Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Corporate blogging is published, but rather than visiting it regularly most readers subscribe to new content with the help of online services or news aggregator software. Organization will used corporate blogs to reach its organizational goals and objectives. The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. More of the companies are using blogs for both internal and external communications, to improve customer relations and improve business processes.

Companies will create a place where customers and prospects spend more time with our brand. Blogging by its nature is more personal than other marketing communication. Corporate blogging can be a useful communication channel by providing companies with unvarnished feedback from customers. It can serve as an early-warning system for product or service problems. Corporate blogs have potential function such as CRM, media relation, internal collaboration and knowledge management. It can also provide an easy and inexpensive way to deliver specialized information to narrow segments of the market. Blogs is a snap; it can be a great way to distribute technical updates, new product announcements, and other periodic messages. Besides that, for many the blog provides a way to become their industry’s thought leader.

Companies that employ a well thought out blogging strategy encourage the strongest community goodwill, promotes significant marketing and sales gains. When that begins with a real desire on the part of the blogger to provide value and connect with their audience. This holds very true for successful blogs. The blogs can shares useful and engaging content such as the latest information, help, discussion topic and opinion. Furthermore, companies that harness their customers’ knowledge and ideas find better ways to satisfy their needs and wants, thus facilitating goodwill in the community.

5 Types of Corporate Blogs:
1. Company Blog
This is the most common form of the company blog. IMO, the corporate blog is definitely the next stage in the evolution of the corporate website, which (let’s face it) is pretty much static these days. Example: Google, Adobe, Flickr, Facebook, and Yahoo! Search.

2. CEO Blog
The most famous example would have to be the blog of Jonathan Schwartz, CEO at Sun Microsystems, and I’m amazed how he ever finds time to blog, but I’m really glad he sets such a stellar example. I’ve recommended CEOs to quit full-time blogging but rather work as active contributors to their company blog, which would of course depend on their busy schedules. Example: Boeing VP of Marketing- Randy Tinseth’s blog.

3. Industry Blog
This is an interesting type of corporate blog one that we should beware of, because it places some difficult ethical choices for the company at hand. Just last week, I wrote about Miller Brewing’s pseudo industry blog - Brew blog that purports to be an insider blog, while taking potshots at arch competitor - Anheuser Busch. Example: Miller Brewing’s Brew Blog.

4. Department or Product Blog
Department blog is another common style or kind of blogging, which is very popular and ultimately essential for large organizations. Cases in point are Microsoft, Sun, or SAP’s developer blogs in any particular space. Google’s extensive array of product blogs across their different product offerings probably is another great. Example: Microsoft Community Blogs, Sun Blogs and Google- Product Blogs.

5. Customer Service Blog
The customer service blog or community blog that I blogged of a few months back. Given the preponderance of community forums and discussion groups as the de facto kind of communication media that companies chose to use as conversation methods with their users (more on this later), I haven’t seen the evolution of this kind of a blog, yet. Instead, I find evangelists of companies choosing to talk to/respond/provide customer service with users who choose to ask on social media sites such as Twitter. Example: My response to Steve Rubel.

Reference:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
- http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2006/tc20060718_932217.htm
- http://www.kommunikationsforum.dk/default.asp?articleid=11457
- http://www.backbonemedia.com/blogsurvey/
- http://mariosundar.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/the-5-types-of-corporate-blogs-with-examples/

Prepared by: Koh Kah Wang