Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. 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.

In order to maintain a competitive edge, corporations are increasingly looking for opportunities to make them remain competitive in the market. Therefore, they started implementing corporate blog for their company. For instance airasia.com, trumphuniversity.com and google.com have their company blog to serve as a platform for discussion between company staff, users, customers and management.

Why is Blogging Crucial to Corporations?
What is the first image your mind conjures up when a brand is mentioned? Is it the logo, the jingle on the advertisement or the experience you previously had with the brand? Blogging allows current and potential consumers to associate the brand with a face and a personality. It reduce the distant gap that has existed between the company and the consumer. In addition, the blog is a representation of the company’s values, beliefs, philosophy and direction. Besides, blogging allows companies to communicate with customers in a more personal and direct way. Lastly, it has the power to position employees as thought-leaders in their industry, to assist in reputation management during crises; to build brand awareness and loyalty; and to increase brand visibility, traffic and links.

13 Steps to Create a Corporate Blog
1. Determine if blogging is a good fit for your company
2. Determine if your company is willing to invest in a blog
3. Create a strategy
4. Ensure that everyone is on the same page
5. Determine the Involvement of PR
6. Select Bloggers
7. Train the Bloggers
8. Writing Posts
9. Realize that the Blog doesn’t need a tone
10. Editing
11. Establish a Comment Policy
12. Develop a Promotion Strategy
13. Establish a Measurement program