Google Blog Misses the boat on Blog Marketing

Categories: Community Marketing, Social MediaPosted on December 31st, 2006

I learned about Business Blogging from some of the best
My earliest conversations were with early adopter and author/speaker Rebecca Blood, it followed up with meeting Shel Israel who gave me a ‘proof’ (not yet published) book Naked Conversations long before it went public, I met Robert Scoble, he and Shel coached me and my CTO at Hitachi, we stayed in touch, and I know work with him at PodTech, I spoke on a panel with Debbie Weil, author of the Corporate Blogging Book. In summary, I’ve studied business blogging to build trust and community extensively in the last year.

It’s not about the tool, comments, or technology
Forget the tool for a minute, It’s not about comments, nor is it about defining what is a blog. It’s about the willingness to have a dialogue (by definition suggests two-way), dropping the PR schlack, avoid MarCom happy talk, to have an open, transparent conversation with your audience.

The overarching theme from all of these Business Blogging experts listed above is that it’s the act of transparent conversation to build trust with one’s community.

The Official Google Blog under fire
Several bloggers are challenging Google’s claim that their official blog is a great use of a popular business blog, thought leaders like Zoli and Michael Arrington are making some valuable points.

While the Official Google blog makes visible trackbacks, a great majority of the links out are more focused on the latest google features and releases. While that’s not a sinful strategy at all, it bangs in my point that the Google blog could benefit from more community focus.

Without having comments open, the Google blog to me is no more than a press release using half of blog technology, and only exposing part of the heart of the real humans behind it.

It’s about open dialogue to build trust with your community
We’re more likely to turn and trust Matt Cutts, a Google blogger that’s embraced the community by listening, linking out, enabling comments and putting on a human face during this past 2006.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Community Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Couldn’t agree more. The Google blog is all one way communication - and even that is rarely a personal.

Posted by Nilhan Jayasinghe on January 1st, 2007 at 7:41 am

Happy New Years, Jerry O! I enjoyed meeting you in 2006.

Posted by Recruiting Animal on January 1st, 2007 at 11:35 am

Jeremiah - can a company grow to the size of Google’s $500+ stock price and still have that type of openiness to the community that you suggest?
By most definitions they’ve been successful so far, so what would they gain by adjusting?

Posted by Dave Forde on January 1st, 2007 at 1:01 pm

[...] Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Google Blog Misses the boat on Blog Marketing t’s about the willingness to have a dialogue (by definition suggests two-way), dropping the PR schlack, avoid MarCom happy talk, to have an open, transparent conversation with your audience. The overarching theme from all of these Business Blogging expe (tags: blogging blog-marketing corporate-blogging business-blogging blogs google) [...]

Posted by EXCELER8ion - Online recruitment marketing, social media optimization, and interactive advertising on January 1st, 2007 at 4:51 pm

Truly,,blogging is for mass exposure on the web, too bad no one is intereseted in what 99.999% have to say. The ONLY reason marketers use blogs is for linking purposes in getting popularity to ones business offer..such as myself.
For an honest presentation of a work from home business go to:
http://predatormarketingsystem.com/1451 or
http://kchapman1.1-family.com

I teach marketing skills that instruct internet marketers on free advertising and getting web presense through blogging, press releases and other free advertising that will boost google or yahoo ranking.
http://freewebs.com/whoiskurtchapman

Posted by kurt chapman on January 1st, 2007 at 6:28 pm

Dave

You post an excellent question. The same thing happened to the Microsoft empire (which has more cash than Google). They grew so big, so large, and so distracted from core customer needs that people began to think they were ‘evil’.

Robert helped lead a community outreach (and Channel 9) to reach out to the community. So for a company to continue to stay close to the community, build products in line with market needs by having an open community communition will indeed help it stay in synch.

Having open community relations doesn’t have anything to do with the wealth of one’s company.

As companies get larger, and less flexible, anything they can do to stay in tune with customers is advised.

By the way, not sure if you know my background, but I did this at Hitachi Data Systems before going to Podtech two months ago.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on January 1st, 2007 at 6:34 pm

“can a company grow to the size of Google’s $500+ stock price and still have that type of openiness to the community that you suggest?”

You have the money, find a way. Get moderators, a whole team if need be. Make it happen. It’s important. No excuses.

It’s not a blog without comments.

Posted by Jim Kukral on January 1st, 2007 at 6:55 pm

“Jeremiah - can a company grow to the size of Google’s $500+ stock price and still have that type of openiness to the community that you suggest?”

Dave,
You are correct in stating that a public company (like Google) might not have the same flexibility in being open that a smaller, private firm might enjoy (for example, public companies have to follow certain guidelines for communicating with the public, such as not saying things that could influence the stock price positively).

However, I do believe that Google could do a better job in responding to the public for items that are already public. I personally find it very interesting that a company that has numerous “community tools” doesn’t engage as much as they should with the people that use their products & services.

Posted by Damon Billian on January 1st, 2007 at 8:08 pm

[...] This has prompted other bloggers like technology journalist Mathew Ingrim and web consultant Jeremiah Owyang to add their own opinions (both like comments), while a good debate has ensued on a variety of other sites and blogs. [...]

Posted by IR Web Report Blog » Is it a blog? Is it a website? No, it’s Google’s worst fear on January 1st, 2007 at 10:51 pm

[...] Jeremiah Owyang suggests: [...]

Posted by Dan Blank: Publishing, Innovation and the Web » Blog Archive » Does Discourse, Commenting and Community Define a Blog? on January 2nd, 2007 at 4:43 am

[...] Jeremiah opines: Forget the tool for a minute, It’s not about comments, nor is it about defining what is a blog. It’s about the willingness to have a dialogue (by definition suggests two-way), dropping the PR schlack, avoid MarCom happy talk, to have an open, transparent conversation with your audience. [...]

Posted by Is a Comment-Less Blog a Blog? | Andy Wibbels on January 4th, 2007 at 9:05 am

Nice Post.

That was well said. Always appreciate your indepth views. Keep up the great work!

John

Posted by JohnPearson on January 24th, 2007 at 2:30 pm

“The overarching theme from all of these Business Blogging experts listed above is that it’s the act of transparent conversation to build trust with one’s community.” - couldnt agree more