E-Commerce: Corporate Blogging

Corporate blogs are giving established companies and obscure brands alike the ability to connect with their audiences on a more personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened business relationships. More importantly, these companies are enjoying tangible returns in their blogging investment in the form of increased sales, partnerships, business opportunities, press coverage and lead generation.Besides, corporate blogs can also promoting the company's products towards the mass market. this can be considered as one of the most effective marketing tools for any business whether big or small.

Companies that employ a well thought out blogging strategy encourage the strongest community goodwill, and that goodwill, in turn, promotes significant marketing and sales gains. It is said that success breeds success. This holds very true for successful blogs. There is chain reaction that begins with a real desire on the part of the blogger to provide value and connect with their audience. The blogger shares useful and engaging content —the latest information, help, discussion topics and ideas. The way the audience responds to that content is key. When customers start commenting, posting or tracking back to a blogging community, it can have a viral effect —spreading out across the blogosphere. In addition, companies that harness their customers’ knowledge and ideas find better ways to satisfy their needs and wants, thus facilitating goodwill in the community. For example, it is a common practice in blogging to provide a link back to a thought originator, which is valuable because backlinks are a way that search engines distinguish the order of the editorial rankings. Higher search engine rankings translate into significantly higher web site traffic and more sales leads. Thus, successful blogging breeds success in other marketing and sales initiatives.

Greater word-of-mouth buzz on- and offline, higher search engine rankings, increased press coverage and superior lead generation are just some of the potential benefits of blogging in a corporate setting. In the next chapters, we will examine the blogging strategies of a number of companies, and learn how they are already reaping the rewards of their investment in corporate blogging.

Some business reasons for blogs:

1) Establish expertise. Many consultants effectively use blogs to raise their visibility with their target market.

2) Create alternative media. A number of publishers have built viable media outlets with loyal followings, as have companies that produce sponsored blogs, such as Gawker Media.

3) Extend corporate communications. Blogs enable companies to present a human face and voice to the public. The most notably example is Microsoft's Robert Scoble.

4) Build community. Use blogs to grow groups around a technology, cause, political issue, or hobby related to your product.

Examples of the companies involved in Blogging (hyperlink):
1. Flash and Macomedia ( Adobe)
2. IBM
3. Boeing
4. Kodak
5. Facebook
6. DELL
7. Google
8. Yahoo, and etc

Types of Corporate Blogs

1. Internal Blogs

An internal blog, generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, is a weblog that any employee can view. 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

-> a sense of community

Internal blogs may be used in lieu of meetings and e-mail discussions, and can be especially useful when the people involved 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.

2. External Blogs

An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services (or the end of old products), 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.

External corporate blogs, by their very nature,

are biased, though they can also offer a more honest and direct view than traditional communication channels. Nevertheless, they remain public relations tools.

Marketers might expect to have product evange

lists or influencers among the audience of an external blog. Once they find them, they may treat them like VIPs, asking them for feedback on exclusive previews, product testing, marketing plans, customer services audits, etc.

The business blog can provide additional value by adding a level of credibility that is often unobtainable from a standard corporate site. The informality and increased timeliness of information posted to blogs assists with increasing transparency and accessibility in the corporate image. Business blogs can interact with a target market on a more personal level while building link credibility that can ultimately be tied back to the corporate site.