Corporate Blogging

Abhishek DesaiExecutive Director

DIGICorp Information Systems Pvt. Ltd.www.digi-corp.com

What is it ?

Blog, short form of “Web Log” is an easy to publish website.

It is written in an informal, conversation style that tells the “real” story.

No puffery, No PR It's a marketing and communication

channel, but with a twist – it's 2 way Connects you to noisy, rugged, global

conversation – the blogosphere

Blog & Personal Homepage

is interactive is written in a conversational voice is created using instant publishing

software alerts readers automatically about new

additions is updated more frequently is part of a social network

Types of Blogs

Internal External CEO Blogs

Internal Blogs Generally accessible through Intranet

It may encourage

employee participation

free discussion of issues

collective intelligence

direct communication between various layers of an organization

a sense of community

External Blogs publicly available

often used to announce new products, services

to explain and clarify policies

to reach on public criticism

public relation tool although biased in nature

Marketers may find product evangelist or influencers amongst the audience of the blog

Adds a level of credibility

Informality increases transparency and accessibility

CEO Blogs

Should CEO blog ?

Here is one examples of the CEO taking on an unmanaged PR role:

It’s one thing to complain about how CEO tends to varnish the truth. But it’s a PR person’s nightmare to hear a CEO describe the company he leads as “Formal, middle-class and boring.”

And the company? It's Marks and Spencer! Marks and Sparks' Chief Executive, Stuart Rose, described his company in such terms, and the cryptic statement was buried in a financial news story about how the company would be selling off its financial services arm (M&S Money) to HSBC Holdings.

CEO Blogs According to Seth Godin, blogs work when they are based on:

Candour (Frankness or sincerity of expression; openness)

Urgency

Timeliness

Pithiness (Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief)

Controversy Does this sound like a CEO to you?

So what do you think?

Should the concept of blogging go this far?

What if Sir Richard Branson, and Bill Gates started blogging? (Gates is rumored to be doing it, but it's not public. Except for parodies of it. ) Would you read their posts, rather than their press releases?

Should your company blog? - I

10 years ago people asked should we get an email ?

Eventually everyone got an email address

Next they asked “Do we really need a website?”

When search got good everyone went online.

Now “Should our company blog?” Answer is “YES”, “YES”, “YES”

Should your company blog? - II

Because the internet is humanising, and blogs help humanise a company

Because the blogosphere helps keep your finger on the pulse of the industry, and being a part of that sphere adds credibility.

Because consumers are smarter today. E.g. - We’re sick of corporate speak. We can see right through it.

Because it means you can communicate with your communities unfiltered, and it promotes instant feedback.

Because it builds a network.

Should your company blog? - III

Mr Paul Watzlawick, a highly renowned scientist in the area of communication theory once said: You cannot NOT communicate.

This basically means that whatever you do, you send out a message, even if you intend not to. Or more to the point: By refusing to communicate in one way or the other you actually communicate a message which says that you do not WANT to communicate. Clear?

Mr Bill Gates, founder and currently chairman of the software giant Microsoft said in 2005: Eventually, most businesses will use blogs to communicate with customers, suppliers and employees, because it's two-way and more satisfying.

But there are road blocks!

it's something new - and we don't like change

it does not (immediately) appear to have a benefit - so why bother?

it creates additional workload - and don't we have enough to do, already?

So what is the value of blogging in the business?

Branding

Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz says: "The perception of Sun as a faithful and authentic tech company is now very strong. What blogs have done has authenticated the Sun brand better than a billion dollar ad campaign could have done."

Google Rank Blogging gives the writer good "Google rank", more than almost

all other search engine optimization tricks combined.

This is a result of the way blogs work mechanically - they ping the engines and ask to be re- indexed when you post something. This results in higher ranking on the search page.

This one reason alone should be enough to encourage any company to blog. You could be on the front page of Google or Yahoo! when prospects search for your services and you could save money on Search Engine Marketing.

Finding, Hiring, and Training Great People

By having your smart and creative people out there blogging, they will attract more smart and creative people.

Almost every Microsoft blogger interviewed has pointed to blogging's advantages as a recruiting tool. There are two HR blogs at Microsoft giving advice on applying to Microsoft and demystifying the process.

Market Research Watch and learn

There are a lot of people who have a lot of opinions about every corporation, and they're having conversations. That's free market research.

A corporation that is afraid of the participation that comes with conversation has larger problems.

And rather than just viewing the blogs, you can have your people note them, debate them, discuss them, and extract lessons from them. This is cheap qualitative research! Take advantage of it!

Innovation Blogs can act as a part of a

system that sees your company engaging its customers, partners, suppliers, and employees in the discovery, ranking, and application of new product innovations throughout the business.

IBM has taken this to the extreme and created their Innovation Jam process which allowed IBMers, their clients, business partners, and family members to brainstorm online. Then they will fund up to $100M worth of follow-through on those ideas.

Have new markets find YOU

In a case documented by Robert Scoble a world famous blogger, DL Byron had blogged about his invention that allows people to seal anything they want between two sheets of plastic.

He marketed it for biking and hiking, but other users soon found him including hazardous waste and nuclear labs, Scuba, aerospace, dairy farms, body bags, and organ donor deliveries, commercial coffee bean packaging, and a great deal more!!!

Marketing Blogs can be used to establish thought leadership

There are a lot of blogs out there it's true. But we're still at a stage where a blogger can quickly become one of the leading voices simply by being very focused on their niche.

Even in the business space, there are still relatively few top bloggers in every business category so if your content is compelling and you can market yourself to the other bloggers in your space, it is possible to become well-known in your niche relatively quickly

Building community

Community isn't a technical infrastructure. Community is a group of people with a shared interest, context, language, and history. But blogs are means to building a community of people.

There are communities that emerge around certain subjects. And a community of readers who read your blog and love it could be great positive influencers for your business!

Transparency and Authenticity

Blogs allow your company to move from opacity to transparency, from generic corporate speak to authentic humans talking about their work.

In an age of corporate mistrust, this is not to be underestimated!!

Direct access to your customer

Blogs are a direct (public) channel of communication from you and your people to your customers/partners/vendors.

They are the only channel of this kind that is this cost- effective. This alone is reason enough to blog!

So why are we concerned about Corporate Blogging ?

"Losing control" of what people are saying about you!

You never HAD control of the what people say about you. People have been talking about your company for years. And now they're blogging. You can't control the message. Get over it. But you CAN join the conversation and make sure your side of the story is heard!

Somebody will say something

Concerns of Corporate Blogging bad about me/us/our product If what people say its true its an opportunity for you to learn and improve! And if people do say something about your product that is untrue, you have an opportunity to correct it by responding appropriately!

SOME Major Points On How to blog

Create a Policy Post often, post fast Blog around your expertise, People

want to hear it Be truthful. Don’t tell secrets Be human

Some Blogistics

In June 2005 less than 5% corporates were blogging.

More than 5% of Fortune 500 blogs externally

First half 2006

34% of large companies had established blogs Second half 2006

35% of large companies had planned to establish blogs

So in summary...

Technorati now tracks over 35.3 Million blogs The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years

ago On average, a new weblog is created every second

of every day 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3

months after their blogs are created Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts

each day, about 50,000 per hour

References

http://corporateblog.directtrafficmedia.co.uk/ http://richardgiles.net/2004/10/28/corporate-

blogging-my-talk-from-perth-blog-nite/ http://www.slideshare.net/rajivdingra/

introduction-to-corporate-blogging-watconsultcom/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000443.html