Creating An Effective Corporate Blog
by: Colin Ong TS
The terms “blog” and “blogging” have become part of the new economy dictionary and are an extremely cheap and efficient way of disseminating information through the web. A blog is best described as an online diary that readers can also post their thoughts. Many subject experts and academics have created open blogs (free access) that are read by thousands of readers and futurists are predicting that these blogs will emerge as the new mega magazines.
Which leads to the question about why companies are slow to create corporate blogs in order to promote their organizational goals and ideals. The reason for this lax attitude is that corporate blogs can be misinterpreted for techies and the employment of full-time blog administrators as too costly.
Before creating a corporate blog, determine some guidelines. Here are some tips:
Clear Organisational Message
Before starting a corporate blog, you have to be very clear about the organizational message and direction. The reason is that your blog will be read by the public who may also be potential customers who have different global perceptions. You do not want your blog to convey negative perceptions of your organizational values.
Determine Success Targets
The setting up of a corporate blog is not just an opportunity for people to ventilate or post their comments online. There must be clear success targets. Feasible short term targets are the generation of new sales leads and increase in customer database. In contrast, a medium term target can be the creation of new alliances.
Promote Your Alliance
Your corporate blog can be used to highlight your current alliances and give your customers a better understanding about your global reach. You can invite representatives of these organizations to either be guest bloggers or have a separate blog within your main corporate blog. With enough online exposure, your corporate blog can also evolve into a dynamic networking online community.
Great Feedback Channel
Invite your customers to post their comments in the corporate blog and get your blog administrator to act on the feedback as soon as possible. This will give the image that your organization is very serious about all feedback and you can also rectify the problem before it escalates. The more advanced blogs can also provide immediate sms to blog administrators once a feedback has been posted too.
Value-add to Your Print Newsletter
A corporate blog can value-add to your current monthly print newsletter. One way is that some online postings can provide article-ideas for future newsletter issues. Blog visitors can also request for print newsletters to be posted to their homes.
Test Out New Products
Your organizational engineers and sales team can use the corporate blog to test out new products and ideas. This is an effective and cheap solution as your blog readers should already have a good idea about how these ideas should co-exist with your other products.
Security Measures
Ensure that your corporate blog has security measures that prevents spamming to your blog readers. This will ensure that spamming will not create a definite negative image about your company. Your blog administrator should also ensure that there is no flaming and that all potential debates should not be a battle of personalities.
Not Infringe Intellectual Property
Some blog posters may introduce other websites which may have beta versions of new products. To some blog readers, this may be purely educational but the implication for your organization is that it may infringe intellectual property
About the Author
This article is contributed by Colin Ong TS, Managing Director/Chief Trainer of MR=MC Consulting (http://www.mrmc.com.sg) and Founder of 12n Community (http://www.mrmc.com.sg/12n). He can also be contacted about corporate blogging at colin@mrmc.com.sg
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Blogging Advice - Give Your Readers What They Want
Blogging Advice - Give Your Readers What They Want
by: chris hickman
Web gives a lot of exposure; weblog stabilizes the exposure with a profound purpose. The purpose of a Weblog is to complement e-newsletters, serving readers in a way that extends a blogger's expertise and leadership in the market.
So, what is it that is expected from a blog? A blog is considered to be a place to inform and to be informed. Straight talk is what readers consider to be an ideal blog message. Straight talk is a four or five sentence of direct, informative content about a specific issue or bit of news.
Blogs consists of human expressions and is expected to have a soulful purpose. Blog posts are expected to be a personal post, as it can convey blogger's emotions. So, these messages are mostly written in first person singular and are rich in emotions. Blogs are also expected to provide details from the writer's life: missed flights, break-ups, rodents under the stove, computer breakdowns, muggings, and tamale recipes and more.
A blogger should always remember that if there are doubts that readers will discount the article entirely based on its context; they shouldn't consider linking it at all.
Authentication of the message is one important aspect that a blog post is expected to adhere to. Blogs are expected to be clear about its source. This avoids chances where readers may cease to trust the bloggers. These chances may take shape if discovered that the information source has been disguised or the blogger didn't make the source of an article clear. The readers might have evaluated these sources differently had they been given all the facts. Into every aspect of the practice of weblogging, transparency is one of the weblog's distinguishing characteristics and greatest strengths.
A writer's goal and priority should always be clarity.
It is a bloggers responsibility to focus exclusively on producing content that attracts the reader. What determines the right kind of content? This can be determined by reading other blogs and hitting whatever is hot in discussion or high in trend.
The most compelling bloggers are necessarily the ones with the most insightful analyses and the best links; besides this the most successful are those who get the reader interested in their own ongoing story. Because bloggers on similar subjects link to each other, the reader finds it easier to understand opposing points of view. For bloggers, not linking to others is a death sentence for their ratings.
About The Author
Chris Hickman owns a full info site about Weblog blogging. Check Out his site at http://www.ez-weblog-blogging.com.
by: chris hickman
Web gives a lot of exposure; weblog stabilizes the exposure with a profound purpose. The purpose of a Weblog is to complement e-newsletters, serving readers in a way that extends a blogger's expertise and leadership in the market.
So, what is it that is expected from a blog? A blog is considered to be a place to inform and to be informed. Straight talk is what readers consider to be an ideal blog message. Straight talk is a four or five sentence of direct, informative content about a specific issue or bit of news.
Blogs consists of human expressions and is expected to have a soulful purpose. Blog posts are expected to be a personal post, as it can convey blogger's emotions. So, these messages are mostly written in first person singular and are rich in emotions. Blogs are also expected to provide details from the writer's life: missed flights, break-ups, rodents under the stove, computer breakdowns, muggings, and tamale recipes and more.
A blogger should always remember that if there are doubts that readers will discount the article entirely based on its context; they shouldn't consider linking it at all.
Authentication of the message is one important aspect that a blog post is expected to adhere to. Blogs are expected to be clear about its source. This avoids chances where readers may cease to trust the bloggers. These chances may take shape if discovered that the information source has been disguised or the blogger didn't make the source of an article clear. The readers might have evaluated these sources differently had they been given all the facts. Into every aspect of the practice of weblogging, transparency is one of the weblog's distinguishing characteristics and greatest strengths.
A writer's goal and priority should always be clarity.
It is a bloggers responsibility to focus exclusively on producing content that attracts the reader. What determines the right kind of content? This can be determined by reading other blogs and hitting whatever is hot in discussion or high in trend.
The most compelling bloggers are necessarily the ones with the most insightful analyses and the best links; besides this the most successful are those who get the reader interested in their own ongoing story. Because bloggers on similar subjects link to each other, the reader finds it easier to understand opposing points of view. For bloggers, not linking to others is a death sentence for their ratings.
About The Author
Chris Hickman owns a full info site about Weblog blogging. Check Out his site at http://www.ez-weblog-blogging.com.
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