Report: Corporate Blogs Not Trusted
According to a new report by Forrester Research, corporate blogs are the least trusted information source of all. Only 16% of online consumers who read corporate blogs say that they trust them. You can grab a copy of this report for free by filling in a form at Forrester. The full trust scale is below, with 'Email from people you know' the most trusted at 77%.
We have some reservations about the findings of the report - and to prove our point in this post we check out a good and bad example of corporate blogging, from Dell and the Walmart blog respectively.
The report stated that regular blog readers and bloggers trust company blogs a little more, and those that trust corporate blogs are more likely to trust other media. Consumers are skeptical, says Forrester, because they view corporate blogs as unbalanced. So their advice is: if you're a company thinking of starting a blog "about your company and its products", you probably shouldn't bother. For those companies that already have blogs, Forrester says that "if your blog generates leads, links, positive reviews, buzz, or PR, it's probably worth keeping." Otherwise shut it down.
The Forrester report was noted by the Blog Council, an organization which is focused on "the business of blogging and social media at the corporate level." The council listed a number of its own member blogs which they (naturally) regard as trustworthy:
- Rubbermaid
- Microsoft
- AccuQuote
- Analog Devices
- Cisco Systems
- Coca-Cola
- Dell
- Direct2Dell
- General Electric
- General Motors
- Graco (Newell Rubbermaid)
- Intel
- Lenovo
- Mayo Clinic
- Molson
- Nokia
- Orange Business Services
- Petro-Canada
- Pitney Bowes
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Rubbermaid
- SAP
- Sharpie (Newell Rubbermaid)
- Walmart
- Wells Fargo
Our Take
The Forrester report seems to be having its cake and eating it too - if your corporate blog is successful and meets its goals, keep it going; if it doesn't, can it. But that is true of any blog, corporate or not.
To the larger point of whether corporate blogs are trustworthy, it depends on so many things that it's difficult to make a sweeping judgement. For example, I trust some Microsoft blogs more than others - depending on the person blogging and perhaps even the department they work for. It depends on the style of blogging, the content that's published, the way the blog is promoted, and so on.
It also depends on the brand of the company itself. Let's take Walmart as an example. It's one of the corporate blogs listed above by The Blog Council. It's fair to say that Walmart isn't the most loved brand in the U.S., so I'm probably less likely to trust its corporate blog as a result. The style of blogging unfortunately doesn't do any favors to Walmart either. Would you trust the following product recommendation from Walmart's Checkout blog?
"As you know, I am an Apple fanatic, but this deal even has me looking twice. Our computer buyer has put together this!
The Blitz ad says $350 but Santa called and challenged him to do better. So now Sam’s is at new price of $345 and an additional $20 case value is included. This is an 8.9" WSVGA Acer CrystalBrite TFT LCD (1024 x 600) with an Intel Atom Processor, 1GB Memory, 120GB Hard Drive and a Crystal Eye Webcam. WOW. That information tells me that Sam’s really put together a great item for our Members! This unit is great for surfing the net, e-mail and is a nice netbook."
Clearly the above product recommendation is insincere and not to be trusted, which makes it less likely that I'll trust other Walmart blog posts.
But there are much better examples of corporate blogging that I would trust. For example this post at a Dell blog:
Yes it pimps a Dell product, but it's not looking to 'put one over you' as reader. This particular post is recommending a Dell social shopping app that might be useful to its customers, so it's information that readers of the Dell blog probably want to know. Also helpful is its quotation of genuinely interesting and relevant external content, and asking the readers for their suggestions. It's the little things like that which lead to trust. If all Dell blog posts are like that, trust would build pretty quickly among their readers.
Conclusion
The Forrester report in the end is a little unsatisfactory. Trust has to be earned and some corporations are actively making the effort to do that. As a result, there are some corporate blogs that you trust more than others. To claim that corporate blogs are the least trustworthy information source on the planet seems unfair - and untrue in many cases. This is one instance where the stats don't tell the full story, in our view.
If you're a company wanting to find out how to do corporate blogging the right way, there are many great blogs that cover this - a couple of ones we recommend are the blogs of Debbie Weil and Jeremiah Owyang (who happens to work at Forrester and who has a post up on the report).
What do you think? Do you trust corporate blogs?
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I would always doubt that a corporate blog would say anything else than company policy allows.... therefor it is at least not an independent source of information. That does not necessarily makes it untrustworthy, but at least it makes it biased....
I think it's generally good that companies are adopting blogs but they are so impersonal. As a company you need to connect with your readers on some level and not dedicate every post to driving sales.
Out of all the blogs there, Wells Fargo's is the scariest.
Yet another report that validates the value of email as a means to promote/brand/coupon/research. WrapMail is at the forefront of changing how companies use their 'everyday' email - in other words - emails to/from people that know each other, not blasts that come from an unknown address.
Sorry for the shameless plug, but when I saw that I nearly spilled my coffee.
Dave
CMO, WrapMail
The survey does not appear to ask about *corporate websites.* It may be that people distrust corporate websites even more than corporate blogs, in which case a blog is a good option for companies to build credibility.
But every source, be it a blog or a website, has different levels of credibility. Much depends on the culture or personality of the organization or individual.
Mostly, though, credibility on the web increases when you are perceived to be acting against your own self interest. Admitting mistakes, asking for help, linking away to competitors, providing full-text feeds, letting people criticize you in comments, they all add to the credibility of a website.
I also think a lot of negative reaction stems from the word "blog." It's an ugly word that in my experience mainstream consumers generally have negative reactions to. If it was described as a "company website that lets you comment," I bet the result would have been much better.
thanks for infos :)
I have never understood the concept of "corporate blogging" when "industry blogging" is so much more valuable. I have seen great law blogs, telecom blogs etc from corporate sources. But the actual corporate blog is so sterile. How can it ever be updated in a way that makes a static page and/or press page unnecessary?
W
Not mentioned here is so-called outreach to blogers who comment on corporations. My report is on one instance which took several false steps in the energy industry.
The "outreach effort" missed some of the most significant thought and opinion leaders in the blogsphere and failed to properly identify the firm doing the outreach on behalf of one of the industry's really big firms.
http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2008/10/whig-bubbles-in-corporate-outreach-to.html
Great take on this, I was also disappointed. First, because a firm like Forrester utilized linkbaiting as a technique to get attention to this. The data should stand on its own. Second, they totally left out the leverage that corporate blogging provides in search engine marketing.
However, the FULL report is worthy of reading. The advice on how companies should be writing is good advice.
It's not surprising that most consumers don't trust most corporate blogs. Heck, I don't trust most corporate *anything*!
But blogs have at least one thing going for them: they're cheap. Even if you've only got a few dozen folks checking out your blog on a regular basis, it still might be a worthwhile endeavor.
Marketing isn't always about "reaching the masses". It can also be about reaching a small group of enthusiasts who can help you build your brand.
There are at least a few good reasons for corporations to keep their blogs going, and a lot of good reasons to make their blogs better. But unless the blog is actually damaging your brand identity, I can't think of any reason to shut the blog down.
I'm a strong advocate of two of Josh's suggestions.
Blog about the customer: Instead of talking about a product, talk about a real world situation. Think about that WalMart post:
"A dad came in the store today here in Indianapolis, looking for a laptop for his 8 year old. He said he was tired of Blake playing WebKinz on his home system and wanted something cheap with good wireless" "I Recommended the new xxxxxxxx because it had the basic features he was looking for and it was also the lowest priced system we had" "I hadn't thought about it before, but I guess a lot of kids might be getting their first laptop this Christmas..."
Now if I do a search on cheap laptops for kids..this post has a great shot of catching my attention and tells a story just like mine.
The other key point that supports the above post is the idea of employee blogging. Forget PR, Ghostwriters or (shudder) chief blogging officers...the best stories come from the front lines.
WalMart has 2mm employees or something...you don't think they could come up with several thousand good posts a day from that population?...real stories about real situations that add value to the people out there looking for the kind of help that WalMart is uniquely qualified to give.
Chris Baggott
Compendium Blogware
@Chris,
They have about 1mm employees many of which send emails, which I will remind you, is the most trusted source of info. These emails could feature offers, coupons, polls, blog links, etc...that would be trusted and viewed because they could be from a trusted source. This is a tactic that would drive real revenue.
I imagine capturing blog entries from all these employees would be a nightmare, whereas they are sending emails anyway.
Dave
Wow. This is surprising. Of course, I think that this is industry specific.
Also, if a blog is clearly biased, as with many corporate blogs because they are trying to sell things, then it isn't trusted. But if a blog does compliment a website and offer related advice without taking too much of a stance, then it should be more credible.
Personal blogs were trusted around the same level as corporate blogs. Doesn't that make your headline a bit misleading?
Forrester has also stated that more people notice "recommendations" on sites today than they did in 2003 - the difference is who is making the recommendations. We care about what shoppers most like us think. So if the Walmart blog had referred to an actual real person's review or some kind of aggregate "crowd-wisdom" of what most shoppers looking for an "X" were in fact buying "product Z" they would have helped build that trust in their blog. It only takes one "blech" experience to lose a blog reader, a site visitor forever.
@Dave Kustin
You don't have to sell me on the value of email :-) I co-founded ExactTarget.
In fact we coach our corporate blog clients to leverage emails as blog content sources. As you say, every day companies send thousands of emails to customers and prospects that are specific, relevant and helpful. With a little editing and some names removed...you often come out with a great blog post. If it's worthy enough for an email it's probably worthy enough for a blog post.
I've got a blog post with examples: http://blogging.compendiumblog.com/blog/blogging-best-practices/0/0/blog-content-ideas
what's great about the two mediums is that they are exclusive. Google doesn't read email so it's brand new fresh content. It works both ways too. Blog content can be great sources for email newsletters etc. If you blog a few hundred posts you can see which ones are the most engaging and that becomes a great foundation for email content.
tell me stories of how a company made a mistake or learned from something that was plausible, then yes I can begin to trust that bloggers in the corporation are allowed to be authentic - on good and maybe not so good topics.
Has anyone else noticed the poor statistics that they're using? "Trust" is a 4 or a 5 on a 5 point scale, that is, anything above neutral. This means that lots of people could slightly trust a source and it would show up above something which a smaller number of people trust quite a bit and others are neutral on.
Why not just show the median scores?
Richard, thanks for taking note of our report.
The data is neither more nor less than it appears -- a statement that having a blog earns you basically no trust at all. You can earn that trust in other ways, but it depends what you put on the blog. I myself was amazed that not only was the trust low, but it was basically in the toilet.
I think the more corporate blogs get out there -- especially the ones that don't seem to earn your trust, like the Wal-Mart example you cited -- the harder things are going to get.
We certainly don't assert that the report is the end-all to advice about corporate blogging -- it's more of a warning to anybody who wants to get started with it.
I'm with you -- corporate bloggers would do well to get advice from somebody like Debbie Weil (or of course we'd be happy to help) before stepping into these murky waters.
Maybe it's all a sour grapes article debunking the Groundswell book now that their rockstar Charlene Li has raked in her money and left? (I'm kidding, really)
I agree with aaron wall. The title could just as well have been "Corporate blogs nearly as trusted as personal blogs". Or "Personal blogs trusted only slightly more than corporate blogs".
Richard,
Thanks for linking to our post and our members' blogs.
One thing we need to keep in mind is that there is a generally low opinion of corporations in general, and the Forrester data reflects that. We talked about this with Josh in a private briefing with the Blog Council on Tuesday. By and large, people just don't trust large corporations as having their best interests at heart. So when they see that a corporation has started a blog, they see it as the Big Bad Wolf knocking on the door.
What's sad is that they don't see that there are *real people* writing these blogs. The work these people do is outstanding, and comes from a good place. They genuinely want to help make their customer's lives better.
For example, look at one of the example Josh wrote about in the report: Rubbermaid. (*) You have Jim Deitzel blogging about getting organized, preparing for the holidays, getting ready for New Year's, etc. It's fun and personal. He even posted pictures of his kids. Yes, he talks about Rubbermaid products, but in the context of getting organized and helping to solve real world customer problems.
How any of that could generate mistrust is beyond me.
cheers,
Michael
----
312-932-9000 / michael@blogcouncil.org / twitter: merubin
I am a Blog Council employee and this is my personal opinion.
* Rubbermaid is a Blog Council member. I write about them because I like them and they are good people.
Well, if there is one thing I DON'T trust, it's research companies ;-)
While a company blog only gets 16%, a personal blog gets 18% - so the headline is more accurate as "Blogs not trusted".
"Consumers are skeptical, says Forrester, because they view corporate blogs as unbalanced"
- blogs are usually maintained by one person (usually the point), meaning that they will, naturally, be a bit unbalanced as they represent one persons view.
Almost everything is rated less than 50%, which means that people generally don't trust most of these channels and sources.
This shouldn't come as a big surprise, and I don't think it is a bad thing either. It shows that people are sceptical and critical - as they should be !
This does not mean that people and corporations should stop blogging - a blog is just an additional data source providing more information. If people don't find it useful, they'll just stop reading it.
That 'good example' - the Dell blog post - is horrible! Very unapproachable. She's obviously following company policies, such as 'Do not use contractions in blogs', to the letter.
A different take from a media strategist's perspective:
http://agitationist.com/corporate-blogs-arent-trusted-forrester-research
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