Corporate blogs versus communication strategies

Dimanche 12 mars 2006

Which roles could a corporate blog play in terms of communication?

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.
Par Cédric Firmin
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Dimanche 12 mars 2006

Benefits

Ø      Article: Aber Robyn (August 2004), “ The bottom line on business blogs”, www.entrepreneur.com
Robyn Aber defines how corporate Blogs provide business benefits:
·        They are not expensive, easy to set up and do not require HTML expertise.
·        They facilitate group works and build up communities.
·        Both internal and external business relationships benefit from corporate blogs; productivity takes advantage of information exchange.
·        They do not force people to read the comments; users are free to do it.
·        In comparison to PR, they provide more authentic information, which considerably improve the brand image of the company.
·        Compared to e-mails and instant messaging, readers feel more involved. Corporate blogs are also more searchable than those two tools.
 
 
I think that one of the major particularities of corporate blogging is that companies do not intrude in the customers’ lives. As Robyn Aber says, only people who are interested in the products of a company read its corporate blog: the relationships between the company and the customers are then much “healthier”. We could also add that the historic of those relations last on a corporate blog: thus, if an employee leaves the company, someone else can replace him/ her and maintain the relationship with the customers (he bases his/her work on what has been done before).
 
 
 
Ø      Article: Ganapati Priya (April 2005), ‘Business blogging on the rise”, www.inc.com
According to Priya Ganapati, corporate blogs have become very popular over the last year because they are based on the following strong communication advantages:
·        As few companies have launched a blog, it is a good way to differentiate itself from the competitors and to gain a competitive advantage
·        The ratio between investment and benefits is very attractive
·        According to a survey carried out by Hostway, 45% of the 2 500 persons interviewed feel that blogs are as or more credible than internet advertising
·        It is also a good opportunity to reinforce brand equity as Internet users think it is a reliable source of information
 
 
I 100% agree with the remarks of Priya Ganapati. What she writes refers to one of my previous comment on the “fist step advantage”. It is today very strategic to set up a corporate blog and it shows customers that the company is innovative and that it proves that the company aims to improve its relations with them. Moreover, most of the customers appreciate corporate blogs because it is an excellent mean for them to say what they think; the other communication channels generally do not allow them to express themselves.
Ø      Article: M. Heathfield Susan (January 2006), ‘Why blogging matters to business”, http://humanresources.about.com
Susan M. Heathfield defines five main benefits for the companies to set up a corporate blog:
·        A business blog is a very good opportunity to offer informal information to the customers, which brings the company closer to its customers
·        Employees do not need to wait for the weekly one page updated or for the monthly company magazine: they have instant access to the information which is available for everyone at the same time.
·        Corporate blogs make customers more involved in the development of products and they make employees more concerned about the company.
·        If a company goes from blogs to blogs which are linked to its activity, it might find information which will help it to gain a competitive advantage.
·        A company can also go on its employees’ blogs and know exactly how they perceive the organization
 
 
I think Susan M. Hethfield has the upper hand to draw up those benefits. I would just balance her third and fifth points: customers feel more involved and employees more concerned if they receive feedbacks; it is very interesting to learn what employees think about the company, but the enterprise has to keep in mind that people might not write all their thoughts because of the possible consequences.
 
Ø      Magazine: Peyer Mar-Olivier (February 2006), “Qu’attendez vous pour ouvrir votre blog”, Netizen, p.44-46
Marc-Olivier Peyer writes that some software allow the company to save and extract the content of its corporate blog and to change its format. Moreover, the company can benefit from the technical support of the hosted website platform. As the comments generally integrate links to other blogs, it is then very easy to have access to a large amount of information which is linked to the activity of the company. Finally, a corporate blog consists in mastering its own communication channel.
 
 
I would add that the blogosphere (blogs linked together) also allow customers to easily find the information they look for. Moreover, the last point developed in this article is essential: with a corporate blog, a company is (almost) free to communicate the way it wants with a minimal investment (Priya Ganapati wrote previously that the ratio between investment and benefits is very attractive).
Par Cédric Firmin
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Dimanche 12 mars 2006

Threats

Ø      Article: Des Jardins Jory (November 2005), “When blogs go bad”, www.inc.com,
Jory Des Jardins reveals in this article that corporate blogs obey to a proper set of rules and regulations. When someone breaks them, the corporate blog can be subject to dramatic consequences. One example would be to cancel negative feedbacks without any explanations. Readers will certainly discover it and tell it to others bloggers, who will forward the information to someone else and so on. At the end, the corporate blog will loose its credibility and a high number of readers.
 
 
As previously mentioned, companies are (almost) free to write what they unless they respect some informal rules of blogging: one of the most important is “authenticity”. I would add that if a corporate blog looks too much commercially oriented, consumers will deny reading the posts.
 
 
 
Ø      Book: Nonnenmacher François (2006), “Blogueur d’entreprise”, Groupe Eyrolles, ISBN 2708133292, p.163-165
The author warns companies on the possible nuisances of a corporate blog. The first undesirable aspect deals with spams: they can damages the image of a company (a post linked with pornographic websites for instance) or over pollute the blog (hundreds of comments and TrackBacks). The second delicate point is the management of the negative comments: unless corporate blogs might respect some rules to be efficient, readers can post whatever they want. Last but not least, if a corporate blog does not have serious and solid information to provide nobody will read it.
 
 
In my opinion, good corporate blogs should be strongly armed against the spams or it will constantly suffer from those intrusions. Secondly, I consider negative feedbacks as an excellent opportunity for the companies to show their reactivity and to keep their customers loyal. The last point evoked in this article is similar to what was written in introduction: companies do not have to set up a corporatble blog merely because it is fashionable.
 
 
Ø      Book: Nonnenmacher François (2006), “Blogueur d’entreprise”, Groupe Eyrolles, ISBN 2708133292, p.203-207
This part of the book informs the readers on the limits of a corporate blog. Even if bloggers constantly push away the limits of a business blog, they should not try to replace every communication support by blogs. Indeed, if we compare them to content management tools, they are not adapted because of their chronological logic and owing to the unique format of a post. In addition, blogs were dedicated to the public: models of commercial licenses are then not adapted to companies (proportional to the number of authors rather than to a server).
 
 
Ø      Book: Nonnenmacher François (2006), “Blogueur d’entreprise”, Groupe Eyrolles, ISBN 2708133292, p.213-228
The author weighs up the pros and cons of the tools which can be integrated to a corporate blog.
·        If a domain name is linked to a software blogging platform, the company could loose all the links which refer to its posts when it decides to use another tool.
·        If the enterprise does not use a tool which allows to save and to extract documents, it runs the risk to loose all the content.
·        Too many useless plugins could slow down the corporate blog.
·        Some blogging softwares are not able to manage more than one blog; it is then compulsory to set up each blog individually if the company aims to have several blogs on one server.
·        Some tools require a high degree of HTML expertise to modify a template.
·        Corporate blogs which are hosted only have access to the statistic system of the blogging platform; then cannot customize it according to heir needs.
 
 
The tools which allow to blog are numerous today and some of them have subtle differences. The hardest task for a company remains to pick up the one which matches with its needs. This choice is crucial when we think about the penalizing consequences of moving from one tool to another.
Par Cédric Firmin
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