The customer is always right!
11 years ago
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A corporate bloggging is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. It is still in the infancy phase. Yet many have been launched in recent years. There are many considerations an organization needs to weigh when thinking about launching a blog or encouraging the use of social media tools on behalf of the company. Although there are many different types of corporate blogs, most can be categorized as either external or internal. An internal blog generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, it is a weblog that any employee can view. Internal blogs may be used in lieu of meetings and e-mail discussions, and can be especially useful when the people involved are in different locations, or have conflicting schedules. Whereas external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services or the end of old products to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. 
An effective blog enables you to to have a two-way conversation with customers and employees, recruit Millennials looking for an open company culture, diffuse a crisis by publishing your side of the story and perhaps most crucial shape the conversation online around the company brand. A list of externally available corporate blogs is available at The NewPR/Wiki whereas the top 15 corporate blog stated.The advantanges of Corporate blogging as follow:
1. Tool that helps the organization fulfill a business goal
If you're thinking about publishing a blog for your business, make sure it's not just to have one. I strongly believe that businesses need to keep the best interest of the organization in mind. Redeploying scarce resources just to have a blog makes no sense if there is no business case for one.
2. A useful extension of the company image in the marketplace
It is however no substitute for bad products or lack of commitment to customers.
3. An opportunity to open a two-way channel between employees and customers
There are potential pitfalls like inadvertent disclosures you should address up front. The other big issue companies need to address here is that of the star blogger(s).
The disadvantages of corporate blogging are:
1. Negative comments
For this one I suggest you get your team in a room and put the worst case scenarios on the table to understand how you would address them.
2. Loss of control over message
For this one I suggest you train your subject matter expert team to be facilitators of conversations or hire people who already are. Plus, when you put the customer at the center, it's about them, not you.
3. Neglect
This is probably the biggest hindrance to starting. I recommend setting aside a good number of posts before going public, just like many prolific bloggers do. The content strategy will also help here. If you create series of posts on certain topics or regular themes, it will be easier to know what to write about.
Corporate blogs are helping the companies that author them develop a totally new relationship with their customers exspecially in marketing communication with customers. In some cases, the blogs have helped the company move the needle in reputation, likability and thus purchase consideration. For example, Direct2Dell this team is extremely plugged in the blogosphere and social media in general. This is one of those blogs where I would welcome being part of the blogroll. The about statement is right in the banner: "A blog about Dell products, services, and customers".
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