The Science of Marketing

I was recently doing some research on blogging for a high tech client, and as I scribbled down notes and numbers an interesting fact jumped off the page. In high tech, large companies are much better bloggers than small ones. Of course, my sample space was limited to a certain segment of the enterprise market, but even still, a fairly broad search for small high tech companies that are active in the blogosphere turned up very few results. Meanwhile, Cisco, IBM and Sun have embraced blogging as a vehicle for communications with the outside world, harnessing the collective experience of their employees to create a constant stream of valuable content that builds thought leadership and draws traffic to their respective web sites. In short, the gorillas have become the kings of the blogging jungle.

What surprises me is not the amount of muscle these giant corporations have put behind blogging, but the lack of activity from their smaller, younger counterparts. After all, high tech startups should have a lot to blog about in light of the innovation they bring to a given market and the close ties they build with customers. They are also resource constrained, so you’d think they would want to capitalize on the relatively low cost of awareness that a blog provides. And being on the cutting edge usually means a willingness to adopt new approaches to marketing, so new media should intrigue more than scare startups. But still, emerging high tech companies have yet to embrace the blog as a credible platform for communications, while the gorillas thump their chests and claim the territory.

With their rigid guidelines for external communications and an aversion to brand dilution, you might think that large companies have more to lose than gain by exposing the uncensored voices of their employees to the outside world. And with the risk of negative attention that comes with allowing reader comments, you would think the gorillas would shy away from the practice. Yet, there are over 4,000 employee blogs on Sun’s corporate web site, and comments are encouraged. Similarly, Cisco hosts a number of employee blogs on a range of topics and allows comments too, and IBM offers links to hundreds of off-site employee blogs.

Maybe one big reason more startups aren’t blogging is the same as one big reason they should. Resources are scarce, and blogging takes a commitment if it’s going to be done right. But you don’t need to have an IBM-sized budget to reap the benefits of blogging. In fact, once it’s up and running, your blog will be one of the lowest maintenance weapons in your marketing arsenal.

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.