Give your company a voice with a blog
admin August 27th, 2008
If you’re reading this blog then I am presuming you have a fair idea of what they do and how they are maintained. The uses for a blog are endless; for an individual a way to express their views and opinions and for a company a way to connect to their stakeholders, and most importantly their customers.
If you are under the impression that blogging is a hobby or something to be taken lightly then don’t be mistaken they can be great money making tools. Just have a look at the Guardian’s list of most powerful blogs, containing a combination of political, personal, technology and gossip blogs, including Perez Hilton who has in fact created an entire career and celebrity persona from his cult bitchy gossip blog and the Drudge Report the first media outlet to report the Monica Lewinsky debacle.
Corporate blogs will often have a different agenda than to the entertainment style blogs, it is reported that 58% of the companies on the Fortune 500 list have a corporate blog, and if you are a business owner you really need to consider the real benefits blogging can bring?
Firstly it gives your company a voice; it opens up a communication channel that allows you to engage in meaningful conversation with your customer, something that no marketing campaign could ever achieve. By conversing and remaining entirely honest with what you are blogging about you will create a relationship of trust with your customer. However, for this to be completely successful you must allow visitors to the blog a high level of freedom, welcome criticism and respond, allow your blog to act as a forum for customer service. Of course, unconstructive criticism that is borderline abuse of the system is not necessary and you can still keep a reign on the comments being published.
On another level an established blog can also be an excellent ally to have in a crisis, submitting a press release to traditional media can take a full 24 hours to take effect, whilst a blog can post this information immediately. Very recently Google’s Gmail service went on the blink, there were many disgruntled individuals and companies out there and what was the first thing Google did once the problem was rectified? They wrote a public apology in their blog, similarly in response to criticism of the IPhone Apple wasted no time in issuing an apology to all the IPhone users. Along with this having the power to constantly update a blog allows a company to keep customers informed as and when it happens.
Finally, one of the primary uses of a blog, it can market your company. A blog can be used to demonstrate the strong corporate culture, inform customers of new or enhanced products/services and it can play a vital role in image management. Further to this it can be a key tool in differentiating your company from your competitors, stand out from the crowd with an honest and insightful blog that encourages customers to choose you over your rivals.
A blog can be beneficial to anyone or any company regardless of size; many of 360innovate clients have active blogs Archibald Photography, have a beautiful blog that discusses wedding photography and the specific weddings in which they attend; at the opposite end of the spectrum disability magazine Able have an open forum that has various topics including the magazine features and an ‘Ask Abbie’ problem page. Both blogs generate a fair amount of interest and are undoubtedly a great addition to their overall corporate website.
If you are considering setting up a corporate blog please feel free to contact our technical team to discuss what 360innovate can do for you.
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- Comments(2)
Hi
I just wanted to add something about blogs, as a reader of blogs I often pick up gems of information. Often companies do not fully understand what they are getting into and many have issues with the content of blogs, they had assumed that a blog is just like an online company newsletter. But with printed newsletter you can carefully control the circulation, i.e. who is reading it; internal employee, or both internal and external. Probably the first thing to do is agree on some rules and remember that when writing a blog the readership is more than just your intended target audience. So make it newsy but avoid using confidential information, so someone in authority needs to set out what type of information is to be allowed into the public domain. Sadly this may makes blogs less interesting and amusing, but safer.
Check out the Nike running blog…
http://insidenikerunning.nike.com/
- an excellent selling tool but also very topical and informative.