E-Commerce

Blogs have caught the attention of the business world. Some CEOs of Fortune 100 companies are blogging and say the results have exceeded their expectations. A corporate blog is fast becoming a 'must have' part of business marketing and PR strategies. It can create and maintain a conversation with your customers and stakeholders and build thought leadership.

Types of Corporate Blogs

1. Internal Blogs
An internal blog, generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, is a weblog that any employee can view. Many blogs are also communal, allowing anyone to post to them. The informal nature of blogs may encourage employee participation, free discussion of issues, direct communication between various layers of an organization, and a sense of community.

2. External Blogs
An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services, to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. It also allows a window to the company culture and is often treated more informally than traditional press releases, though a corporate blog often tries to accomplish similar goals as press releases do.

3. CEO Blogs
Although there are debates on whether CEOs should blog or not, blogging among CEOs is becoming popular. Executives who blog include Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of General Motors, Jonathan Schwartz, President and CEO of Sun Microsystems, and Mark Cuban, owner of The Dallas Mavericks among other things.


Corporate blogging provides a clear mind map or editorial guidelines of overall marketing or communication strategy to its employees and third parties with organization communication plan and media mix. Besides that, it encourages employee participation in contribution of expertise, free discussion of issues or topics and deal with it, collective intelligence, be a direct communication between various layers of an organization and shares their views with others employees, teams or spokespersons publicly. Furthermore, it can be used to announce new products and services, explain and clarify policies of the company and to react on public criticism on certain issues. Business blog can interact with a target market on a personal level by building a level of credibility and asking for their feedback on products and services.


A corporate blog makes it easy for readers, be they customers or prospects, to find the latest and most accurate information about its new products and services. It can help achieve customer familiarity with the company products or services. Through the corporate blog, a company can converse directly with customers and prospects. Two-way communication creates trust and builds customer relationships. A corporate blog is the perfect choice for interacting with existing and potential clients. Corporate blogging serves as a channel for a company and its customers to meet on common ground and to know each other more. A corporate blog allows a company to closely track where and under what condition its products or services are being discussed online.


Through the corporate blog, a company can keep an ear to the ground to hear what is being said about the company and speaking up when the situation calls for it. A more personal or understated benefit of a corporate blog is that it gives a human face to a perceived faceless and detached business entity. A corporate blog conjures images of people who are passionate about their products or services and are eager to engage customers and prospects.
(http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/186126/blogging/corporate_blogging_dos_and_donts.html)






One of the challenges to overcome for corporate blogging is the fear factor many corporate execs have - fear of loss of control. How can you control what people say if anyone can publish? That is precisely the same fear in many organizations today with blogs.