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PERSPECTIVE
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Top 7 Ways to Get Booted Out of the Blogosphere
The blogosphere is a tightly knit community. Business blogs that employ certain styles and tactics risk being shunned, or even attacked, by readers and high-profile bloggers. The result: a tarnished company image and lost business. Here is how companies stumble into the danger zone.
- Using “ad speak.” The blogosphere prizes genuine, two-way communication. If a blog reads like a billboard or a sales slick, readers will condemn it for being phony and self-serving. At the other style extreme is
- Writing snarky. “Snarky” is a blogging term that means sarcastic, snide, petty and ill-tempered. Snarky blog posts turn off readers; but snarkiness is tempting when blog contributors write anonymously or about an issue of deep concern. Avoid the temptation.
- Censoring negative comments. You cannot have genuine, two-way communication when you refrain from publishing negative comments; readers become frustrated and disappear. Furthermore, they like to vent their frustration on other blogs, including those of your competitors.
- Stonewalling negative comments. Publishing negative comments is a great first step; but responding to them in the right way is equally important. The most-effective business blogs are ones that can say, “We made a mistake, and here’s what we’re doing to fix it.”
- Linking indiscriminately. Links promote traffic to a blog; but there are good and bad ways to cultivate them. Companies that leave junk comments on other blogs; purchase links; and write posts with many links but few ideas come off like swindlers.
- Not linking. At the other extreme, blogs that fail to engage the community do not engage the individual reader. Some companies fear linking to competitors or perceived competitors. But since the blogosphere values information-sharing and openness, a blog without links will look suspiciously like an advertisement.
- Trashing the competition. The only thing worse than pretending competitors don’t exist is trying to shout them out of existence. For some reason, employees sometimes use their blog to say things about the competition they would never say anywhere else. But on this score, the blogosphere is like any other sphere: bashing the competition is unappealing in the extreme.
Effective corporate blogging means striking a balance. Before the first blog post is published, companies must take two critical steps. First, determine the appropriate style for content. Second, discuss style with the contributors and make sure they understand the expectations. Following a few simple rules and your own common sense leads to a wide audience of enthusiastic and involved readers.
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