Blogging, Church, Community, Strategy, Web Tools
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Don’t Drink the Church Blog Cool Aid

Posted by John Saddington on Dec 16, 2008

Trust is an important thing.  It’s an intangible “good” that can grease the wheel in relationships or (if you don’t have it) establish walls like that of Jericho that require godly intervention to bring down.

It’s application is obvious, it’s effects incalculable.  And it applies everywhere, even blogs.

But we knew that already, right?

Take a look at this graph below provided by Jeremiah.

trust_info

Things to note, in particular, is that the “Personal Blog” is ranked 3rd from the bottom… and the pit-winner is the “Company Blog”.

Couple of thoughts that popped into my head:

  1. How sad.  Is this really true?  Are the “evangelical” blogs subject to the same results?
  2. Company blogs have been typically surveyed the same as spiritual organizational / church blogs.  Again, is this really true?  Is the application the same?

In either case, people apparently don’t trust enough, especially the established organizations.  But these words, direct from the study, resound heavily:

Make no mistake. This is not a plea to give up on blogging.

It is a plea to be thoughtful in how and why you blog.

This means that if you blog, your goal should be to create a blog about which people say “I like that – I don’t think of it as a company blog.” For the most part, that’s a hurdle you need to jump to gain their trust. I don’t mean to hide who is writing the blog. I mean it has to be more about your customers than it is about you.

Wow.  Sounds familiar, right?  Don’t drink the cool-aid of the masses and how they do their blogging.  We have so much more to do and so much more important stuff to be blogging about.

And we’re all about changing lives.  I’m not sure it’s the same thing as “IcanHasCheezburger.com“… but I’ve been wrong before.

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John Saddington

John is the Chief Editor @ The 8BIT Network and Senior Blog Junkie here at ChurchCrunch.He enjoys Triple-Tall Americanos, developing Wordpress Themes, and a few other Random Things.

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12 Responses to “Don’t Drink the Church Blog Cool Aid”

  1. Brandon
    Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 3:59 am

    I've thought a lot about this survey, which I've read a lot about. I'm thinking that possibly, it isn't just a matter of people not trusting blogs, but people not trusting companies. I mean, we know all companies exist to make our money become theirs. So blogs may not be to blame, commerce in general might be.

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 12:05 pm

      that's a good point brandon. the brand transcends the medium.

      Reply
  2. Leo Wurschmidt
    Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 1:07 am

    I am slightly skeptical about this survey, but then again I am slightly skeptical about all surveys.

    However, if this is the case, then that is a huge blow to new media experts and business bloggers. I talk with a lot of people who are not quite the online nerds we are. They essentially have no idea what a blog is. Either that or they have a lot of misconceptions about blogging. I wonder if this is part of the reason for the lack trust in blogging as a whole.

    Web marketing people always talk about the long tail of marketing with respect to the web. Perhaps blogging is still a little farther out on the long tail than we think.

    Sad.

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 12:06 pm

      you're like me. i'm a healthy skeptic. i think the person behind the blog needs to be apparent first.

      Reply
      • Leo Wurschmidt
        Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 4:27 am

        I completely agree. Transparency through the blog is so important. Who is writing the blog?? Then worry about the rest.

        Reply
  3. Leo Wurschmidt
    Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 3:06 am

    Wow, direct mail is even a few slots higher. If that survey is correct, ouch.

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 12:06 pm

      dmail, what's that? :)

      Reply
      • Leo Wurschmidt
        Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 4:28 am

        dmail is the stuff that goes straight from the mailbox to the trashcan. hehe

        Reply
  4. Jimmy Gray
    Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 7:16 am

    I sat in on this webcast today and found this info helpful in reflect on what people are accessing. They want access to someone real and who they can interact with. Not a company that makes a blog and keeps giving you corporate info. That's as frustrating as a corp phone menu…
    "Press 2 if you are a loser…"
    "Press 3 if you are not sure why you are calling…"

    Case in point…
    I called Desiring God Ministries today to talk with them about some technical mumbo jumbo regarding audio files. I assumed that I was going to have to dial my way through the call to get a human. But they answered the call! I was shocked!

    Case in point…
    One of the presenters from the webcast tweeted me that it was cool that my 14 year old son was sitting in on the session. I dig this relationship building stuff that is happening. It's fun to find common ground.

    'nuff said…

    Hey, I'm putting this on my own blog!

    Reply

  1. churchcrunch (churchcrunch)

    New blog post: Don’t Drink the Church Blog Cool Aid http://tinyurl.com/5sqgos

  2. human3rror (human3rror)

    good stats: :::::::::::::; New blog post: Don’t Drink the Church Blog Cool Aid http://tinyurl.com/5sqgos