Blogging for business by U.S. companies on the rise

U.S. Companies are increasingly using blogs for marketing purposes, with the trend expecting to continue in the coming years. 16 percent of companies used blogs in 2007 and the number is expected to increase to 43 percent by 2012. This while the universe of personal blogs has slowed in recent years.

What should lawyers and law firms take from this information?

• That though other forms of social media (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc) may be taking away from personal blogging, business blogging continues to rise.
• Companies need to own and control their principal social media presence. Blogs permit that. Other forms of social media do not.
• Blogs allow your intellectual capital – your insight and commentary – to be stored in one place under your name. Other forms of social media do not.
• Companies need to control their brand, or, in the case of lawyers, their reputation. Blogs allow this.
• Blogs allow company leaders to establish themselves as thought leaders, something much more difficult to do with other social media.
• Blogging as an industry leader so as to engage your target audience is much more becoming of company leadership than the use of other social media.
• By not blogging you’re going to look more and more like laggards to your business clientele.
• For business lawyers, if you’re not blogging you are losing an effective means of engaging what will be 43 percent of your clients by 2012.

Thanks to the folks at eMarketer, a leader in research and trend analysis on digital marketing and media, as well as Mark Watanabe, Technology Editor at the Seattle Times, whose publishing this research in the Times brought it to my attention.