccessarily convert their key constituents into blogosphere participants. Many of our grandparents or even parents have still not completely grasped the concept of PCs. How are we supposed to explain to them now that they have to participate in the world of blogging to maintain relevancy and to find out what’s going on in the world? This brings up a key example of companies who should not feel pressured to craft a blogging strategy – those who count the older population as a key demographic.

While I certainly believe blogs and Web 2.0 practices are still in the growth phase, the fast pace of technological development in general and web development specifically, raises some important questions about the near future. What will be the next “revolution” in marketing, PR, and business in general? It is certain that some other innovation will soon come along to either supplement or flat out replace the value of corporate blogging and the methods in which marketers and executives speak to their customers. When this happens, will blogs fade away as quick as they appeared or will blogging persist Will those who haven’t caught on to blogging be left in the dust or will they simply be able to move past the era of the blogosphere and jump on the next hot trend without skipping a beat?