Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere?
Web-based commentary sites usually written in a first-person, conversational manner—to connect with customers online and advance corporate communications and marketing goals.
Context & Ripple Effects
Two days after the New York Times reported on corporate ad money flowing to bloggers and the rebel-reputation risk it carries, Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge turns the same question inward: whether companies themselves should publish first-person, conversational blogs. The timing matters — the debate has moved from advertisers buying space on blogs to corporations becoming the publishers.
The HBS piece frames corporate blogging as a communications-and-marketing tool aimed at connecting with customers directly, which puts it squarely inside the credibility tension the Times piece documented: the moment commercial motives enter the blogosphere, the medium's perceived authenticity becomes the thing both sides are bargaining over.
First-order effects
- Corporate communications and marketing teams now have an explicit decision framework for launching executive blogs, and any company that does so inherits the authenticity scrutiny that ad-funded bloggers were already facing per the Times reporting.
Second-order effects
- PR agencies and consultants gain a new advisory line — coaching executives on conversational voice and disclosure — while independent bloggers and tech journalists sharpen their watchdog posture toward anything that smells like corporate astroturf.
Third-order effects
- If corporate blogging normalizes, the boundary between independent commentary and paid messaging becomes the industry's central governance problem, forcing informal disclosure norms well before regulators weigh in.
The trend: Corporate adoption of conversational web publishing is converting the blogosphere from an outsider medium into a mainstream marketing channel, with authenticity as the contested asset.