• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, December 10, 2008

When it comes to gaining consumer confidence, company blogs are the used car salesmen of the media world.

According to a new Forrester Research report, only 16% of people surveyed say they trust corporate blogs. That makes them the lowest-rated source of reliable information among the 18 categories Forrester asked about, including Web portals, print newspapers, radio and personal blogs.

"Email from people that you know" rated highest in trustworthiness, at 77%. So should companies simply give up on blogging? No, says Forrester. The lack of credibility stems from corporate blogs' focus on self-promotion, pushing products and services at the expense of two-way communication with customers.

Instead, companies should shift the focus back to consumers. That means using a blog to address customers' problems, foster an online community, involve employees outside of corporate communications, and provide an authentic voice to discuss internal company tidbits and to respond to critics.

"Everybody thinks their blog is an exception," says Josh Bernoff, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. "The blogs that people do trust are the ones where people say 'Oh, but I don't think of it as a company blog.'"

He points to Wal-Mart as a corporate blog turnaround story. After suffering a publicity debacle in 2006 with what turned out to be a fake blog espousing a pro-Wal-Mart message, the retail giant has since turned its corporate blog over to company buyers for different departments.

"So it's not about Wal-Mart, but about products," says Bernoff. "Wal-Mart is ganging up with consumers against suppliers and getting consumers on their side. That's worthwhile." Still, it's not as if the company's buyers are disinterested reviewers. Their blog entries generally tout products on Wal-Mart's shelves.

A more recent example of a company running into what Forrester calls a "brand-storm" is Johnson & Johnson. The pharmaceutical company pulled an online campaign for Motrin last month after an enormous backlash from moms against ads about the pain of carrying around a baby.

A more proactive blog by Johnson & Johnson could have helped the company respond better to the controversy, according to Bernoff. "The objective is not to have a positive goal like convincing more people that a product is good," he says. "The goal is to keep people from developing a negative view."

Since much of the outrage over the Motrin ads arose on Twitter, he added, companies should use the mini-blogging site to respond rapidly to spiraling publicity problems and to draw attention to relevant posts on the company's main blog.

An initial apology posted on J&J's "BTW" blog on Nov. 17 by Kathy Widmer, vice president of marketing for subsidiary McNeil Consumer Health, was followed by another on Nov. 20, informing consumers that the Motrin campaign had been pulled. That message is still posted on the home page of the Motrin site, and is the last one on the topic found on the J&J blog.

"That message has been up there for weeks. But now, maybe it's time to change it and start saying something positive," suggests Bernoff.

Other brands, however, manage to attract large loyal followings without even bothering with a blog. That elite group includes Apple, whose popular products like the iPod and iPhone have nonetheless given rise to plenty of third-party blogs about the company.

Still, Bernoff says that Apple's culture of secrecy could at some point prove detrimental. "The only way you can survive with behavior like that is to keep coming out with products that people love," he says. "But I wonder if there will come a time when it becomes a big problem for them."

The fake Internet report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack, causing the company's stock to drop as much as 5.4% on Oct. 3, may be the type of event a company blog or Twitter account would help to address quickly.