Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

In order to maintain a competitive edge, corporations are increasingly looking for opportunities to make them stand out. After some initial hesitancy, corporations are slowly starting to realize that it is important to jump on the virtual bandwagon of blogging. This medium represents the missing ingredient that traditional media lacks: the ability to directly connect a company to its customers.

A corporate blog 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. Recently, all major browsers (including Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7) support RSS technology, which is very useful for low-volume blogs.

Why is Blogging Crucial to Corporations??

A corporate blog can be:

• A tool that helps the organization achieve a business goal- Redeploying scare resources just to have a blog makes no sense if there is no business case for one.
• A useful extension of the company image in the marketplace- It is however no substitute for bad products or lack of commitment to customers.

• An opportunity to open a two-way channel between employees and customers.

It all comes down to practicing a natural and responsible human voice, one that companies may have discouraged by publishing and enforcing overly strict rules and policies not updated to change with the times. The easiest path for companies to rationalize starting a blog is for the purpose of sharing information on products and services.

For a New Relationship with Customers

Corporate blogs are not only interesting and useful, they are also helping the companies that author them develop a totally new relationship with their customers. In some cases, the blogs have helped the company move the needle in reputation, likability and thus purchase consideration.

1. Direct2Dell- this team is extremely plugged in the social media in general. The about statement is right in the banner:" A blog about Dell products, services, and customers".
2. Google Blog, the official- with 619,000 RSS subscribers and a very extensive blog roll.
3. Baby Babble by Stony field Farm- a company that provides content on child health advice.
   

Related Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/10/15/a-guide-to-corporate-blogging/
http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/02/corporate-blogs.html