Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

Corporate blogging is increasingly used by companies to improve both internal and external communications, as well as for sheer promotional reasons.It is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. However, unlike a press release, advertisement in a magazine or a listing in the Yellow Pages, corporate blogs are two-way communications. Corporate blogging can benefit the organization such as:

· Position your business as a thought leader

One of the most effective marketing strategies is “Show, don’t tell”. It is a strategy by demonstrating your expertise and experience in your industry through commentary, guides, analysis, etc. The quality of your blog content reflects the quality of your organisation.

· Free feedback and suggestions from key constituents

Corporate blogging gives you insights to what people comment and discuss about your products, your brand, your competitors, your marketing from the comfort of your office chair.

· Build rapport with customers

Publishing a corporate blog give your customers a channel to interact and get to know your brand and organisation in a form that they’re familiar and comfortable with.

· Lead generation

Having your blog appear on the first page of Google’s results gives your organisation credibility in the eyes of your potential customers. Make sure that your contact details are easily accessible and you’ll be getting leads from your blog in no time.

· Increased website traffic from higher search engine rankings

Because blogs are so easy to publish, you’ll find yourself adding new content to your websites more frequently. Search engines favour websites with fresh content and ranks your blog higher in search results, which in turn results in a greater number of referrals from search engines to your website and blog.

However, not everyone is in favour of enterprise blogging and it is a risky strategy. The drawbacks of blogging in enterprises are illustrate below:

• There is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.
• It can be tricky to drag public comment out of a company without first routing through the sanitizing filter of a press office.
• The best non-corporate blogs are spontaneous and genuine. Poorly written corporate blogs can look fake - or perhaps worse, they reveal incompetence.
• There are plenty of areas of business where people are judged on their knowledge, and the competitive edge - and thus the safety of everyone's jobs - is the thickness ofoffice rival is not really wise. a single good idea. Sharing it all on a weblog, with competitors or (worse) an office rival is not really wise.

These are the 15 Most Popular Corporate Blogs:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

These are a few useful resources on corporate blogging available from the Internet:

• Corporate Blogging
  
• About Corporate Blogging
  
• PeluangNiagaOnline
  

- Carmen Lee Jia Wen -