Conduct a simple search on corporate blogging and see what you get. The headlines:

Consumers Distrust Corporate Blogs – AdWeek

Is the corporate blogging revolution canceled? – NetworkWorld

Corporate blogging: You’re doing it wrong – SitePoint

Only 16% trust corporate blogs: Are they worth doing? – Business Week

The good ol’ Forrester Reports. Business Week wrote: “Forrester has some advice for corporate blogging that works. (Flogging products isn’t one of the strategies….) Among the things they recommend is don’t blog about products, blog about customers’ problems. Blog if you’re a celeb like Amazon’s Bezos or Mark Cuban. Also, if you’re popular or inspire cult-like following, like Apple, it doesn’t matter what you blog. People will read it. And keep your employees blogging. A wide range of voices, like the thousands of bloggers at IBM and Sun, seems to have more credibility than just one corporate one.

“But the old saw about blogging to have a voice? Forrester calls that the weakest rational of all. It’s only good for PR, which may be necessary if you’re Dell and under siege for your customer service. But putting a voice on what’s essentially press releases doesn’t make you more trustworthy. Inevitably, then, it seems like there’s much less room for corporate blogging than some companies think. And also less room to think that you might be taking people in through corporate blogging that’s all about spin.”

Now, why in my right mind would I share this with you, especially since I enjoy pushing my clients to blog? Two reasons.

First: I believe my clients blog correctly. One of the best sales tool a salesperson can have is the ability to give things away – for free. The more you give, the more your clients will trust you. The same goes for blogging. Will consumers care about a CEO’s cat getting stuck in a tree? NO WAY. They will probably laugh at the blogger. But if the CEO is talking about real, tangible issues, then in a way they are turning into a member of the media by providing the public a source for knowledgeable information.

I have a client who writes about marking moves. I have a client who examines the franchise industry. I have a client who uses his blog to connect with his franchisees – a state of the franchise if you will. This stuff is great – for the business world.

And the reason these headlines are ringing, always, is because, well, journalists are scared. It’s a part of the collapse of traditional media. Journalists are fearful, and hateful, toward the idea of the public becoming the media. This is why the media blasts blogging – often.

Second: My franchisors don’t blog for the consumer. They use Facebook and MySpace to connect with the consumers. They use blogging to connect with potential franchisees. Are franchisees still consumers? Sure, but they use their blogs to provide their potential and current franchisees the most information possible on their brands in the highest possible search engine point.

Simply put, blogging isn’t for consumers. Very few blogs will keep consumers attention. The blogs that do are the ones that give something away. If I am looking to buy a stereo, I can promise you those blogs I read will sway my decision. Sure, I know some of the blog posts are paid for and biased, but the bottom line is that blogs provide information – whether on a cat stuck in a tree or a new marketing strategy.

The media will continue to blast blogging, just as any new technology is usually blasted at first. The Internet wasn’t as loved and as needed when AOL first made it popular to hear “You Got Mail”, but look how far we have come over the last 10 years. The crappy blogs will die, the good ones will grow. Survival of the fittest.

Blogging for franchisors is a must – especially as the portals continue to sink.