Sunday, July 6, 2008

Corporate Blogging : A new marketing communication tool for companies


Corporate blog is generally published and utilized by organizations to reach their desired goals.

Corporate blogs are acting similarly as some mass media such as radio, television, newspapers and so on. They are important to act as an media to deliver the organization’s important messages as well as views.

Although there are many types of corporate blogs, but they are generally categorized into two types, which are the internal and external blogs.

For the internal blogs, they are actually used within the organization. Employees can access and view them via the company intranet. Examples of internal blogs are knowledge and culture blogs. Internal blogs are important to encourage employee participation in company issue discussions, and gain direct access to communication between employees across departments in the organization.

The external blogs are weblog created for the communication of the organization’s stakeholders, such as company employees, groups, and any other parties which are interested in the company. The examples of external blogs are sales, relationship and branding blogs. These blogs actually link and gather all the stakeholders and outsiders to share their opinions and views.

The external blogs play an crucial role as a communication tool for the organization with outsiders. Discussions and sharing of opinions or information about newly launched products are available in these blogs. For instance, the relationship blog is used for creating, upholding and strengthening the relationship between the organization and its related stakeholders.

The implementation of corporate blogging in Stonyfield Farm over in the United States has successfully strengthened its bonds and relationships with its suppliers and customers. Not only that it built customer loyalty, but also boosted the employees’ working efficiency. The internal blogging system had become a very effective tool for the employees inside the company to communicate. On the other hand, the external blogs are very good at sharing its new product information as well as welcoming customers and suppliers to provide feedbacks and the views.




The benefits of corporate blogs include:

i) the posts and comments are easy to reach
ii) all current browsers do support the technology, making viewers can actually gain access to the recent posts without needing to visit the blog.
iii) a corporate blog does not require a high cost to set up. The license fees range from $200 for a single site to $1300 for 50 blogs.

In short, corporate blogging has become an important marketing communication tool for organizations. Each internal and external blog has its own roles and functions in assisiting the organization to achieve its desired goals.



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Prepared by : WONG CHEE WAI

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