Corporate blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

Corporate blogging is quickly coming into its own. The Internet is an awesome medium because it’s so good at putting people directly in touch with one another. Solid corporate blogging strategy takes advantage of this ability, but if not executed well, the results can be disappointing at best, and disastrous at worst.

Corporate blogging is just one part of a broader strategy to find, understand and serve consumers who visit the corporate Web site, or use the corporation’s products. It’s value in soliciting and collecting feedback is inestimable. If used correctly, corporate blogging can propel a company to the forefront, and position it well ahead of the competition, simply by delivering the content and the connection that consumers want.

Some corporate blogs are written by a single person, or are put together by the corporate media group. Other companies put their executives out on the front line to connect with and field feedback from the consumer public. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages, but consistency in terms of message, value in terms of content, and the ability to include your consumers in the conversation will enable your corporate blogging strategy to deliver its highest potential..

The advantages of corporate blogging are:
1. The technology allows businesses to expand their audience without having to rely on traditional, and often inefficient, means of communicating with their customers. Setting up a simple blog requires a minimum of effort or involvement from the IT Department, and can be done for a modest cost. Once set up, blogs can be very effective in promoting products and services, which can help to reduce advertising and marketing costs.
2. Blogs help an organization better understand the needs and wants of their customers, obtain feedback on products and services immediately, and in effect have customized and personalized market research.
3. Blogs also provide organizations an opportunity to respond to criticism from the media and others who might be posting negative comments on other blogs.
4. Blogging allows for greater Web visibility and can gain search engine prominence, helping to direct Web traffic to the company Web site. Often times blogs are ranked higher by search engines because the information is updated more frequently.

The disadvantages of corporate blogging are:
1. Even if senior managers trust staff not to give away the company's commercial secrets - and many don't - there are still enough worries about libel and (for publicly listed companies) stock market disclosure rules to have the legal department waking in sweats for months to come.
2. There is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.
3. Like practically everything else on the Web, blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake. So, far from blogs being a cheap strategy, they are a very expensive one, in that they eat up time. As a result, many blogs are not updated, thus damaging rather than enhancing the reputation of the organization.
4. Organizations also need to be aware of their legal liabilities for unmoderated content presented on a blog. Blogs may put a company’s assets, reputation and future at risk. Without strategic blog-related policies, rules and procedures, organizations face the potential for workplace lawsuits
5. If the blog is to be an official record of the organization, then the organization must provide workable access, indexing tools, preservation, scheduling, storage and access for as long as needed for administrative, legal, research and other purposes. Businesses need to be able to separate hype from reality in order to maintain some credibility with customers. People will not continue to read a blog if they determine it to be light on facts and heavy on marketing and advertising.