EC rockzz: Corporate Blogging: A New Marketing Communication Tool for Companies

There are many ways to market company online. Now, there is another important and popular alternative: the Corporate Blog. The need to easily publish personal voices online is the main reason why blogs were born. Therefore, blogs encouraged casual banter and informal language. Unlike Web sites, which are crafted, branded and carefully planned out to be "on message," the daily journal format of a blog produces more vulnerability from its authors. Also, rather than the egocentric product information that appears on most company websites, blogs provide valuable information about a market or topic for people in all stages of the sales cycle In marketing terms, a blog can create a human personality to a faceless company, which can provide a connection between the corporation and its clients. This can lead to deeper loyalty and richer feedback.

In a report of Pew Internet & American Life Project, called The State of Blogging, blogs are used by millions of people and the growth rate is extraordinary. Two Pew surveys conducted in early 2005 show that 16% of U.S. adults (32 million) are blog readers (a 58% increase from 2004). Perhaps the most interesting part of the Pew study is that 6% of the U.S. adult population has created a blog (that is 11 million people or one out of every 17 Americans). And according to Technorati™, a popular blog search engine, in its State of the Blogosphere report issued in mid-2005, a new blog is created every second. This indicated that, blogging has become more and more important and popular in our daily’s life. Therefore, corporate blogging can be a success method of marketing communication tool.

Blogging Basics

The first thing to consider before starting a corporate blogging is “who do I want to reach?” For many corporations, the answer is a combination of buyers, existing customers, potential buyers and influencers such as analysts and the media. For a blog to be valuable to this kind of audience, the content needs to focus on an issue in the marketplace and not just on the company and its products. Also, incurred a definable area that the company has expertise

For a blog, it is better to start with a narrow subject and leave room to expand. Most people read corporate blogs because they want to find an honest voice speaking passionately about the company or product. If the corporate blog is interesting and provide valuable information, the readership will grow. Before begin, think carefully about the name of blog and the tagline, which will be indexed by the search engines as this will help readers to easily link or access to the blog.

Some companies have created formal guidelines for employee bloggers. The decision to create guidelines is something that is personal to the company’s situation and should be determined based on the input from Marketing, HR, and other departments.

Benefits of Corporate Blogging

Off-the-shelf blog software offers rapid set-up and easy-to-use features, this is totally different from websites that require design and HTML skills. With basic know-how, the blog can be quickly and easily established.

· Easy-to-use – blogging services are available from Blogger™, TypePad™, WordPress, and others. Research the services based on corporate needs and choose wisely because it is difficult to switch once blog is established.

· Easy to choose color, design, font, and to create a simple text-based masthead. Also can consider a custom graphical image as masthead.

· The look and feel of the blog can complement to corporate design guidelines.

· Allows turning on a comments feature so visitors or clients are able to comment on your posts.

· RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standard format that blog posts are delivered in to subscribers. This help to ensure that all the blog posts are standardize and easier for readers to read.

· Updates of new posts – Standard practice is to send an electronic “ping” to blog search engines and RSS reader companies when you have a new post on the blog.

·Help to achieve high rankings in search engine results – Smart bloggers understand this and use their blogs to help promote their organization to audiences who are searching on particular words and phrases.

· Build an audience – Create links to blog from company’s home page, product pages, or online media room. Mention the blog in corporate email newsletter or offline newsletters and create links to corporate blog as part of company’s email signature.

Customers, potential customers, investors, employees, and the media are all reading blogs and there is no doubt that the corporate blog is a terrific way for technology marketers to tell authentic stories to the market. However, building an audience for a corporate blog takes time.