Corporate Blogging
By Donovan Baldwin
While a lot is heard about personal blogging, many do not yet realize that major corporations, and even government entities, have jumped on the blogging bandwagon as well.
In many ways, corporate blogging is a relatively new idea, and the jury is still out on whether it will succeed. EVen so, many organizations have adopted it as a means of getting the word out.
This potentially controversial marketing tool may be the beginning of a new kind of advertising strategy, or it may fizzle out in a few years.
In the meantime, many companies are looking for ways to capitalize on the blogging trend, and many of these corporations have determined that a great way to ride the blogging wave is to keep a blog on their corporate website. These blogs are often created to appeal to the demographic that the company needs to court, and the content may have quite a lot to do with the activities of the corporation.
On the other hand, it may have very little to do with the company itself.
Often, a corporate blog will focus on the kinds of content likely to attract the desired surfers, even if that content is not directly or obviously related to the product or service that the company provides.
Some bloggers feel that this growth of corporate blogging is a kind of validation for the blogging movement, and shows that this exciting new medium has really infiltrated the mainstream. Other bloggers may consider the kind of viral marketing that corporate blogs practice to be unethical or distasteful.
In any case, watching the evolution of corporate blogs and whether they survive and proliferate or fail and disappear promises to provide some interesting insight into today's consumers.
One thing I have noticed is that some corporate blogs seem to have been handed off as "other duties as assigned" as we would have said in the Army. In many of these instances, blogs are not updated regularly or are haphazardly managed by the designated blogger.
If corporate blogging is to be successful, it is probably in the best interest of the company to select, or even go out of their way to hire, someone who is willing to stay on top of the blogging process. This should be someone who can not only pass on the corporate philosophy or message, but someone who is familiar with blogging in general. This could possibly create a whole new field within the companies' advertising plan and program.
Corporations are certainly interested in blogging for cash, and those committed to maintaining their company's blog could benefit from reading Rob Benwell's, Blogging to the Bank.
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