Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Blogging is experiencing explosive growth, starting with a few hundred in the year 2001 and reaching over 28 million in early year 2006. Each day, 1.5 million new entries are added to the internet.

Corporate blogging is an online phenomena providing the opportunity for employees at a levels of an organization to communicate with each other and to form communities around products, projects, and similar interests.

Corporate blogging also provide global access, they allow for a collaboration between company and clients, and provide integration with other traditional communication tools.

With corporate blogs, companies will be able to reach new audiences, and build stronger relationships with existing customers. It also allow new ways for companies to market new products and strategies and connect on a deeper level with their audiences.

There are many different types of corporate blogs, most can be categorized as either external or internal.

Internal blogs exists behind the firewall. It is accessible only from within the company’s network, which is a weblog that any employee can view. Internal blog encourage employee participation, free discussion of issues, collective intelligence and direct communication between employees and managers.

External blogs are made available on internet for the world to read. These are intended for marketing and developing a community based around the company products or brand. It offers a forum for company to communicate with the public.

Examples of the corporate blogs implementation and its effect:

Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun has been successful blogging both internally and externally. Their internal blog acts as an information management tool for researchers and developers.

Sun’s external blog is a forum for Chief Operations Officer Jonathan Schwartz to discuss his views on the technology industry. The blog is updated every few days and includes Mr. Schwartz’s opinion on industry happenings, Sun’s ideas and other news.

This blog is famous for giving a personal look into the mind and job of an executive at a major corporation.

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/


Macromedia
The Macromedia blogs are an example of how to utilize blogs beyond marketing. Developers at Macromedia use an external blog with comments to keep in touch with end users. Through their blogs, these developers disseminate information about new features in their products and how to best take advantage of included features.

They also receive feedback on current and future initiatives. This helps them quickly respond to bugs users may find and allows them to develop the product features their users want and need.

Macromedia blogs also allow the developers to discuss their daily thoughts and activities. This gives users a window into the company, and fosters trust and friendship between the company and its customers.

http://weblogs.macromedia.com/


Pros and cons of corporate blogs
Advantages of corporate blogging
Following are some beneficial points of corporate blogging:
1. Managers can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors,
as well as employees, helping disseminate and explain strategy.

2. Compared with conference or printed memos to all staff, corporate blogs
are highly cost effective.

3. Corporate blogs give the company managers an opportunity to answer critics
in a controlled forum.

4.
Corporate blogs are ideal for internal collaboration being a workspace where
project members can keep each other updated without wasting time writing
reports or searching the outlook inbox.

5. Sharing ideas freely in an honest voice brings the corporate blogging a new
connections and generate trust which will lead to more business
opportunities.

6. People are far more likely to give great feedback if they know someone
specific is listening. The power of these feedback loops can generate big
benefits to the company.

Disadvantages of corporate blogging
Following are some drawbacks of corporate blogging:
1. Corporate blogs can be tricky to drag public comment out of a company
without first routing through the sanitizing filter of a press office.

2. There is a risk that an ill-judged comment in corporate blogs could be
seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.

3. Manage corporate blogs poorly can damage the reputation of the company.
such as blogs are not updated.

4. Poorly written corporate blogs can look fake and confuse the reader.

5. Corporate blogs make many companies look like disorganizations, with
multiple tones and opinions.

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