Have you noticed lately how many blogs are popping up that are all about someone's company or product rather than real issues? According to many studies more than 8000 new blogs are created daily which could be good for the honest and transparent dialogue that blogs were intended to create. But, when folks start blogging about a product, business, or specific message it's hard to stay excited about using blogs to expand your knowledge base of issues or connections. And it's hard for successful bloggers to keep their readers excited about their blogs since things appear so crowded.
In the PR world what is happening is known as "astroturfing" a term we owe to Charles Colson (a Nixon staffer) When unfavorable things were printed in the news about Nixon there would be an onslaught of calls, letters, visits etc to the publisher/editor from readers of the publication defending Nixon. This seemingly grassroots campaign got the attention of the editorial team and defended Nixon in a way his own team could not - the editors afraid of the public backlash would print the favorable responses and at times even sat on stories so as not to affront the public.
Little did they know that Colson was the puppet master responsible for the "Grassroots" efforts. He hired a team of people who spend their days responding to negative Nixon news by posing as readers and community members supporting Nixon due to their beliefs. In reality they were paid for these beliefs that were carefully crafted by Colson and his team - thus the term "astroturfing" - the appearance of a grass roots campaign when none is actually there.
Blogging was successful because it was established by people who had an opinion and wanted to voice it without worrying about their corporate sponsors, to empower the wisdom of the crowd, to let smart people talk to other smart people and learn from them. And it worked wonders. It still can.
Blogging is about starting dialogues, sharing ideas and benefiting your readership - if you can do that I encourage you to start your blog now - we will all look forward to reading it. If not you might want to invest your time in a more worthwhile endeavor for your marketing messages - like email campaigns or search engine optimization. If I sound cranky I'm not I'm just opinionated...yup, you got me, I'm a blogger!
Sean Reardon, The JS Group Web 2.0 Team
http://www.thejsgroup.net/blog