Why do it? When a company admits to making mistakes, surely it just exposes weaknesses?
Now, I'm not going to discuss how a company should go about creating or maintaining a Company blog. There's enough information out there on the subject and I'll refer to the experts:
http://www.businessblogwire.com/2006/01/10_steps_to_creating_a_success.html
http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com/2006/11/10-steps-to-starting-company-blog-new.html
Generally, humans get on best with other humans and relationships are created every day. However for an normal person, a company is often hard to have a personal relationship with(unless its a bad one). They may have a relationship with the brand or even with individuals within that company, but not many people 'enjoy' their dealings with the companies they need to exist in life these days (just ask how many people ring up a Customer Services department to tell them how much they like the company). Having a one-t0-one relationship means admitting (or being prepapred to admit) you're wrong, in fact that can strengthen the relationship.
However is really possible to create a company culture that admits its mistakes? Some think so and even encourage it!
http://blogbusinessworld.blogspot.com/2007/01/making-mistakes-admit-your-errors.html
Now a company blog is usually a place to put 'official' communications out in a more personal way. Whilst mostly it is an individual that writes the corporate blog, other times its a collection of PR individual's trying to create the impression that there's a single person there. For example, are we really to believe that this is really Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder? http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?blog_id=company&blogger=4
Here the blog has primarily been used for admitting mistakes (newsfeed response and beacon being the obvious topics).
Blogging your mistakes does not necessarily turn everyone against you. Often honestly can be the best policy. Recently Moo, a London-based photo site, had a disc issue which took their site down for a period of time. They blogged about it here:
http://www.moo.com/blog/2007/11/29/blimey-a-non-happy-day-at-moo/
The feedback to this honesty has been mostly favourable.
2 comments:
Hayden, I truly believe companies ought to blog with sincerity and humility. That will get them farther than anything else. So if your business screws up and you blog about it, say you're sorry in a genuine way and talk about what you are going to do (and/or have done) to fix the situation.
Easton, thanks for your comment. Yes I agree sincerity and humility are the right approach, however these are sometimes qualities that don’t go hand-in-hand with other company values. For example humility is not seen as being positive and hints at imperfection, especially in companies that have potentially spend decades be being “bold”, “respected”, “right first time”, etc.
The other issue is one of accountability/blame/liability, where the company is resistant to publish anything until either the dust has settled or at least the corporate lawyers have stated the opinion to take.
But the tide is gradually changing, indeed I recently read the thoughts of Max Kalehoff :
http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1193
He provides his opinion on the 10 brand properties any modern (thinking) company should embrace – which does include humility.
If I was starting a company now, or was advising one that was adapting its values to the 21st Century needs of its users, I think these 10 are a good place to start.
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