Most Corporate Blogs Get it Wrong
In a dour economy, most firms yearn for a magic elixir.
But before you quaff from the overhyped goblet filled with blogger snake oil, consider this reality check from Joel Spolsky, one of the internet's most famous bloggers and technologists:
"Most company blogs have almost no readers, no traffic, and no impact on sales."
Spolsky recently announced he's shutting down his blog, in fact, and offers sober advice for others considering the medium.
Though blogging clearly brought Spolsky fame and success, he has a difficult time finding enough evidence to present it as a commendable formula.
Was it worth it? Should you blog?
Well, it worked brilliantly for me, but the more I've looked around, the more I've noticed that plenty of start-ups have managed to get customers and grow nicely without devoting a huge chunk of their early years to building a cool blog.
What's more, I have trouble pointing to other successful entrepreneurs who have used the same formula and reaped the same dividends I have.
The big-hit technology companies from the past 10 years tend to have pathetic blogs. Twitter's blog, like Facebook's and Google's, is full of utterly boring press releases rewritten to sound a little bit less stuffy. Apple's employees produce virtually no blogs, even though the company has introduced several game-changing new products in the past decade. Meanwhile, hundreds of Microsoft's employees have amazing blogs, but these have done nothing to stave off that company's slide into stodginess.
