Most corporate blogs are pretty cheery places, with their message almost perpetually positive and the tone reflecting some of the best copywriting on the entire network. General Motor’s FastLane Blog has been an example of this, with interesting and engaging articles from various members of the massive GM team talking about auto design, car shows, features of specific models, and so on. But now that GM the company is facing extraordinarily tough times on the business side, it appears that its weblog is descending into cranky defensiveness, a tactic sure to backfire.
Read all about it at:
GM FastLane Blog Gets Defensive
Even if you aren’t interested in the automotive industry ,it’s still an excellent chance to learn about how a business blog can backfire if not managed properly.
I disagree. Your comments re the Fastlane blog are too soon – too fast. Compare GM’s response to “bad news” (declining revenue, declining market share, massive lay-offs…. yes, very very serious problems) to Six Apart’s “bad news” (TypePad, their hosted service, is still slow despite lots of promises to fix it). I’d say their responses are about the same.
I.e. neither company is saying enough on their blogs to directly address their respective problems. It’s frustrating for blog readers. But remember that blog readers are one tiny fragment of GM’s customer base. And, heck, if Six Apart, one of the companies behind the whole business blogging phenomenon, is slow to figure out how to handle “bad news” and “bad times” through their blogs then why should GM be any smarter?
I say, let’s give GM a little more time to figure out how to handle this on their blog. And I’m not a GM apologist. Just an interested by-stander. Yes I’ve interviewed several GMers – including Bob Lutz – for my book (The Corporate Blogging Book). No, I don’t think any of us (including me) have the whole story re the Fastlane blog. How it fits into the rest of their marketing strategy, how important it is, etc.
Dave, why don’t you leave your comments on the Fastlane blog?? It’s my understanding that the agency handling the blog compiles the comments and passes them on to Bob Lutz.
Comment by Debbie Weil — November 21, 2005 @ 4:22 pm
Sure, except one big difference: General Motors is a company that’s been around far, far longer than SixApart, they have thousands of employees, and some of the best sales, marketing and PR professionals in the world. You’re saying that this new medium is so different from any previous marcom tool that even a company as large as GM needs “more time to figure it out”? I find that a bit hard to accept, Debbie…
Comment by Dave Taylor — November 21, 2005 @ 4:58 pm
Back atcha… yeah, I think GM needs more time. The folks at Six Apart practically invented blogging for goshsake. And despite the best of intentions they’ve been clumsy at dealing with bad news on their blog.
Blogging is an imperfect, messy tool. And it’s going to be adapted and will evolve as more and more companies use it as a marketing strategy. It’s premature to say that corporate blogging has to be done a certain way or else the blog is a failure.
Again, I challenge you to direct your comments to GM… and get a direct response back on the Fastlane blog.
Ohhhh… this is getting fun. Dave Taylor and I are at bloggerheads. 🙂
Comment by Debbie Weil — November 21, 2005 @ 5:20 pm
But your argument is only relevant if you believe that blogging is a completely new beast, fundamentally different from any form of marketing communication or public relations than anything that preceeded it. I’m not entirely convinced that’s the case.
If you believe that blogging is just a step on the marketing continuum, if you will, then I *do* expect quite a bit from General Motors and its communications team.
Further, GM has had bad corporate news since the day it started the blog, I’m sorry to say, so it’s not like SixApart where everything’s running swimmingly and suddenly they have some server hiccups anyway.
Now, if only we were confident that everyone who read this remember those classic old Saturday Night Live skits, Jane… 🙂
Comment by Dave Taylor — November 21, 2005 @ 8:29 pm
[…] Shel Holtz is questioning if the credibility of the GM Fastlane blog is at risk due to it not discussing the 30,000 layoffs the company is planning on the blog. He also points to Debbie Weil’s and Dave Taylor’s disagreement over the issue. Saying that Dave thinks the GM blog is blowing it for not discussing the issue, while Debbie says to give it time. […]
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