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As if we needed the numbers to back this, Forrester Research put out a study saying that only 16% of people surveyed say they trust corporate blogs. Umm..duh right.

Alright, alright I guess its the study makes it valid now, but tell me the last time you read a blog by any big corporation that filled you with warm fuzzies and reminded you of the power and transparency of a blog. Mark Walsh [Online Media Daily] comments…”When it comes to gaining consumer confidence, company blogs are the used car salesmen of the media world.”  He goes on to comment that:

…companies should shift the focus back to consumers. That means using a blog to address customers’ problems, foster an online community, involve employees outside of corporate communications, and provide an authentic voice to discuss internal company tidbits and to respond to critics.

Point Walsh. As I thought about this I wanted to put it to the personal test. I decided to hypothesize and provide some examples of corporations that I thought, or should I say hoped had a blog that was “blogsponsible”. This is of course the name my new 0-5 point scoring system for the test. 0 being the lest “blogsponsible” 5 being the most. Here are my criteria…they got 1 point for the following:

Authenticity, Fostering Community, Addressing their customer’s needs, Recent and Up to date, and Easy to find on the web.

I decided to pick the blogs mentioned in the article and some others that I was curious about. Email me if you have some other ideas. Here are the results.

Walmart  = 1 

They get one point for being up to date, but for the most part its just a huge commercial for their products.

Johnson and Johnson  = 3 

They got a bad wrap in Walsh’s article, but I liked their blog. It seemed authentic and the entries were interesting. They addresses consumer concern with out sounding big brothery. Nice work JJ.

Apple = 0

It still amazes me that Apple doesn’t have a blog. Their secrecy and closed doors are weird.

 Google = 4

Of course I had to rate their blog. I am admittedly biased here as I read their blog at least once a month to see what the latest is, but its authentic, fun, provides info on products, intersting, and relevant

 Wells Fargo = 5

Go Wells! Wow I was very surprised by this big corp. They have a family of blogs that are actually pretty good. The design of the student loan blog is sick. They even have a blog for their second life island. But its not over done at all. They are all targeted and up to date and all have good content.

Exxon Mobile = 0

If they have a blog I couldnt find it. I gave it 10 mintues. Please let me know if you find one. There was a twitter impersonater though..Check it

Ok…this is obviously a cursory list and was more of an exercise than anything else. It was sweet to research though as I am not one to take time to read Corporate blogs. I certianly was surprised by what I found. Let me know of some other corproate blog’s that affirm or refute that Corporate Blogs Suck!

PS – I do realize the contridiction of this as technically this is a Corporate blog right? What’s my “blogsponsible” rating?