multiple-media.com Barometer Survey: Quebec Companies Show Little Interest in Publishing Blogs

The second edition of the multiple-media.com Barometer, a monthly survey of web technologies carried out by Montreal web agency multiple-media.com, shows that only 4% of Quebec companies employing more than 50 people publish a business blog, compared to 32% of Fortune 500 companies who use this emerging communication tool.

IT and marketing executives (who were interviewed by phone) rarely mentioned a lack of resources (8%) among the reasons for such a lack of interest:  most of them simply don’t think blogs are relevant for their industry (49%). Others also bring up the challenges that arise from “respect of confidentiality” issues or from “the necessity to verify all the comments”. Quebec companies therefore seem to have no incentive to commit themselves to publishing a blog–especially if their main competitors are not doing it. (Read the full analysis at http://barometer.multiple-media.com.)

“You could call it the ‘If nobody’s doing it then why should I?’ syndrome,” said Jean-Philippe Bédard, Web Solutions Manager at multiple-media.com. “In Quebec, we still haven’t seen the blog trend–or blog bandwagon effect. As a result, a blog could represent a way, precisely, to stand out from the competition for a number of years to come–provided that you have a well-defined strategy and that you measure the results!”

It seems that among the small proportion of companies who do keep a blog only a minority (13%) actually measures the profitability of their blog. Yet all the companies interviewed say they are convinced that this activity produces positive–i.e. profitable–benefits.

Another figure may be even more puzzling: “At the time they were interviewed, 34% of the IT and marketing executives didn’t know whether their competitors had a blog or not,” said Renato Cudicio, president of multiple-media.com. “In other words, a significant proportion of companies are not monitoring their competitors’ online media strategies. This could prove to be unfortunate, in an environment where digital media is becoming increasingly important every day.”

Business blogs are often said to provide better exposure, which is the main reason given by companies who keep a blog. On the other hand, not one executive mentioned better search engine positioning as a positive factor, whereas blogs are recognized for their increasingly important role in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

The multiple-media.com Barometer
The multiple-media.com Barometer was created to generate a better understanding of how Quebec companies integrate Web technologies into their marketing communication strategies. Every month, multiple-media.com takes the pulse of medium and large Quebec companies through telephone interviews with Marketing and IT executives. The maximum margin of error is 6.9% 19 times out of 20 and multiple-media.com has partnered with BIP, a marketing research company recognized for its precision and experience, to carry out these surveys.

multiple-media.com
multiple-media.com offers integrated Web strategy, content and application development services, and differentiates itself, since its creation in 1997, through the higher quality of its client services, the reliability of its solutions, and the excellence of its productions, which efficiently integrate blend communication and technologies. The Montreal agency has developed several Web applications, including MMCM, a powerful proprietary CMS that allows non-technical users to securely build and maintain multilingual websites and portals in real time.