There are several problems associated with building an interesting, high traffic corporate blog.
First, there are a lot of blogs – so creating compelling content is essential to stand out from the crowd (oh and there’s the minor matter of search optimisation as well). High traffic, compelling, blogs need to have some edge, or possibly even a little naked aggression.
It helps, of course, if the company CEO is well known – even within a relatively niche area. But even with a well known CEO it’s often difficult to extract compelling content. Not all people with loads of personality can necessarily write. Most celebrity autobiography writers rely on ghost writers to, ahem, “help” – why should a busy CEO not do the same when planning his CEO blog?
Second, it’s not even about talent, it’s also about time. Many senior managers are just too focused on running a business. Freeing up time for blog writing is rarely a priority – never mind re-tweeting such content around Twitter.
Third, blog content creates another work-load – namely dealing with interaction. If a company is well known or market leading the blog is an ideal environment to take a pop at the brand. The blog will fail if all negative or risqué is expunged. Therefore, comment moderation and response is a big deal – never to be underestimated.
Then there are design issues, house style issues, legal issues, etc.
Our advice to clients is to let us build the corporate blog in parallel with the company. Together we can identify original content that will help enhance the corporate brand – at the same time as building dialogue with important corporate audiences – channels, suppliers, customers and the media. We can also put in place policies for escalation or resolution of issues – and can commit to pre-defined SLAs.
One thing is clear, however. Social media content management is becoming a bigger and bigger issue. Management of content across social media can be a headache – but we can help alleviate the symptoms and avoid the possibility of a full-scale migraine. In fact we might even be able to induce warm fuzzy feelings if we can establish clear return on social media investment.
Contact us if you are wrestling with social media content problems.
Social media is changing everything. Media and market fragmentation, changing patterns of media consumption and increasingly active, engaged consumers mean the old media reach models are in disarray.
McCain Foods in the United States is asking parents across the United States what they think about school food. Working with social networking and blog research specialists 
By Jeffrey Peel – Often I’m asked how it is that as a company that started in research we ended up doing so much more. 
