Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Corporate Blog - A Short Definition

Blogs - an abbreviation of 'weblogs' - are published on the web, typically as microsites standing by themselves but today also as parts of traditional web sites. They reflect the interests, thoughts and opinions of the person, sometimes persons, publishing the blog. Blogs are characterized by frequent updates, an informal tone and many links to other blogs and web sites.

A corporate blog is a blog published by or with the support of an organization to reach that organization's goals. In external communications the potential benefits include strengthened relationships with important target groups and the positioning of the publishing organization (or individuals within it) as industry experts. Internally blogs are generally referred to as tools for collaboration and knowledge management.

Types of corporate blogs

1. Company Blog

This is the most common form of the company blog. IMO, the corporate blog is definitely the next stage in the evolution of the corporate website, which (let’s face it) is pretty much static these days.
Examples: There are so many examples to choose from. The best place to start would be the ranking of the Top 15 Corporate Blogs. Top 5 include: Google, Adobe, Flickr, Facebook, and Yahoo! Search.

2. CEO Blog

The most famous example would have to be the blog of Jonathan Schwartz, CEO at Sun Microsystems, and I’m amazed how he ever finds time to blog, but I’m really glad he sets such a stellar example. I’ve recommended CEOs to quit full-time blogging but rather work as active contributors to their company blog, which would of course depend on their busy schedules.

Examples: Sun CEO - Jonathan Schwartz’s blog Boeing VP of Marketing - Randy Tinseth’s blog

3. Industry Blog

This is an interesting type of corporate blog one that we should beware of, because it places some difficult ethical choices for the company at hand. This is definitely not an advisable strategy for every company but should be considered an option if you consider yourself or employees in your organization as thought leaders in your respective field/technology and choose to establish a blog to discuss best practices.
Example: Miller Brewing’s Brew Blog

4. Department or Product Blog

Again, department blog is another common style or kind of blogging, which is very popular and ultimately essential for large organizations (particularly Fortune 500). Cases in point are Microsoft, Sun, or SAP’s developer blogs in any particular space. Google’s extensive array of product blogs across their different product offerings (close to 90 in number) probably is another great example.

Examples: 1. Microsoft Community Blogs 2. SAP IT Blogs or SAP Community Blogs 3. Sun Blogs 4. Google - Product Blogs (see the blog roll on the right sidebar)

5. Customer Service Blog

Finally, the customer service blog or community blog. Given the preponderance of community forums and discussion groups as the de facto kind of communication media that companies chose to use as conversation methods with their users. There are evangelists of companies choosing to talk to/respond/provide customer service with users who choose to ask on social media sites such as Twitter.

Examples: 1. My response to Steve Rubel 2. My colleague Steve Ganz’s (LinkedIn) response to Erica O’Grady (via Twitter) 3. ComcastCares’ response to Arrington and other Comcast users on Twitter

References:

The 5 Types of Corporate Blogs (with examples) - Marketing Nirvana

CorporateBloggingBlog : Corporate Blog - A Short Definition