While search engine optimisation (SEO) is seen as the new holy grail for the future of marketing, PR and advertising, tech CEOs don’t seem to regard corporate blogging as an essential tool, new research reveals.
“The jury is still out on corporate blogging,” Ronnie Simpson of Simpson FTPR (pictured) told siliconrepublic.com. “There’s a lot of talk about corporate blogging out there but our research of 350 senior tech executives who are closer to the area of new media than the average punter found that while a lot are blogging, a lot of them aren’t.”
The EuroCom Annual IT Confidence Survey revealed that four out of five senior IT executives believe SEO is impacting corporate communications and marketing.
Three out of five executives (59pc) expect the company they work for to increase expenditure on internet advertising in 2008.
Internet marketing is rated as the best value for money in the marketing communications mix, ahead of trade shows and exhibitions (13pc), according to 43pc of respondents.
However, despite the impact blogs have on search engine listings, the survey found half of the 350 tech industry executives don’t blog.
While 32pc believe blogging is too time consuming, a whopping 42pc say they don’t see the value in corporate blogging.
“I think a lot of people don’t appreciate the importance of blogging in terms of SEO.”
Continuity, Simpson believes, is a prime reason. “I speak as a failed blogger. While I have a blog, I don’t blog frequently enough.
“I understand why people are reluctant to make a commitment to blogging and it’s quite understandable why a lot of companies aren’t doing it; you’ve got to do it regularly. I may be a blogger but I’m an infrequent one. At least not as frequent as the blogging fundamentalists believe I should be.
“If you’re not doing it every three days, you could be ex-communicated by the blogging fundamentalists.”
Simpson says despite time constraints, it’s too early for senior executives to start dismissing the trend. “There’s been a lot of hype about blogging but it is interesting that the survey suggests the jury is still out.
“There are great examples of companies out there doing it successfully, but it does require a real commitment.
“One company we deal with, StatCounter, believes very much in blogging. It is a showcase and a great example of how you could use blogging for business. It has made a great commitment and is benefiting from it,” Simpson said.
By John Kennedy
