Corporate blogging still not taking of

While corporate blogging is gaining ground in the USA, the overwhelming majority of businesses around the world still goes without any form of company-branded blogs. The findings, announced at the EuroBlog 2007 conference in Ghent, Belgium, were based on a survey of 300 companies from 11 different countries. Of the European companies included in the survey, only 2,5% had one or more corporate blogs. Asia-Pacific scored slightly higher with 5,5%, with the US leading at 14,0%.

The figures in Hungary reflect a similar trend: searching for Hungarian corporate blogs on the Internet, it’s difficult to find one, although there are already some famous bloggers and blogging has become popular. However, a majority of the companies included in the survey operates in tech-savvy markets such as IT and media. Therefore, LEWIS estimates the actual blog use by corporations to be even lower than the survey indicated. When looking for the reasons for this phenomenon, LEWIS drew a remarkable conclusion. “Interestingly enough, with the exception of the USA every country seems to think it’s lagging the rest of the world when it comes to corporate blogging”, said Andres Wittermann VP Europe at LEWIS.

“Their reasons vary strongly: Southern European countries such as think it’s because they’re traditionally slower with IT-related innovation, while other countries like Italy and SpainGermany and the Netherlands blame it on a lack of insight in the (financial) benefits of a corporate blog. Key barriers in the Asia-Pacific region include a tradition of doing business face-to-face and a high level of media regulation.” “However, the reality is that nobody is lagging – corporate blogging simply hasn’t arrived yet”, added Andres Wittermann. LEWIS conducted the survey as part of its paper.

'The business value of blogging’, which was also announced today. In addition to the survey results, the paper includes a comprehensive set of tools and insights that help a company decide whether or not to launch a corporate blog. “Companies around the world remain hesitant to start blogging because the benefits, costs and implications are not clear to them”, said Mark van der Wolf, Head of Creative at LEWIS Benelux and lead author of the paper. “Their caution is justified, because as the paper shows, a corporate blog is definitely not for everyone.” “Still, under the right circumstances and with the right approach, it can contribute greatly to achieving a multitude of business objectives.”