Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Corporate blog is a weblog which published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Currently, all major browsers (including Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7) support RSS technology, which enables readers to easily read recent posts without actually visiting the blog, which is very useful for low-volume blogs.

A corporate blog can be:

• A tool that helps the organization achieve a business goal
• A useful extension of the company image in the marketplace
• An opportunity to open a two-way channel between employees and customers
  

There are many different types of corporate blogs, most can be categorized as either external or internal.

Internal Blogs
An internal blog is a weblog that any employee can view through the corporation's Intranet. Many blogs are also communal, allowing anyone to post to them. The informal nature of blogs may encourage employee participation, free discussion of issues, collective intelligence, direct communication between various layers of an organization and a sense of community. Internal blogs may be used in e-mail discussions especially the employees are in different locations, or have conflicting schedules. Blogs may also allow individuals who otherwise would not have been aware of or invited to participate in a discussion to contribute their expertise.

External Blogs
An external blog is a publicly available webblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services or the end of old product, 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. In some corporate blogs, all posts go through a review before they're posted. Some corporate blogs, but not all, allow comments to be made to the posts.

The benefits of blogging for corporate:

1. Great for search engine marketing
2. Build and brands your company to be a thought leader in your industry
3. Great crisis handlers
4. To engage customers in conversation, and help in building relationship
5. To put a human voice to a company
6. Show the world that you have nothing to hide
7. Customer service and feedback
8. Differentiator
9. Encourages you to find out what others are talking about you

Corporate blogs are not only interesting and useful, they are also helping the companies develop a totally new relationship with their customers. Sometimes, the blogs will help the company move the needle in reputation, cute and thus purchase consideration.


References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/02/corporate-blogs.html
http://www.blogopreneur.com/2007/03/30/the-benefits-of-corporate-blogging/