Brutalmente e senza tante cerimonie, mi sembra il caso di ribadire le 5 ragioni per le quali un corporate blog fallisce così come escono (inglese) dalla penna di Lee Odden (Online Marketing Blog).

– No clear objectives. With all the buzz and promise of increased search engine visibility, improved customer communications and PR, many companies task their IT group to “set up a blog” without ever planning exactly what the key objectives are. […]The key is to identify the objectives for the corporate blog, get key metrics identified and create a content creation and promotion plan consistent with reaching those goals.

– Unrealistic expectations and resource allocation. Blogging is work, no doubt about it. Not everyone is a natural blog writer and community builder. A successful business blog puts a personality on the company and both listens and responds to the community. Expecting a blog to be a silver bullet purely based on the SEO friendliness of blog software for example, is as shortsighted as expecting on-page SEO alone to solve a web site’s search engine ranking problems. […] If a company is going to start a blog, they should plan for success rather than treating it like a crapshoot. Commit or go home.

– Not sourcing content for the long term. One of the most common reasons business blogs lack content or posting frequency is a combination of not participating in the blogging community conversation and not identifying content sources. Keyword researched blog categories can serve as a sort of editorial guide on what to write about as well as identifying a mix of post types to be written on a regular basis. […]Companies would also do well to identify multiple people to write for the company blog so no one person is tasked with too much.

– No feedback mechanisms. Comments and trackbacks are a big part of why blogs are different than web sites. However, many business blogs don’t allow comments because they fear the time/expense of staffing required to handle them. They also fear what readers might say. Comments are a goal not a liability. Feedback from readers, good and bad creates a conversation that includes the company. The conversation is already happening elsewhere, why not have it in your own backyard?

– Do it yourself syndrome. Companies can setup blogs themselves quite easily, but judging by the number of “dead” blogs out there, it’s a very different thing to setup a blog than to start a blog and be successful with it. As with any potentially complicated and lucrative venture, anticipating all the contingencies and dependencies is near impossible unless it’s been done before.

So cosa state pensando: vi domandate perché diciamo tutti più o meno le stesse cose. La risposta – suggerisco io – potrebbe essere che, semplicemente, sono vere.