Mario Sundar's Speakeasy

Most of them are! And, I can’t disagree with the WSJ’s assessment that most corporate blogs (esp. the B2B ones) tend to be boring, starting off as attempts to borrow the Web 2.0 magic but fall along the wayside for lack of perceived value and interest.

A new study by Forrester Research reviewed 90 blogs run by business-to-business companies in the Fortune 500, and surveyed about twice that many B2B marketers. Like most businesses, these companies want to use the Internet to reach their customers.

I believe while the Web 2.0 world has embraced blogging and has begun using it as an effective communication tool. Most B2B companies, the focus of the Forrester research and the WSJ post, don’t get it yet.

Having said that, I also know the companies that do a great job at it. Here’s my list of Top 15 corporate blogs on the planet [May 2008] that I manage here on Marketing Nirvana. I rank them using Technorati ranks and manage a spreadsheet to do that. Actually, here’s the first blog post that garnered widespread attention and got me hooked to blogging. It is a Top 10 CEO blog posts that still gets a ton of incoming links!

What can a B2B company emulate from either a Web 2.0 or B2C company to “spice up their blog”, following the examples set by these companies.

1. Evaluate the need for a corporate blog candidly

2. Centralize your blog as the focus of your communication

3. Blog regularly

4. Pay attention to comments & respond

5. Stimulate discussion

Stay tuned for more tips on corporate blogging or check out these other posts from my archives that may help. Interested in LinkedIn’s very own corporate blog – go here.

(Disclosure: I’m LinkedIn’s chief blogger and have managed these rankings way before I started at LinkedIn)

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Filed under: Best-of, Business Blogging