National Rail started its own blog back in December, with the first post stating that increased growth in social media meant that it thought it was “time to get involved”.

However, initial responses showed that – surprise, surprise – an anonymous blog didn’t really resonate well with its readers. In an effort to turn things around, chief executive Chris Scroggins was introduced as the face of the brand for the second post.

Senior staff at big companies have been blogging for some time, from Jonathan Schwartz at Sun to Kevin Lynch at Adobe, many have realised that it creates a direct conduit between company and customer. It not only humanises the brand, but creates a place for people to pick up the latest, official information.

National Rail is no different, it’s initial promise was to use the facility to tell customers new things about National Rail Enquiries is getting involved with, as well as to respond to comments made about the company in the blogosphere.

However, is a closed environment really the best way to do this? Each post is clearly marked as having its comments turned off. How exactly is Scroggins planning to respond if  people can’t leave a comment? A completely unnecessary barrier has been put in place here, as readers are expected to find the email address at the bottom of each post and send thoughts over that way.

It’s most likely that  National Rail doesn’t want other customers to see negative comments, but unfortunately that thinking just doesn’t work anymore. Many people expect things to be out in the open nowadays – they look at what other people have to say and then base their opinion of the brand on its response.

Then there’s the ‘new year’ blog that’s tagged with Ben Marsh’s #uksnow hashtag (which tracked mentions of snow across the UK  on Twitter during the Christmas snow, creating a virtual map) – but doesn’t actually reference the project.

The third post tells customers about its Facebook presence and how it will be using that to engage with people – an interesting message to be pushing while maintaining a very one-sided conversation on its blog. It’s Twitter feed widget on the site also shows nothing other than broadcast updates from @nationalrailenq, with no replies or sign of any human interaction at all.

This is a classic case of a brand wanting to capitalise on what social media can offer, or at least be seen to be keeping up with the curve, but not actually understanding it. If National Rail had truly embraced this idea, and simply kept the comments on, as well used its Twitter feed to actually respond to people – all out in the open – it would work well. There’s so much more that could be done here to create a valuable resource for both customers and the company itself.

But doing it half-heartedly like this is not only counter-productive, but a waste of time for both sides. National Rail needs to trust people a little more. Yes there will be negative comments, and some people may post things that put it in a bad light – but dealing with that publicly will do a lot more to improve its reputation and actually fix things than keeping everything behind closed doors.

Hats off for trying, but this blog could be so much better.