Not YET a corporate marketing tool?

I've analyzed, I've mulled it over, I've read until I'm cross eyed trying to come to my own conclusions as to whether blogs are an effective marketing tool, and from what I can gather blogs seem like a million dollar tool that will only cost you pennies to start. So with many small businesses boasting the benefits of the blog then why are there still so many skeptics?

To shed some light on this I came across a recent article on eMarketing that looks at why blogging as a corporate marketing tool still has a ways to go before it is widely accepted. It seems as though it is the big corporate guys who are more freighted about blog's than the smaller guys.

Many are skeptical still about the power of the blog and seem to fear or are more concerned about moderating what is being said on blog, rather than taking an active approach and learning and listening to what is being said about them on the web.

From my research which focused on small business perspectives, I can see that small businesses seem to be more adventurous, more passionate and maybe even more relaxed when it comes to channels of marketing and communication.

I have not done a direct comparison between small and large businesses but maybe larger corporations are reluctant to experiment with blogs because of their size, or maybe it has to do with the number of people involved? Or maybe small businesses are more willing to experiment with new technologies than big business are?

Actually kind of makes me wonder if it even has to do with egos. Big businesses tend to have bigger egos don't they! And those with bigger egos are not always open to hearing criticism even if its constructive criticism which they could use or benefit from.

The image here shows a quick peak at some of the results from this article on eMarketing.