Leading corporations aren’t exactly rushing like rabid hyenas toward Blogsville. Not yet, anyway.
A current count shows that only 27 – less than six percent -- of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies maintain public business-related blogs that are written by employees or management.
As you might expect, 19 of those 27 companies are in the technology, Internet and other geek-related arenas. And for every corporation in any industry using blognology to engage the marketplace, there are a dozen more wasting it on insipid marketing promotions and grip-n-grin spin.
There’s no doubt that web journaling will evolve to walk upright into the corporate toolbox. That’s a given. Many industry leaders without official blogs are actively drawing up plans to launch their own efforts soon.
But even more companies of all sizes are taking a logical wait-and-see approach. These are the same folks that took their sweet time to launch a web site, connect vendors to an extranet and give voicemail to employees. A lot of them have been around for a long time thanks in part to this mentality. They aren’t going to let anyone rush them into the next big thing.
So when it comes to blogs, they’re happy to let others figure out how to manage the process, stay out of trouble and pull tangible value out of the chaotic, mostly irrelevant clutter of 32 million neighbors.
Most successful companies will come to embrace blogs as part of their broad business strategy. In the meantime, however, they’ll ignore the false urgency of flacks and self-appointed experts who sell blogs as the end results of themselves.
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Keep up with the state of corporate blogging at the excellent Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki.
Tags: blog, business, corporations, Fortune 500, PR, marketing, corporate blogging
