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| GE Aviation blog, slick design, corporate message, fits the image |
The image of user contributed content, especially blogs (i.e.
Blogger, Wordpress, TypePad, Tumblr) and social media sites (i.e.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) as informal and not useful in slick
corporate marketing is not exactly true. For the most part, this is
just an image. Some would say outdated and simply not useful. Looking
carefully on how different organizations use blog formats, reveals a
more complex landscape. Blogs started out as an alternative (and easy
to use) publication platform. Quickly, they became the alternative
opposition-voice in many areas, especially politics, technology,
finance, and medicine. Blogs such as The Huffington Post, Giga Om,
Engaget, TechCrunch, The Motley Fool, and WebMD became popular sites
quickly. With their edgy writing and sometimes “big brother -
conspiracy busting” style, it seemed like the internet
would become a realm of popular writing with democratic leanings. Yet
this idea, did not reflect the whole potential of digital media in
government, corporate, media (written, audio, and video), and
creative fields. While the out of favor and non-mainstream writers
were enjoying complete freedom to say their piece, the more
traditional media and corporate world took a wait and see attitude
towards internet publishing. The traditional media channels simply
did not need the internet as much as the other voices. They were also
waiting for more reliable and better designed (i.e. look and feel)
capability. That landscape has changed radically. Today we see the
most slick and corporate marketing communicators using the blog
format in creative ways, without the outsider leanings. The same is
true for social media sites, where mainstream marketing is taking
hold in a big way.