Corporate blogging breakdown: What is it and why does my organisation need it?

If your organisation is not blogging, you’re losing out on major benefits that corporate blogging can bring.

Corporate blogging is another communications and marketing channel. However, unlike a press release, advertisement in a magazine or a listing in the Yellow Pages, corporate blogs are two-way communications. Here are 5 ways how a corporate blog can benefit your organisation.

Benefits of corporate blogging

1) Build rapport with customers. At this time of writing, there are more than 100 million blogs worldwide. If you publish a corporate blog, you’re giving your customers a channel to interact and get to know your brand and organisation in a format that they’re familiar and comfortable with. Plus, you’ll earn extra points from them because you speak their language.

2) Free feedback and suggestions from key constituents. Corporate blogging gives you insights to what people are saying about your products, your brand, your competitors, your marketing from the comfort of your office chair. These insights come in the forms of comments on your blog or commentary and discussions that take place on other blogs.

3) Increased website traffic from higher search engine rankings. Because blogs are so easy to publish, you’ll find yourself adding new content to your website more frequently. Search engines favour websites with fresh content and ranks your blog higher in search results, which in turn results in a greater number of referrals from search engines to your website and blog.

4) Position your business as a thought leader. One of the most effective marketing strategies is “Show, don’t tell”. You can use your corporate blog to take advantage of this strategy by demonstrating your expertise and experience in your industry through commentary, guides, analysis, etc. The quality of your blog content reflects the quality of your organisation.

5) Lead generation. Having your blog appear on the first page of Google’s results gives your organisation credibility in the eyes of your potential customers. Having high-quality content on your blog goes further to reinforce the value your organisation can provide and reduces the need to “hard sell”. Make sure that your contact details are easily accessible and you’ll be getting leads from your blog in no time.

In summary, corporate blogs are a new, powerful marketing communications tool for any organisation. It doesn’t matter what kind of organisation you are: small or large, SMEs or corporates, for-profit or non profit—done correctly, corporate blogging can give you a massive Return On Blog.

Getting started with corporate blogging

If you’re not quite sure how to write a corporate blog, begin by familiarising yourself and reading, observing and commenting on high-quality corporate blogs. Take notice of the writing style, the topics discussed on the blog and who contributes to the blog. Below is a list of great corporate blogs to begin your journey.

If you’ve decided to start a corporate blog for your organisation but don’t quite have the technical know-how, you could also hire a consultant and blog designers to help you set up and launch your blog. Remember to ask your consultant how to integrate your blog into your organisation’s overall marketing and communication goals.

Launching a corporate blog can be potentially awkward or worrying if you’re starting out fresh. However it can also be an exciting endeavour and profitable one if you can take advantage of all the benefits a corporate blog offers. Here’s wishing you all the best to your corporate blogging journey!

Corporate blog examples

• Jonathan’s Blog - The blog of Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems. Although John is the CEO of a USD$15 billion company, he blogs just like a regular guy.

• The Official Google Blog - My favourite corporate blog, the Google blog gives you a peek into the internet giant’s products, technology and culture and frequently features managers and engineers blogging about the projects they work on.

• English Cut - Thomas Mahon isn’t nearly as big as Sun or Google, but his blog has made him a very successful small business. He tailors Prince Charles’ suits!

• Blue Flavor Blog - Blue Flavor is another successful small business that effectively employs a thought leadership strategy in their blog.

• Seth’s Blog - Best-selling author Seth Godin’s blog is another example of a blog employing a thought leadership strategy and reinforces Seth’s reputation as a writer, speaker and consultant.

• Kid Chan Studio Blog - A good example of a corporate blog from a Malaysian company.

• Exabytes Blog - Another Malaysian blog, the Exabytes Blog does a good job of humanising a ‘virtual’ company and notifying readers of special offers.