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My prediction is that by the time we have exhausted our list of blogs, there will be a whole lot more of them out there. There was huge worldwide growth of social media in 2007. Many indications are that 2008 is going to be a year of explosive growth for social media and word of mouth advertising Blogging is one of the easiest, fastest, and cheapest ways for businesses, both big and small, to engage their customers in spreading their word for them.
So, how should we evaluate the corporate blogs that do exist?
Laura and I’ve come up with this list of criteria that we think the best corporate blogs should have. This might change as we start working through the list as we, like you, may learn a few things about what can and should be done with corporate blogs.
We are going to categorize blogs into three classes:
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
(my husband’s favorite movie – can’t you just hear the theme music???)
Good Blogs will be:
- easy to find
- frequently updated
- written in an engaging manner
- relevant
- focused
- honest
- interactive
- responsive
Bad blogs will be:
- hard to find
- infrequently updated
- censored
- one-way communication
- unresponsive
- defensive
Ugly blogs will be:
- boring
- inaccurate or misleading
- filled with technical jargon (for a non-technical audience)
- full of regulations and legal disclaimers
- self-absorbed
- press releases in disguise
What do you think? Did we miss any?
Quick – take a look at your blog – where does it fall? Good, Bad or Ugly??
(gulp!) Where do you think Businessandblogging falls????
Our first review will start with one of the oldest and most famous corporate blog – GM’s Fastlane started in 2005. Look for it soon!
1254 days ago
[...] encourages bloggers to learn from the reviews of blogs using a standard set of criteria found at Business and Blogging. They [...]
1450 days ago
[...] blog-grading criteria developed by businessandblogging.com, I reviewed the Whole Foods blog in a number of important [...]
John, the scale you suggested would be helpful to my students. Thank you for proposing it.
Laura, perhaps the scale can serve as a guide, and reviewers can use their discretion regarding details like the size of the organization. I imagine though that because these are all Fortune 500 companies, we can expect that they are large.
Also, thank you for your interest in my Advanced Public Relations Writing course! Students from my class and Kelli Matthews’ class are completing blog reviews. I will also suggest this assignment to the instructor of our summer class.
Hi John!
Interesting scale. I would definitely expect more frequency from a corporate blog than a small business blog.
The measure that you suggest makes sense, but I also think that there needs to be some points subtracted for corporate blogs that post less often.
The course sounds fascinating. I’d love to hear more about it.
Hi Liz, Tiffany Derville, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Public Relations at the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon has set a number of her students to the task of reviewing blogs of the Fortune 500. We are racking up the reviews on the wiki with all of the student’s work. Tiffany thought that were was a need for more guidance on what is frequent and what is not in a blog. I wondered how you rate blogs for frequency? And if you thought the following measure makes sense?
2-3 posts a week constitute an average rating or 5 point, a post every business day is 7 points, on the weekend as well 8 points, and more than that 9 or 10 points. Mashable for example deserves a 10.
1460 days ago
[...] not the case, and I was actually very impressed with the quality of Delta’s blog. Using a blog-grading criteria developed by businessandblogging.com, I reviewed Delta’s blog in several key areas and then [...]
1520 days ago
[...] We review corporate blogs here at Business and Blogging. In fact, Liz did a great job of reviewing Walmart [...]
1531 days ago
[...] Liz outlined our criteria for reviewing blogs on her post, Business Blogs: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. [...]
1542 days ago
[...] Easton Ellsworth of BusinessBlogwire is doing an excellent job of comprehensively analyzing blog elements in his series, The Ultimate Blog Review Guide. Liz also dealt with the question of what makes a blog good in her post: Business Blogs: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. [...]
1562 days ago
[...] outlined the criteria for reviewing blogs on her post, Business Blogs: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Since then, she’s reviewed the General Motors Family of [...]
1573 days ago
[...] The article makes a few of the same points about what makes good business blogging that my co-blogger, Liz, highlighted in her recent post, Business Blogs: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. [...]
Thanks Cindy!
You’re right – both of those belong in the ugly category. They aren’t really in the spirit of blogging – to build authentic relationships.
I will add 2 to the ugly: simply copying and pasting other people’s contents and just written for the sake of selling the merch.. So boring to read. ack.
cheers,
Cindy
1576 days ago
[...] Business Blogs: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly [...]
Thanks Susan!
I’m really looking forward to the first review. By the way, I just added Business and Blogging to the Businesswomen Bloggers Directory on WomenOnBusiness.com!
1577 days ago
[...] Fuller at BusinessandBlogging.com published a post today to announce the upcoming corporate blog reviews that she and her co-blogger, Laura Spencer, will be doing on BusinessandBlogging. I wanted to make [...]
1577 days ago
[...] Now Liz Fuller and Laura Spencer at Business and Blogging give you a checklist so you can determine whether your home business blog measures up. Take a look at Business Blogs: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. [...]
I agree Susan – to be effective, blogs should be authentic conversation starters – not re-made press releases….we shall see…
Thanks for the link, Liz! I’m looking forward to reading your reviews. One thing that drives me crazy about corporate blogs is when they are simply filled with corporate rhetoric!