Blogs...The Biggest Enemy Is..

This week I had lunch with my longtime friend Gale McKinney of Heartland Communications.  Most of the conversation centered on business, marketing trends and family.  Then we started talking about blogs and social comment platforms.  Gale's company just purchased Iowa Outdoors a hunting and fishing site where anonymous users can offer tips to fellow anonymous users or simply rant and rave about real or imagined threats to their way of life.  I think...sites like these (and there are hundreds if not thousands) while entertaining and useful, have damaged the credibility of Business Blogs...

Anonymity.  The number one enemy of business blogs.  Why?  I think the perception of many individuals is that business blogging is simply another name for these social commentary message boards where people can hide their identity and expound on the "issue d' jour" without credibility.  Perceptions are hard to change.

Hiding behind the mask of anonymity is not only silly but also gutless.  I read a post earlier this month...and I simply can not find it...and the writer suggested creating a parallel universe where there was no anonymity and everyone had to post or respond by using their real identity.  The rhetorical question was, "Would this cut down on the amount of garbage being flung and improve the business utilization of social commentary?"  Me thinks so...

The nugget here is a perception issue.  When we visit with corporations who shun "blogging" maybe it's because they perceive it as social commentary gone amok.  Maybe, like Andy Priestly, in his recent business blog, we simply call this stuff..."business news"?  What think you?

Michael P. Libbie - Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications where you can always make contact with us right here.