Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

Why Corporate Blogging??!!
Before I make further explanation about the reason, let me define what a "blog" and "corporate blogging" is.

Blog also known as "weblog", is a forum of communication that is usually placed on a website to help inform, educate or create discussion about a given topic. They are powerful because a person can post some information on a topic and people can respond and offer comments or feedback to the blogs posting. As for corporate blogging, it is a corporate weblog that are published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals.

Nowadays, in order to survive and maintain in this competitive edge, corporations are increasingly looking for opportunities to make them stand out. Indeed, the traditional media such as television, radio, etc helps a lot in dispersing company information to worldwide. However, there is some missing ingredient in this media --The LACK of ability to directly connect a company to its customer. Company started to realize and gradually lead them to develop a new marketing media which is CORPORATE BLOGGING.

Why is blogging crucial to Corporations???
1.Allows current and potential consumers to associate the brand with a face and a personality. It bridges the distant gap that has existed between the “inaccessible” company and the “average” consumer.

2.Blogging lets the company able to communicate with their customers in a more personal and direct way. But more importantly, blogging gives the company a much needed way for customers to communicate with them. Customers are able to interact with comments and potentially provide valuable feedback or insight that can be brought back into the business.

3.Create better communication between the company and its market which include clarifying some of the company's products and services.

It's not easy to develop a corporate blogging. Many businesses have launched corporate blogs in an effort to better communicate with customers, yet they face a great challenge eventually, which is most of the corporate blogs are unimaginative failures due to boring as paint and non value added.

According to research, 90 blogs from Fortune 500 companies, most corporate blogs are “dull, drab, and don’t stimulate discussion.” Sadly, two-thirds hardly ever get any comments, 70% stick strictly to business topics, and worse 56% just republish press releases or already public news. However, there are companies such as Dell, Lenovo, Adobe, etc that really get corporate blogging and produce blogs that are informative, fascinating, and a joy to read. In fact, what is the "SECRET SAUCE" for getting noticed in the midst of the millions of other blogs and corporate sites out there???

1. Nurture it!!--Pump the weblog with fresh compelling content weekly or even daily but any old content won’t do.

2. Don't write aimlessly--make it clear where you come from and why you are choosing to blog, or you and your audience will grow tired of your posts

3. Be Respectful of Your Audience-- Assume your audience is smarter than you, which means don't write anything that is untrue. Thinking you can pull the wool over your readers’ eyes will only get you trampled by the herd.Be Respectful of Your Audience

4. Be receptive to feedback-- Blogging may be a fine way for people to express themselves, but the true character test comes in how bloggers respond to feedback. If you choose to respond to respondents, be courteous to those who agree with you and take the high road in the face of insulting posts.

5. Corporate blogs are basically marketing hot spots. Make sure you write the way you would speak if you were addressing 1,000 people at an industry conference. Write with authority and verve.

6. Pick the best software-- If your blog page looks like a trash heap, it will only drive away people who visiting this weblog. Go with the cleanest look, even if the software isn't the easiest to use.

In Conclusion, for my stand point of view, blogs really helps a lot in improving our knowledge and even make things better if we are willing to accept the feedback from others. Yes, may be nowadays corporate blogs are still in the infancy phase and it might be difficult to develop a successful and perfectly blogs, but if companies strives to fully utilized and used it properly, i firmly believe that it could helps a lot in enhancing the health of the company business performance.




Reference and Related Links:

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/08/15-companies-that-really-get-corporate-blogging/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/10/15/a-guide-to-corporate-blogging/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/11/02/value-added-blogging/

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/06/30/most-corporate-blogs-are-unimaginative-failures/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Web-Services-Web-20-and-SOA/10-Things-You-Should-Know-About-Corporate-Blogging/1/

Posted by ttR