Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies
BLOGS, defined as web pages that serves as a publicly accessible personal journals have been attracting media and public eye for the last few years. The amount of registered blogs is huge and still increasing. Such phenomenon, appreciated and popularized by many internet users, has also been regarded in literature as innovative communication tool for business. That is why the new term has been coined – corporate blog.
Corporate blog is a weblog published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The purposes of blog usage can be grouped in three fields – brand building (include leadership), customer service (include product development) and promotion (include sponsorship and advertising).Corporate blogs have some unique features which make them perfect alterative or upgrade to typical corporate web pages which are usually exemplified by minor usage of user generated content – i.e. the communication is one sided or asymmetric and the users do not have many opportunities to provide company with valuable information, not mentioning about the possibility of having on-line dialogue with company’s employees and other clients.
Bellow are the types of corporate blogs:
1. Leadership corporate blogs
1. Leadership corporate blogs
in which particular person from company is thoroughly chosen to represent the company not only for brand building, but also for presenting company’s views on various aspects. Such blogs are mainly used by companies which are market leaders.
2. Group corporate blogs
in which all employees have right to participate in the development of company’s blog. In such case, company uses only one blog, which is usually incorporated within the structure of company’s corporate web site and the blog has many co-authors.
3. Corporate blogs platform
consisting of many blogs written by employees or company’s business partners. Such blogs can promote particular individuals as specialists in given fields and are often used as customer service support.
4. Promotional blogs
such as sponsored blogs, advertising and contest blogs where the leading role is played by product, event or other marketing action, not by an author.
Corporate blogging provides a way for companies and readers to meet on common ground and discuss ideas, products and services in the hopes of building an audience that can become customers. A corporate blog provides a cost-effective alternative to having a website. For small and medium sized business entrepreneurs without the time and the means to set up a website, corporate blogging offers an inexpensive tool to herald the company's presence on the powerful Internet.
Corporate blogs provide small and medium sized businesses with an avenue to share their expertise and knowledge with a bigger audience. Both online and offline small and medium sized businesses can use blogs to take their products and services to a wider audience increasing web traffic and boosting sales. The fact is corporate blogging is fast becoming a sustainable marketing strategy for any online marketer. There are numerous ways a business can benefit from a blog.
An effective corporate blog can help give a human face to a business. Blogs bring a personal dimension to the web. Blogs make business sites more personal. Since blogs are updated by individuals, the "voice" of the blogger will resonate through. This will assure potential customers that there are real people behind the blog engaging them in real conversations. Blogs can be opinionated, informative, at other times infused with humor thus eliciting better response from target audience.
A corporate blog if used productively can improve customer service. It provides instant customer feedback through comments. It allows one's audience to comment on a post and create a dialogue with them. A blog can act as a question and answer forum. Customers can post questions and receive instant replies. An effective corporate blog functions as a central knowledge base of articles, tutorials, product development status, and other relevant product or service information. This is good customer service.
A corporate blog keeps an archive of older posts organized by date and categorized by topic. This gives the target audience easier access to information. With corporate blogs, it is also easy to add new information on a regular basis. Frequent updates in the form of fresh new posts mean visitors will have all the reasons to keep coming back thus building loyal readers and best potential clients.
A corporate blog can increase the chances of prospective clients to visit a company's website. For a start, visitors to a corporate blog can be redirected to the company's main site through links and special offers. Use of relevant keywords and popular links to specific sales pages improve search engine ranking of both the business blog and the main website. Just like the main website, top search result rank equals traffic. With more and more people turning to the all-powerful Internet to search for products and services, it is essential for small businesses to be easily crawled by search engines. Since search engines thrive on new content, the more likely the search engines are going to visit the blog and share it with the world.
Regularly posting valuable content on a corporate blog builds company credibility and creates sound business reputation. A corporate blog can help project a company as an expert in a chosen business area. Customers feel more comfortable transacting business with a reputable company.
A corporate blog can be an avenue to introduce company products or services. Ideally, a blog is not about selling. A blog can be used to mention new products or services and direct visitors to the company's main website in the process generating more sales. Interestingly, several advertising programs such as Google Adsense allow companies to monetize their business blogs and generate extra revenue.
However, a corporate blog is not urgent but important for small and medium sized businesses. A corporate blog alone is not enough to market a company product or service. But it is good investment for startup businesses to have conversations with customers and prospective clients. Corporate blogging is an effective way to start conversing with visitors interested in ones products or services but it is in no way to be viewed as a standalone strategy. Yes, corporate blogging can do wonders. But it is not going to work on its own. A corporate blog is most effective when it is used in conjunction with other online communication tools such as e-mail, press release, pay per click, company websites, to name a few.
Setting up and maintaining a great corporate blog that visitors will find useful and relevant is just like having an effective built-in public relations staff that will spread the word about the business.
Starting a business blog is easy but transforming it into a marketing tool that drives traffic and sales to a business takes time, dedication and consistency.
No.1 Google – Authority: 8492
No.4 Facebook – Authority: 1478
No.7 Digg – Authority: 641
No.8 LinkedIn – Authority: 591
No.9 Ask – Authority: 364
No.10 General Motors – Authority: 364
No.11 Yahoo! – Authority: 297
No.12 Delta – Authority: 252
No.13 Kodak – Authority: 105
No.14 Monster – Authority: 73
No.15 Boeing – Authority: 67
Source: New PR Wiki, provides the listing of corporate blogs
Related Links:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I have been a blogger. And I agree that blogging is one good way to market and promote your products and services. In a sense, blogging gained this kind of popularity on the Internet primarily because it writes on a straight-to-the-point discussion coupled with an "honest" opinion from the writer. I think that "blogging" may be compared to the "reality shows" we have on TV. Just like the reality shows we see, blogging is popular because it holds honesty. And people appreciate that, especially when they need information that will be of help to their interests.
If it is a journey, you need to consistently tell this story and the various facets of it. Assuming you are a walking story, (you should document) how you interact, and how you respond under different circumstances. A blog is a good place for you to put down those thoughts.
Post a Comment