Blogging has been the catch-phrase for at least the past year among marketing and communications professionals, so it may be surprising to find out that even in the US, fewer than 14% of Internet users read them and less than 10% of businesses blog. This and other contradictions are covered in a new report from eMarketer that looks at the business of blogging.
As much as I am big fan, and constantly trying to convince businesses to blog, there is something about the current business blogging scene that is reminiscent of the late 90's. I'm not saying that I predict a "blogging crash", but I am thinking about that gap that occurred between the provision of online services and the existence of a mainstream online audience.
Now, like in the late 90's we have those of us who have the vision. We know what is going to happen. In this case, consumers / stakeholders / voters / employees will expect to be addressed in a different way; one that is more interactive, more conversational, more collaborative, more transparent. We understand that channels like blogging will help organisations communicate in this new way.
However, just as in the 90's, we visionaries forget the fact that it takes time for changes to fully manifest themselves.
We are surrounded by people who know what a wiki is. Naturally, we expect organisations to have fully aligned and integrated digital communication strategies. We think that it is easy for an organisation to blog - because from a technical or process perspective, it is. But actually, it's not.
While there may be visionaries within any given organisation, chances are they are the minority. Besides a few tech empires and new media gurus, most enterprises are dominated by those without the vision. To the non-visionary, status quo communications are just fine and blogs are scary - they represent a loss of control. While us visionaries understand fully that control no longer exists, non-visionaries are still fighting to cling to it. Therefore, fewer than 10% of business are blogging.
So, despite my daily efforts to get to 11%, I predict this number will not skyrocket, UNTIL the majority of audiences (consumers / stakeholders / voters / employees) are reading blogs on a frequent and engaged basis. Only when the necessity to reach audiences overrides the internal politics of resistance, will business blogging come of age. Therefore, the eMarketer numbers - 14% users and 10% business blogs - seem pretty well aligned for now.
Although I didn't purchase the full report, I'll guess that eMarketer come to pretty much the same conclusion:
"Over time, as consumers come to expect to be addressed directly in a way that cannot be done through traditional corporate communications, a majority of businesses will blog, work with bloggers or, at least, monitor blog content."
I'm curious if anyone would like to predict when this critical mass will occur.
