That is a known fact that blogging is not just for individuals. Corporate blogs that utilize their reach to promote their products and businesses started to gain popularity among people. Thus, blog has emerged as one of the low cost and high return – the best marketing tool on the web. Blogging has given a new way for the marketers to interact with possible customers and clients – Promote!!
If a company knows how to maximize marketing opportunities through its blog, the blog can be one of the best marketing tools that a company will be hiding in the tool box. The types of corporate blogs are internal blogs, external blogs and CEO blogs.
How can a blog boost business sales?
The blog is not only helps a company build stronger relationships with their important target groups such as clients, the media, the general public and shareholders.
It also provides:-
- Company with an opportunity to run low cost public relationship.
- Company's customers with information they might need. In other words, they see the company as an expert.
- Company's customers with some human interaction in the website- give comments.
- Company's business the opportunity to build a group of followers.
- Company's business a chance to get instant feedback for new products or ideas.
- Help to company's website rank higher in the search engines.
Company can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, spread wisely information and explain strategy.
Blogs give company an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum.
Compared with conference or printed memos to all staff, enterprise blogs are highly cost effective.
Sharing their ideas freely in an honest voice brings the blogging companies new connections and generate trust which will lead to business opportunities galore.
Blogs have a broad impact on the nature of online media by giving an opportunity to publish words, pictures and - ultimately - multimedia to the web without specialized geek skills.
A well written blog can give a human face to an otherwise anonymous enterprise.
They boost company's search engine rankings if the company adds fresh content on a regular basis. Google and other search engines rewards sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links.
People are far more likely to give great feedback if they know someone specific is listening. The power of these feedback loops can generate big benefits.
Blogs' diary format gives a sense of immediacy, and regular posting soon creates a large, searchable database of information hyperlinked to extra relevant material.
They mark the company as authentic and forward-looking.
If updated consistently, they establish the company as a thought leader in the industry niche.
Blogs are ideal for internal collaboration being a workspace where project members keep each other updated without wasting time writing reports or searching the Outlook inbox.
Being informal, blogs can provide company with a measure of value. Publish an idea and see if it generates interest.
If company's blog has a positive effect on the company’s reputation then it is very beneficial to the career.
- Not only can companies find blog marketing harmful, many companies can also find it damaging.
- Companies feel that marketing in blog affects editorial content and devalues the medium.
- Knowing that other people are offered money to mention a product on their site, the product is offered in a bias way.
- The honesty of the writing is affected when companies' interests are paying the bills.
- After all, social networks like blogs are about building community, not about selling.
Intel Corporate Blogging
McDonald Corporate Blog
Reference:
Retrieved from http://www.blogopreneur.com/2007/03/30/the-benefits-of-corporate-blogging/ on 8 July 2009
