blogs or flogs? genre conventions and linguistic practices in corporate web logs

1. Blogs or Flogs? Genre Conventions and Linguistic Practices in Corporate Web Logs Cornelius Puschmann University of Dsseldorf [email_address] Telematica Instituut 31 August 2007

2. Contents of this presentation

Research context

What's a corporate blog anyway?

Why do companies blog?

Three strategic approaches:conformingwith,floutingorsubvertingconventions

Observations

3. Research context

4. The project

Doctoral thesis project:

The corporate blog as an emerging genre of computer-mediated

communication

Focus

survey of a new form of domain-specific publishing

linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects

Questions

What functions do corporate blogs realize?

How do corporate blogs play with existing genre conventions?

5. Data

web feeds (RSS/Atom) are used to retrieve, store and analyze language data

automated part-of-speech annotation

161 English-language sources (133 corporate blogs, 18 personal, 1 political, 1 technical)

3 press editorial sections (New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times)

5 press release sections (Microsoft, GM, Sun, Oracle, McDonald's)

29,528 blog posts

7,821,317 words

6. What's a corporate blog anyway?

7. An example: GM FastLane

8. A lot of different terms on the market

enterprise blogging

corporate blogging

business blogging

employee blogging

paid blogging

...

9. My pragmatic definition

A blog written and maintained by the employees of a company that is

used to further organizational goals.

Blogs can fulfill intra- or extra-organizational functions

marketing

public relations

customer relations management

recruiting

knowledge management

communication

10. Organizational and functional types of corporate blogs

Five different types grouped according to authorship and function:



product blog



product blog,image blog



product blog,image blog ,knowledge blog



product blog,image blog ,knowledge blog ,strategy blog



product blog,image blog ,knowledge blog ,strategy blog ,multi-purpose blog

16. Corporate blogging ethics?

Robert Scoble'sCorporate Weblog Manifesto(2003)

http://scoble.weblogs.com/2003/02/26.html

#1Tell the truth

#2Post fast on good news or bad

#3Use a human voice

#5Have a thick skin

#7Talk to the grassroots first

#8If you screw up, acknowledge it

#14If you don't have the answers, say so

code of conduct, behavior beats bottom line

17. Companies that blog

18. Why do companies blog?

19. A communicative crisis?

The Cluetrain Manifesto(1999)

http://www.cluetrain.com/

#1Markets are conversations.

#2Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

#3Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

#4Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.

#5People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.

23. Communicating vs. Publishing spontaneous planned discursive monologic qualified constative publishing (written) interpersonal communication (spoken) transient persistent contextual non-contextual

24. What's so special about blogs?

blogs are the first trulypersonalpublishing platform

blogs combine the qualities ofpublishing(one-to-many, asynchronous, no feedback) andinterpersonal communication(one-one, synchronous, feedback)

they have hard technically conditioned conventions...

segmentation of texts into posts

title, date and author with each post

reverse chronological order of items

permalinks ...

... and soft communicative conventions

first-person voice (I think it is a good thing that X vs. It is a good thing that X)

meta-language (I just wanted to blog about this)

interactional queues are usually literal (What do you think? means Leave a comment!)

author and publisher are usually identical (I means I, writer, I, publisher and I, blog owner) ...

25. Implications for corporate blogging

people can communicate, companies can't

the corporate voice is an invention

press releases, advertisements etc either have no discernible referents or simulate conversations (here at Company X, we are trying to make your life better)

this worked fine in mass media (no feedback), but fails in feedback media such as blogs Since companies can't communicate, how can they blog?

26. Three strategic approaches:conforming ,floutingorsubvertingconventions

27. Strategy #1: Conforming author is discernible

28. The trouble with conforming

Spokesperson syndrome: any time an employee expresses a (personal) opinion it can be interpreted as the official standpoint of the company

no more clear, carefully targeted messages

individuals take the spotlight, companies get the limelight

personal communicative goals can take priority over those of the company

Useful if...

a neutral, third-party view is needed to ease an image problem (Scoble)

behavior beats bottom line

29. Strategy #2: Flouting instead, use of the corporate we

30. The trouble with flouting

risk of being accused of not getting it

risk of being ignored

what function does this realize?

31. Strategy #3: Subverting there's an author... but he's fictional

32. The trouble with subverting

if you get caught you're in deep trouble (Wal-Mart flog incident)

subverting is the strategy for pursuing covert goals

problem A: you are cheating, problem B: that you are cheating suggests that you have a hidden agenda

can you build real trust with fictional characters?

33. E) Observations

34. Observations

blogs are profoundlypersonalplatforms of communication

this means that organizations must individualize corporate relations if they want to utilize blogs

this is associated with a number of risks

traditional, control-based approaches to marketing and PR are least effective in the context of blogs, unless one resorts tofloutingorsubverting

new approaches are

hard to predict in their precise effect

hard to replicate

highly dependent on the individual bloggers expertise, sensitivity etc

only effective in the long term

35. Thanks for listening!

36. Blogs or Flogs? Exploring and Exploiting Genre Conventions and Linguistic Practices in Corporate Web Logs Cornelius Puschmann University of Dsseldorf [email_address] Telematica Instituut 31 August 2007

blogs or flogs? genre conventions and linguistic practices in corporate web logs

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