The Value of Corporate Blogging

Last September I started my blog PR Communications with several goals in mind. One big goal was to understand the value of blogs. How did a corporate blog help a company to get a good return on investment for its marketing dollar? Blogs don’t actually cost very much to set up and maintain. $50/year if you are using a simple to use but complex tool such as Typepad. The cost to a company comes from the soft dollars expended in having to post on a regular basis. For a company I usually recommend posting at least 5 times a week, more if possible.

What then is the real value of blogging to a company? A question I’ve attempted to answer all year by blogging about PR, Marketing and the Internet. I’ve discovered some interesting thing along the way. But only really understood some of the real benefits of blogging when I started my corporate blogging survey in May. I don’t have very many respondents but the people who have answered have been very forthcoming with information. Though the survey I’ve learnt one big thing about the value of corporate blogging. Blogs are excellent communications tools for companies. Blogs are a fast and easy way for many people to post content. I’ve learnt a few other things, and I will be sharing them with you when you attend the Global PR Wiki week in mid July.

I will leave you with some thoughts about the definition of corporate blogging, or blogs themselves. Really a blog is a content management driven website. Non-technical people have the power to easily post content. Typically you enter your text into a simple large form field and press the submit button. These content management systems are often simpler to use than MicroSoft Word. Go and try setting one up, its easy. The difference between a corporate website and a blog comes from what is a culturally acceptable to do with corporate websites and blogs. You can talk about your cat and vacation on a blog. As well as announce a product and debate that such and such is the best speaker at a corporate conference. With blogs we cross the barrier from the corporate and the personal and blend them into one.

I think this cultural crossing has been happening for some time in our culture. Blogs are an expression of that change in our culture. Greg Jarboe from SEO-PR.com recently made the point to me teenagers are very capable at gathering, and interpreting multiple points of information at the same time. Watching TV, sitting at a computer instant messaging six people at once and carrying on a cell phone conversation with one other person. Yet when asked what they are doing, “Dad, I am doing my homework”. Blogs and associated technologies allow people to manage and understand more information at the same time. Do you feel overwhelmed? Is there just too much information out there to comprehend? Well the next generation is equipping themselves to cope. And you are playing a part in building the infrastructure.

Author: John Cass | Jul 1, 04 | Permalink | 6 comments
Category: @ John Cass | Participants' thoughts

Comments

John - that's so true about teenagers but have you seen this Red Herring piece http://blog.redherring.com/MT/archives/main/000282.html to what extent do they process that information?

Posted by: Trevor Cook at July 1, 2004 07:50 PM

You can see a list of corporate blogs that I started a week ago, at http://blogsc.blogspot.com

Posted by: JM Noguera at July 2, 2004 07:37 AM

A question that I keep getting asked is why would someone use a blog instead of a discussion forum? Is it a function of the volume of information to process where a blog would be better off at tracking fewer threads and a full-blown forum would be better at more sophisticated tracking? I've worked in both formats and find discussion forums support more threads and 'slower-developing' projects while blogs project a more 'immediate/ephemeral' approach... what do you think?

Posted by: Andy at July 8, 2004 10:49 PM

I think this piece by Ross Mayfield is very helpful in understanding the difference between blogs and message boards/discussion forums: http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2004/02/17/the_difference_between_communities_and_networks.php

Posted by: Elizabeth Albrycht at July 9, 2004 07:56 AM

As a marketing consultant for a software start-up, I am pitching the pros for blogging on their web site; however, my tech client is concerned that their customers will complain about the product to one another. Is it possible to moderate the blog, or have some sort of control over it?

Can you bullet point the strengths of blogging for a client like mine, a software startup?

Posted by: Andrea at July 12, 2004 10:53 AM

Hi Andrea,

Yes you can moderate comments. Actually thats the benefit of blogs. It's more culturally acceptable to edit or remove the content of any visitors postings. Some blogs even let you review comments before you let them through. I've had a number of occasions on my blog where I have removed content or deleted the entire posting. I might send an email to the visitor letting them know why. But if they are a spammer I may not even inform them I removed the content.

You are in control of the blog, it's a corporate blog. As your client is a start-up, there are great advantages in getting a lot of content up there on the web with a blog. Lastly, you don't have to allow comments on the blog.

Posted by: John Cass at July 12, 2004 11:49 AM

About: The Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is an online event that will engage PR, marketing and business bloggers from around the globe in a discussion about blogging and communications. The event is scheduled for July 12 - 16, 2004.

Links: The New PR Wiki

Recent Entries: Looking forward to 2.0; Site Statistics and Trends; A participant’s final thoughts; Traditional PR is dead - Long Live DIY PR; Quiet is the new loud

Recent Comments: Rick Barry on A Very Brief Look at Blogging for the Uninitiated Executive; George Mc Quade on The Battle Over PR; Duncan Adams on Robert Scoble interviewed on Corporate Blogging; Kevin O'Keefe on How to launch a corporate blog for a professional services organization; William Luu on Site Statistics and Trends