Josh Bernoff recently released a study headlined "People don't trust company blogs. What you should do about it." that has a lot of people talking about the relevance of corporate blogs and how they can be improved. A worthwhile counterpoint to the article is from Max Kalehoff at AttentionMax if you are interested in following the discussion.

I can see how this might be an interesting question for debate, but I wonder just how useful this information ultimately is. You could change the question to whether people trust companies and corporations, and you would likely get a similar result. Does that mean companies should try harder to get people to trust them? Of course, but I also think that conclusion is missing the real opportunity.

For me, these survey results boil down to something we should have known all along: People trust their peers more than they trust companies. So instead of working to make everyone in the world trust you, wouldn't it be more productive to earn the trust of the more vocal peers (the super users) and then help them advocate on your behalf?

Let's call this the basic community advocacy strategy:

1. Find the most vocal and influential peers
2. Embrace them and earn their trust
3. Provide more ways for them to talk about you and influence others

Blogs are a useful tool in this strategy, but you are facing an uphill battle if your measure of success is to gain everyone's trust (or even the trust of a majority of your readers according to the Forrester survey). Don't spread your efforts so thin, focus instead on what will have the greatest effect: building relationships with those influential peers to reach the broader audience.

It's not how many people trust you, it's who trusts you that ultimately counts.

photo by greefus groinks

I'm always on the lookout in our organization for folks with something interesting to say, and finding the best ways for them to get it out to the community. And of course blogging is part of that strategy.

I've found that there are quite a few who are interested in blogging, but they just don't know where to begin. If you just look at all the different blogs out there today, you can see all kinds of ways newcomers can get lost. And so I'm often dispensing advice on ways to help them get started in building their own voice.

A few of my favorite starters:

• Come up with a short title and one line description on what you would like to talk about. The goal is to focus on what you want to blog about. Then you can see if this is something members of the community are also interested in discussing.
• Pace yourself. You don't have to write everything you think at once, this isn't a whitepaper or a book. Think of an article as just one point of a larger discussion and keep it simple and straightforward. Because blogging is ongoing you have an opportunity to build up your points over time. Take advantage of that to create for yourself a stockpile of things to talk about next.
• Write something. It's trite, but blogging is about writing - if you aren't writing, you're not blogging (unless your podcasting and video blogging, but the essence is the same). Get those thoughts down somewhere to start practicing before you launch yourself into the limelight. Then share what you've written with others who can give you some honest and nurturing feedback to improve.

What are the things you learned that you'd like to pass on to future bloggers?

Photo by Claudia Snell

So, you found some experts and after some coaxing they were willing to give blogging a try. Well done! But now you face a new problem: how do you keep new articles flowing?

The first thing to remember is that a blogger is also a super user. They are a small contigent of people who contribute the majority of content in your community. The only difference is that you have given these folks a soapbox of their own. And like super users, you need to carefully nurture them and help them grow by making sure their needs are fulfilled:

• Recognize: Give them a rank or title that recognizes the expertise they bring to the community. And when they publish a new article let everyone know how great it was. They are a valuable voice - make sure the community knows it!


• Engage: Bloggers and super users need to know they are heard and appreciated, just like everyone else. No one wants to speak to an empty room. Help them out by commenting on their blogs or encouraging others to do so - other bloggers, team members, their bosses, their peers, super users, community members, or anyone else involved! Make it a team effort!


• Explain the personal benefits: Let the bloggers know that this is an opportunity for them to network and improve their personal brand and their career. Your community and organization stands to benefit from their contributions; explain how they can benefit personally as well.


• Promote: Welcome new bloggers to the community and help existing bloggers expand their audience. Read their articles and cite them both in the community and in other social media venues for all to see. Help them register in blog networks like Technorati. Mention them in newsletters. synicate their content to your other web sites. Get the word out! After all, their success is your success so do all you can to help them get there!

You can't stop helping your bloggers once you get them started. Blogging is tough enough, so don't make your bloggers go it alone.

If you are a blogger, what keeps you going? Any tips or tricks you can share?

Very few of us live to blog. It takes a special kind of effort to put yourself out there and express yourself on a regular basis. By way of example, here are a few responses I heard more than once while recruiting bloggers at Lithium:

"I'd like to blog, but I'm not sure I'd be any good at it."

"The last thing I want is to be boring."

"I'm not sure anyone would read it."

Bear in mind that at least one of these comments was from the same expert I've witnessed passionately and eloquently espousing the esoteric points of rating systems and their virtues in front of rooms filled with people, so I admit to being a little surprised.

I've often heard that a prime characteristic of a successful blogger is passion. We have very passionate people here at Lithium, and I expect you have your share of passionate folks in your organization too. But I've found that a person needs more than just passion to blog: you also need validation. You need to believe that your words matter, that someone else is interested in what you have to say.

So how do you foster that sense of worth in your future bloggers? Here's a couple of ideas we have to get over this hurdle:

• Ask your expert a question and let them know that you think they are the best person to address this topic. It is easier to respond to a question than to think one up on your own. And by letting them know you consider them THE expert on the issue, you've give them that validation to start writing. As new questions come in on this topic, it will become more and more natural for that expert to respond.


• Find an instance where they have previously expressed an opinion and ask them to clarify it in more detail. You have interesting conversations with each other all the time; after all, that's why you want these folks to be bloggers! Next time, continue the conversation via email and then ask the expert to use their excellent response as a blog article. The heavy lifting is mostly done at that point, and they already know at least one person (you) is interested and thinks others would be interested too.


• Start building a pool of topics that your bloggers can use for new ideas. Support and Sales teams are especially useful here, as they are constantly getting new questions from customers and prospects. Get those questions into a common area (maybe even an internal board on your forum) and ask the internal community who they would like to hear answer it.

It's not easy to blog with any frequency, but first you have to make it easier to begin. If you have a blog, what prompted you to start? What encouragement would you give to new bloggers?