Blogs—web pages on which individuals create and submit content in a diary-like, chronological format—have become an enormously popular way to communicate: The term “blog” was reportedly coined in 1997, and as IBM reports in its recent white paper, “ The Blogging Revolution,” today there are about 60 million blogs in existence.

As a popular communication medium, are blogs good for brands?

Certainly there are blogs dedicated to brands (see list ) , and they can be enormously popular. Look at Direct2Dell. According to the blog, every month it averages 3.5 million page views and 250,000 unique visitors.

Sounds good. But what effects do blogs have on brands? Let's think this through.

A brand is really an image, fixed in the mind, which is created through communication between a brand provider and brand users. The “reality” of the brand is therefore co-created, and it “exists” somewhere in between the provider and the user. The more closely aligned the image is to what is said about it by brand providers and users, the stronger the brand is.

So for example, if Dell broadcasts a message that it is a “cheap value” provider of computers, and actually I think of Dell as “cheap value” and would say the same to my friends, then the Dell brand, or image, really is “cheap value.” This is not because I say so or because Dell says so, but because we both do. (Let's leave aside for the moment the argument that “cheap value” technically reduces the brand to a commodity, because Dell does command consumer preference over other no-name computers.)

Thus the central challenge for a brand maker is the need to both limit communication to expressions that support the brand and encourage authentic communication that expresses real feelings and real images that are held in the mind. For any sense of artifice destroys the fragile reality of the brand.

Coming from the brand producer side, this task can be relatively straightforward. Dell can pay to have the words “cheap value” (or something to that effect) expressed over and over again in its advertising and marketing efforts; it can pay to have employees express to consumers via customer service that they are getting the best value for their money. (Employees must of course be convinced of that fact or the communication will not work.)

But coming from the brand consumer side, the task is more complicated. For the brand maker must also create a space where the public can respond to the brand publicly, consistently, and authentically in ways that promote the brand—this is the co-creation element that is critical to developing a brand. Blogging technically can enable this—can allow the brand user to express feelings that synchronize with the desired image. Yet the opposite may also happen. I may get on the Dell blog and say that the computers are not a “cheap value” but rather are too expensive, or are more trouble than they're worth. Should Dell let me say that?

Although arguments can be made on both sides, I would say that in this day and age Dell has no choice but to let me respond to the brand as I wish. In this time of networked communication, any kind of censorship gives the brand an artificial feel. And as the Cluetrain Manifesto reminded us nearly ten years ago, users reject corporate communication precisely because it violates the value they place in authenticity. If Dell has any defense, it is to make sure, insofar as they can control it, that their computers really are the cheapest value around.

Further bolstering this argument that consumers should be allowed to speak freely about the brand on the brand blog is the phenomenon of social networking. The fact is, users discuss the brand without the involvement of the provider, in effect co-creating it on their own. (The New York Times even posted a brand positioning document for Wal-Mart on its website for all to download and discuss!) These discussions take place on blogs and discussion boards completely unrelated to the brand, not to mention on “blank screen brands”—brands such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon.com, and YouTube, which are in effect merely platforms for consumers to seek out and discuss other brands. (It is noteworthy that last year, the non-brand brand Google was the #1 brand in America as rated by brand design agency Landor Associates' annual national Image Power ® Newsmaker Brands survey.)

Perhaps because big brands are scared of what consumers will say, unfortunately, the kind of blog that I am talking about does not seem to exist. Rather, corporate (brand) blogs are written by an executive or other brand employee to express the corporate point of view, and brand users are restricted to commenting on the posts; the comments are shunted off to another screen, if they are allowed at all. What I'd like to see is a brand-sponsored blog that is written nearly completely by consumers—almost like a discussion board except in a chronological, blog-style format. A brand representative could start off each day with a very short posting related to the brand, merely as a jumping-off point to invite comment from the public, and the comments could be listed on the same page as the posting.

A related issue is how to build an authentic brand conversation internally. Employees are also consumers of the brand and they relate to the external world as producers. Therefore it is critically important that they carry the brand torch forward with passionate belief. The way to do this through blogging varies. There can be a central employee blog to which people contribute as a team, a moderator who leads a single blog, or many sub-blogs. (The problem with sub-blogs is that it doesn't force people into conversation in one central place.)

Employee blogs are an important way to combat a destructive phenomenon called “organizational silence,” in which employees fail to speak up about problems in the company for fear of repercussions. Research shows that organizational silence has potentially disastrous consequences for any information-dependent organization, including impaired performance, negative morale, and high turnover. A Harvard Business Review article on this subject revealed that “silence can exact a high psychological price on individuals, generating feelings of humiliation, pernicious anger, resentment and the like that if unexpressed contaminate every interaction, shut down creativity, and undermine productivity.” And according to a research study by the Concours Group and VitalSmarts, published in February 2007, organizational silence “causes 85% of failed business programs and projects.” If employees have a problem with the brand, it is better that they speak up in an internal blog than allowing it to become a potential time bomb.

Until now, the problem with blogging to promote a brand has been that people are offended at the cooption of what is supposed to be a noncommercial medium—look at the backlash against the blog that Edelman PR set up to promote Wal-Mart . But as long as there is transparency within the blog—as long as the point of view is authentic, then the public will accept it. This is why CEO blogs are so popular now—the CEO is seen as expressing an authentic point of view even if it is informed by a bias toward the brand.

What can organizations learn from this about blogging to promote their brands? They need to set up a variety of blogs as a platform where consumers and employees alike, separately or even together, internally and externally, can talk about their own unique experiences with the brand and receive comments from others. There could even be an Amazon.com-style “star” rating system instituted where consumers can indicate how well the brand is performing before they even type a single word of comment.

To make it brand-promoting, the blog should clearly state what the agenda of the blog is (as the Google blog does) and invite reaction (which the Google blog, incidentally, does not). The ground rules should limit discussion to the vision, mission, and core values of the brand so that posts do not go off topic.

One might think that the blogging brand must cross its fingers and simply hope that its work to build a solid brand does not get destroyed by a malicious consumer. But if the brand communication job is done right, consumers will likely correct each other where misperceptions or irresponsible comments are becoming pervasive.

The setup may vary, but the key is the same: to be authentic about discussing the brand all the way around. This is, in effect, providing a safe, constructive environment for users to co-create the brand with the company. It creates a sense of trust, openness, morale and community that is critical to brand success and to the realization of the organization's brand vision.

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Dannielle Blumenthal, Ph.D., is a public affairs specialist working in government for a number of years. She is a former brand consultant, was director of the Institute for Brand Leadership for several years, and was a vice president in Young & Rubicam's futuristic trend consultancy, The Intelligence Factory. Dr. Blumenthal is the author and co-author of several books on branding and numerous journal articles, and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Brand Management. For more information visit her blog at http://blumenthalonbranding.blogspot.com/.