Ø Survey: Backbonemedia (2004), “Corporate blogging: is it worth the hype?”, p.18
According to the survey carried out by Backbonemedia, “another way to publish content and ideas”, “thought leadership” and “build a community” remain the main roles of a corporate blog. On the other hand, “crisis communications”, “customer registrations” and “respond to negative comments” appear as the less considered priorities.
I am surprised of the results above; I am worried about the authenticity of such a corporate blog as “respond to negative comments” comes in last position. Moreover, the question did not content “build up strong relationships with customers” which is in my opinion one of the major communication roles of a corporate blog.
Ø Article: Jantsch John (February 2006), “Business blogs: fad or long term communications tool”, www.blogbusinessworld.blogspot.com
The author wonders whether a business blog, which is an excellent medium to share the ideas and the vision of a company, represents a fad or a long term communication tool. John Jantsch writes that a corporate blog is only limited by the writer’s imagination. He adds that it will be used as a communication tool for a long period of time because of its high flexibility. Unless a fad will always try to achieve its initial goal, the aim and format of a business blog can be modified over time to enhance new vision and objectives.
The flexibility of the format of a corporate blog has already been stressed in some precedent article. I share the article’s point of view: the company will always be able to communicate differently by adapting the format of its blog to its needs; unless it has the mean to do it (we will later on that some software do not allow to modify the structure of a blog).
Ø Article: Baker Stephen (February 2006), “Internal blogs, not always as we know them”, www.businessweek.com
The writer argues that a corporate blog is more internally rather than externally oriented. In addition, most of the bloggers merely use a corporate blog as software to exchange information. He adds that blogs have respected rules until now (try to be open, use a human voice…) which reflect what companies have become: more human.
According to me, one of the major roles of a corporate blog is to break with the image of the traditional communication channels; this new mean appears as the perfect tool to be closer to customers and to change the image of a company. Nevertheless, I do think that a corporate blog is not a substitute to the other communication tools; it is complementary. A company needs to communicate both formally and informally.
Ø Book: Wright Jeremy (2006), “Blog marketing: the revolutionary new way to increase sales, build your brand, and get exceptional results”, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0072262516, p.128-129
According to the author, the corporate blog has a strong internal communication role to play and is unique compared to the other kinds of communication channels. They efficiently cope with project sites, new project announcements, recruiting and strong information diffusion. It is also very powerful when it is used as an “industry aggregator tool”. Furthermore, it is a fantastic way of informing employees of what is going on within the company. Last but not least, as it is web-based, it allows people to keep in touch from everywhere.
The last sentence strengthens one of the main characteristic of a corporate blog: to provide the same information to everyone at the same time. Moreover, unless the other communication channels provide information for a given period of time, corporate blogs make the information always available.
Ø Survey: Backbonemedia (2004), “Corporate blogging: is it worth the hype?”, p.32
Here are some quotations of people who answered to the question: how does your blog fit into your entire marketing communications plan?
- “We project the brand image through many roads and the blog gives us even more dimension.”
- “Boosts our Search Marketing. Also drives conversions as we have links to conversion points in blog template. Also assists in branding and PR as it gives our ‘brains’ a forum to show off, establishes us as the smart guys in our industry.”
- “While traditional press releases seems to reach to the media better, mirroring those releases on the weblog seems to let us reach consumers better.”
- “The blog is a key component - we are using it to build a community of interest on RSS, etc - the people that participate are journalists, analysts, thought leaders, customers, partners, etc. It’s for relationship building long term.”
The list of quotations is much longer but I think those ones are the more relevant. We could also mention that for the many experts the key success is to know which company influences its industry; and corporate blogs are an excellent mean to do it.