Corporate Blogging ~ The Misconceptions

Posted on: February 9, 2010 | Category: blogs & social media | 4 Comments

Nowadays it seems as if every company needs to have or already has a blogging site. In this article I would like to share some misconceptions with you about corporate blogging.

A lot of marketeers or marketing departments fail to ‘blog’ and have poorly visited blogging sites with no comments at all. Because their blogging-strategy doesn’t succeed they conclude that a blogging site is an ineffective marketing tool and either remove it entirely or just let the blog bleed to death.

Corporate blogs can be a powerful communication tool that builds customer loyalty and brand-awareness. But one question still remains: why are most corporate blogs failing and why do the few succeed? Lets take a look at some of the common misconceptions about corporate blogging:

No ‘involvement’ whatsoever

Successful blogs are more than just a broadcasting-tool. They are a way to ‘communicate’ between individuals within an organisation and their visitors. Hereby you need to keep in mind that it is important to listen, as well as to speak: companies need to listen to us, their customers, and involve us if they wish to succeed.

The majority of corporate blogging sites doesn’t communicate with their audience, because they only promote their services, company and products. Most corporate blogs just post their press releases and that’s it!

Most of the time corporate blogging sites don’t ask for feedback or questions from their users. Why? It’s a great opportunity to get free valuable feedback or insight from your customers and users! Alas, it’s a fact that most companies disable the comment-section for fear of criticism.

Encourage your users to comment to your blog, get them involved!

A blog doesn’t automatically generate Traffic

Many marketeers see blogging sites as a way to boost new leads and traffic, although that’s not the primary objective of a blogging site.

The primary objective of a blog is to generate repeat traffic, because the chances a first time visitor will complete a call to action is small. If you have the incentive for them to return the chances increase. A successful blog has a regular readership who is being constantly reminded of the brand and products.

Make it simple for a visitor to become a regular reader by adding a link with a “Book Mark”-script. Of course ultimately you want them to subscribe to your RSS-Feed so they don’t need to continually check your site for new content.

Decide who you’re writing for and how

Building up a customer loyalty and readership takes time, it can take months or even years! Good content drives people to your site and keeps them coming back, users will recognize your blog as a consistent source of useful information and will recommend it to others.

A blogging site doesn’t just take time, it also takes long term commitment. Post with adequate frequency and to a schedule. Users are more likely to visit your blog if they know you release a post on a certain day each week and maintain your blog. Be authentic and relaxed in your writing—it’s not a press release, it’s a blog post— so show personality.

Traditional marketing skills are not always suited for the blogosphere. Blogging should be personal and transparent, the traditional writing style does not fit well with the informal style of a successful blog.

A faceless Corporation

Corporate blogging allows current and potential consumers to see the company’s human face and personality, unlike the businesslike press releases. The other problem with press releases is that they are corporate statements. A blog should bridge the gap between the company and the average consumer.

Therefore it’s important that a corporate blog is about the people within the organisation, not the organisation itself. Corporate blogs should focus on different people and the role they perform within the company. They should be able to demonstrate some of their personality as well as share their expertise.

Expecting too much from your Readers

Most of the corporate blog articles I have read are long, too technical or just incredibly boring. Jakob Neilson performed a study and found out that only 16% of people will read a post word by word … the rest ’scans’ the message. Meaning that readers need to be able to extract the message of a post in an instance, and not have to work their way through it.

This can be achieved using a number of techniques…

• Summarise a post at the beginning and in the title.
• Be controversial to grab users attention.
• Use headings as a way of grabbing attention and summarising content.
• Use images to break up the copy and communicate key points.

Don’t let your posts look like a report, short posts that propose a question or draw the readers attention to another site are just fine. Anything that is of value to the user is worth posting.

Conclusions

Corporate blogs are not a universal solution to all communications problems, but used correctly they can be a perfect tool to improve external or internal communications. The secret to success is accepting that a blog is not a traditional marketing tool.

For corporations, blogs provide a low-cost, low-risk way to communicate their messages and distribute content to brand enthusiasts rather than just consumers.

 

{This article contains : 861 words}

 

 

 

More Posts about this Topic:

• 10 Easy-to-Do Tips For Better Blogging → March 9, 2010
• Free Blog Promotion to Boost Traffic → January 22, 2010
• How Frequent Do You Add a New Post? → December 30, 2009
• How to Become a Noticed Blogging Site? → December 5, 2009
• Using Blogs to Boost Traffic to Your Site → July 20, 2009

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4 Gorgeous Responses,
to this article: “Corporate Blogging ~ The Misconceptions”

1. LEAD ~ Feb 26, 2010:

   Hi,
   I found this article really based on truth.i do agree with u. I believe that blog is not less than a website. Actually it may work more than that. Tellin you the truth, my organization is totally on blog. We still dont have a website.

   Thanks.

   LEAD

2. gonzo ~ Feb 26, 2010:

   Hi LEAD,

   Thanks for your constructive comment! I’ve seen your (corporate) blog and it looks very professional!

   Glad to see your blog is one of the exceptions that proves the rule as described in this post, haha!

   And I think you should see a blog and a website as 2 different tools, but combined they can be very effective!

   Once again thanks for your visit, Cheers & Ciao …
   Twitter ID: gonzodesign_

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