Corporate-blogs offer organizations a platform where information, data, and opinion can be shared and traded among employees, customers, partners, and prospects in a way previously impossible: a two-way, open exchange. Basically, there are two types of corporate blog namely internal blog and external blog.
Internal blogs 
Communication failures, interminable email trails, and the cc and bcc maze can bog down the best projects. A blog, accessible to specified individuals and restricted from external/public view, can become the hub of information, ideas and expertise for individual teams or the entire company.
Internal communication not necessary to be a chore, if it is based on individual contributions presented in a dynamic and collaborative format. A blog is also a searchable, structured and categorized record of the project during and after its completion.
With an internal blog capturing information flows and interactions, everyone who participates and reads it comes to meetings up-to-speed and ready to get down to business. And new people can review the internal blog’s content and jump straight in with a clear understanding of how the project and/or the company evolved.
In a speech to an audience of chief executives, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said that the regular updated blogs could be a good way for companies to tell customers, staff, partners and other parties what they are doing and what is expect from them. As Bill Gates has said “Blogs are good for business”, he further explained that blogs had advantages over other more to old ways of communicating such as email, websites and advertising.
Further reading: Why Bill Gates backs blogs for businesses.
External blogs
According to Wikipedia, An external blog is a publicly available blog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. Personnel and management within a company know more about their company and customers than anyone else.
Communication failures, interminable email trails, and the cc and bcc maze can bog down the best projects. A blog, accessible to specified individuals and restricted from external/public view, can become the hub of information, ideas and expertise for individual teams or the entire company.
Internal communication not necessary to be a chore, if it is based on individual contributions presented in a dynamic and collaborative format. A blog is also a searchable, structured and categorized record of the project during and after its completion.
With an internal blog capturing information flows and interactions, everyone who participates and reads it comes to meetings up-to-speed and ready to get down to business. And new people can review the internal blog’s content and jump straight in with a clear understanding of how the project and/or the company evolved.
In a speech to an audience of chief executives, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said that the regular updated blogs could be a good way for companies to tell customers, staff, partners and other parties what they are doing and what is expect from them. As Bill Gates has said “Blogs are good for business”, he further explained that blogs had advantages over other more to old ways of communicating such as email, websites and advertising.Further reading: Why Bill Gates backs blogs for businesses.
External blogs
According to Wikipedia, An external blog is a publicly available blog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. Personnel and management within a company know more about their company and customers than anyone else.
A corporate blog can help them let the world know that, but existing customers are not the only audience out there. It may be very much in their interest to talk to their industry peers and the press, to establish thought leadership and expertise in its field. Corporate external blog is used as companies medium to disseminate those messages to announce new products and services, to explain and clarify policies, and even to react on public criticism.
Companies can have their product evangelists or influencers among the audience of an external corporate blog. They can use external blogs for feedback on exclusive previews, product testing, marketing plans, customer services audits and so forth of marketing functions. In fact external blogs can interact with a target market on a more personal level while building link credibility that can ultimately be tied back to the corporate site.
Benefits of corporate blog marketingHaving a corporate blog will help a company in many different ways including:
1. Establish credibility for the company as an expert and leader in that particular industry.
2. Develop strong customer relationships with clients when the company representative able to take part in discussions, receive feedback, therefore build trust.
3. Create a media outlet where media can be informed about news related to the company and it insight on news within that industry.
4. Offer an internal communication forum where project members can keep each other updated.
5. Knowledge Management - Create a wiki-style knowledgebase for employees to contribute and edit.
6. Enhance corporate image and attract prospective employees, potential business partners, and investors.
7. Offer a forum in which company can test ideas for new products/services, and receive feedback from the customers.
Undeniable corporate blogging is a new marketing communication tool for companies either internally or externally, no wonder the deployment of corporate blogging keep increasing each day, for more detail studies please refer to the article of Deployment of Corporate Weblogs Will Double in 2006.For more detail information on other corporate blogs list kindly refer to Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki.
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4 comments:
Basically from this post i can identifed answers for following issues: why would a company want to start blogging, Who should blog, and how can companies use this corporate blog to facilitate positive business growth. But there is still a question which i want to address, how can goodwill relates with the success of corporate blogs? Thanks for the useful information.
Thanks for your comment and support, well let me explain in such a way, success bread success.. Companies that employ a well thought out blogging strategy encourage the strongest community goodwill, and that goodwill, in turn, promotes significant marketing and sales gains, that's why i said that success breeds success. This holds very true for successful blogs. There is chain reaction that begins with a real desire on the part of the blogger to provide value and connect with their audience. The blogger shares useful and engaging content —the latest information, help, discussion topics and ideas. The way the audience responds to that content is key. When customers start commenting, posting or tracking back to a blogging community, it can have a viral effect —spreading out across the blogging environment or people named it as blogosphere. In addition, companies that harness their customers’ knowledge and ideas find better ways to satisfy their needs and wants, thus facilitating goodwill in the community. For example, it is a common practice in blogging to provide a link back to a thought originator, which is valuable because backlinks are a way that search engines distinguish the order of the editorial rankings. Higher search engine rankings translate into significantly higher web site traffic and more sales leads. Thus, successful blogging breeds success in other marketing and sales initiatives. Does above explanation give the desired answer and understanding of corporate blog? Thanks again.
Haha, thanks alot for the reply and effort, it sound kind of 'classic' when you mentioned "success bread success", but anyway i'm agreed with the truthfulness of that statement, really gladful to have your much in details explanation, now i've got it.
Haha, you are welcome and i would like to use this opportunity to thank you as well, on behalf of my teammates, i would like to say that we really appreciate your support and feedback. All the best:)
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