| The blogging technology platform, when properly executed, provides boards, customers, management, suppliers with a transparent platform to seriously engage one another on the issues. |
| It can provide you with a low-cost, highly effective means to establish a credible dialogue and allow directors and management to obtain feedback from a wider variety of stakeholders with differing viewpoints. |
| We tell you, what advantages blogging might offer to your firm. |
Traditional websites can provide a regular stream of questions and content. However, answering can be burdensome and time consuming. Worst is that news posted this way may not take advantage of the latest Web 2.0 technologies.As well, keeping a website updated with valuable content is hard and this might explain why IR Web Report concludes that not one of the over 500 websites it tracks meets the joint task forces’ best practices. Hence, we tried to put down some reasons why having a corporate blog can make sense for your firm. When reading the eight points below, please keep these blogging terms Click on link – choose option Login as guest – click on this link again and you get defintion – fast and easy in mind.
1 expert-type blogs increase visibility and trust
Position yourself and your company as the thought leader of your business. This will raise visibility and, as importantly, raise trust levels in what you do and what your corporation stands for.
2 customer relationships
A blog is a forum where the main objective is not to sell. Blogs are an effective way to:
– join customers’ and other experts’ discussions,
– provide tips,
– insights about the industry and
– advice readers about new developments such as regulations, as well as
– receiving feedback.
3 potential customers
People interested in the topic you or your team members blog about will read what you have to say using such means as subscribing to your:
– posts being e-mail when they go up on the blog,
– use the RSS feed and/or
– subscribe to the weekly digest that e-mails all posts made during last week or 15 days
If your blog is considered to be an expert-type blog, even your competitors want to check it out regularly.
After a presentation you have given at a conference some of your current and/or potential customers may come up to you and tell you about how they find your blog interesting…. as we have experienced several times. In turn, this gives you a nice chance for starting to build a relationship that may generate subsequent sales…..
As a small or medium business, a cold call (meaning just calling a potential client to make a sales pitch) does rarely work but most likely will result in a ‘no thank you’ response.
4 knowledge management
Blogs work in two ways. First of all, they’re an easy way for the readers to find information and resources they want or need. That’s obvious and could be used internally in many organizations.
Second, blogs also help a team of posters to learn about the subject matter themselves and experience some highly effective on-the-job learning in the process. Nothing is a better cure for ignorance than having to write down and order your thoughts in such a way that somebody else can understand what you are trying to say.
5 recruitment
If you establish your company as a thought leader, people in your business will pay attention. They’ll read and discuss what you have to say. As a small firm your following might be a few thousand regular readers only. Nonetheless, chances are better for getting a response after having listed a job opening on your blog or web page than without.
If one knows about your firm and it has some visibility thanks to its blog, it is surely more likely that people will see you as an attractive employer than if they have never heard about you in the first place.
6 test ideas or products
A corporate blog is surely not as informal as a personal blog might be. Nonetheless, it is far less formal than a press release. As importantly, a blog is part of a conversation where people (often) can comment, and the blog can provide you with a measure of value.
Publish an idea and see if it generates interest. Does anyone link to you? What do they say?
7 rank higher in search engines
Well, this has nothing to do with relations. But Google, Yahoo! and other search engines reward sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that have inbound links.
Starting a blog posting at least once a week preferably between Tue – Thu will bost search rankings. But it is vital that you use your own domain for hosting the blog.
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.
8 greater word-of-mouth buzz on-line and off-line
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 blogosphere. Naturally it also leads to higher search traffic (see point 7) but may also increase press coverage (see further below) and, very importantly, superior lead generation.
NICE add-on BENEFITS
For small firms the issues below may not be of primary importance. Nonetheless, they can work magic.
media relations
Your chances to get media to take you seriously are best by having a blog that comes up on their radar screen as providing insights and expertise. In turn, media may receive your postings via e-mail, RSS or by checking your blog from time-to-time.
This is instead of the media just being passive if not indiffierent recipients of a press release that took a lot of effort to put together.
internal collaboration
Use blogs as a workspace where project members keep each other updated about different parts of a project.
CyTRAP Labs’ take on this
The above are just some of the potential benefits of blogging in a corporate setting. No one strategy fits them all. Hence, each firm we work with is using a different blogging content strategy. It is a company’s blogging content strategy that will determine the overall relative success of a corporate blog, when it comes to building a community.
The success of building a community will determine a company’s level of direct traffic, higher search results, and online PR.
Neither ancient Rome was built in one week nor will a successful blog take less than one year. As well, regular posting of high quality content is a pre-condition for success. Naturally, quality means different things to different people. Hence, defining the desirable target group is strategically important to make sure you get the rewards you want.
Putting differently, it is one thing getting much traffic about a story regarding the mortgage banking crisis in the U.S. If you are an investment fund or asset manager it might be critical that these individuals are investors themselves. In turn, their visit might help create sales leads down the line. In contrast, while a few links from Facebook users may increase your traffic nicely, how likely will this bring you readers that are part of your target group?
Hence traffic from your target audience is key to reach the community you must communicate with, in order to to succeed in your business.
============>
If this post was helpful to you, please consider stumbling it or subscribing to feeds from CyTRAP Labs. Cheers.
==========>
TIDBIT
Despite all this activity, and the fact that a growing number of companies also host corporate blogs, the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki (a collaborative project begun by Wired Magazine and SocialText) indicates that 2007-09, just 46 of the Fortune 500 companies (about 9%), have active public blogs produced by company employees that focus on the company and its products. However, ComMetrics predicts that this number is expectd to grow to at least 15% by the end of 2008.
And YES, if over 50% of the Fortune 500 firms have a corporate blog, having one will no longer be a strategic advantage but, instead, expected by customers and suppliers alike. So launch your blog now… to mark your territory and, most importantly, start benefitting from this marketing opportunity.
==========>
Pingback: Lidija Davis
Pingback: FT ComMetrics Blog Index - ranking the winners