I had a rather interesting conversation with a rather interesting gent (he knows who he is) as to the effect of businesses engaging with blogging and social media generally.

Business is bad for blogging

My friend’s point was this that blogging for business has had an almost corrupting influence on the thing that made blogging so popular in the first instance. In many respects, my friend is entirely right – the objective of business is to make profit and whether it is through blogging or otherwise – this remains as true as ever.

Blogging is good for business

What’s lost however as part of this conversation is what about the net effect that blogging and other social media may inadvertently have on business – or more particularly on how business does business. This is in my opinion an important point and has social consequences – having to engage through blogs and other social media will have a longer-term net positive effect.

Controlling the message

So what if businesses that are engaging are still highly motivated by a need to control the message. The enter into the arena with a set agenda, they may continue to stick to their guns for a period but gradually the smarter businesses are realising that engaging rather than controlling is where it is at.

No more lip

Of course we can argue the toss as to motive but to effectively blog, you must engage with the reader. That’s a blogging bottom line. This applies to business as much as it does to anyone else. Therefore, the act of blogging effectively means that business will need engage with it’s customers in a new way. For too long many businesses paid lip service to the idea of serving their customers, perhaps now they are beginning to not have a choice.

Just because you have a blog

Not all businesses engage through their blog I hear you say, and of course you are right, they don’t. Ok, so what, just because you have a blog surely doesn’t automatically mean that you can blog.

Surely effective blogging or indeed effective use of any social media is not about the technology – it’s about the people or the organisations behind them. Yes, businesses are slow to get it and in many respects they are merely involved in a desperate act of catching up but think about it – Who is really the one in control?