~welcome to e-commerce world~

Post by Jackie, 7 July 09 @ 5:49pm

Blogs is a short form for weblogs. A blog is a site on the internet where a writer can present his thoughts about a particular topic. Visitors to a blog can post their comments and views of what they feel towards the writer’s blog. The blogging trend is not limited to individuals alone. In fact, many organizations are starting to create their own blogs. This is known as corporate blogging. Corporate blogging is where executives, stakeholders, vendors, and employees post their thoughts and opinions on certain subjects.

There are two main types of corporate blogs which are internal blogs and external blogs.

• An internal blog is accessed through the organization’s intranet and can be viewed only by the employees of that organization. This allows for employee participation by presenting their discussions of issues and also provides direct communication between upper and lower layers of an organization. It gives the employees in the organization a sense of belonging.

2. External Blogs.

• An external blog is accessible to the public to share their views and opinions. Organizations usually use external blogs to introduce new products and services offered by their company. Furthermore, it gives an opportunity the public to give critic on the organization if they are not satisfied with the products and services offered. However, certain corporate blogs do not allow any comments to be made on the posts.

Corporate blogging entered into the mainstream in May 2005, when the front cover of Business Week boldly stated that 'Blogs will change your business'. Meaning that, traditional marketing techniques no longer appropriate for today’s markets and skeptical customers. This is because blogs can help corporate communication’s strategy achieve company’s overall objective by clearly communicating the organization’s message. Furthermore, some organizations have created blogs for external marketing and Public relations.

Corporate blogging is a new effective marketing communication tool because it is most helpful when people are in located in two different locations or have different schedules and need to discuss on urgent matters. Beside that, as compared to the traditional form of marketing, blogs offer a more honest and open communication channel. This is great when organizations want to evaluate customer’s feedback on products and services. It is also a good communication tool due to the fact that Howard Dean, an American politician, was the first to person to use weblog to run for his presidential campaign. In addition, corporate blogging is less costly as compared to thousands of dollars spent on television and radio commercial, and newspaper and magazine advertising. Weblogs are also effective as the messages posted up will not be wrongly interpreted and is assured that there is no misunderstanding among readers.

References:

http://twoday.net/static/maximus/files/seminarpaper.pdf

http://kathleenkenney.com/images/sample_writing/pr_writing/StrategicBlogsInCorpCom.pdf

http://www.nirf.org/_upl/effective_corporate_blogging1.pdf