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Brief explanation of Blogging

A weblog or blog is a web-based publication of periodic articles (posts), usually presented in reverse chronological order. It is an online journal with one or many contributors. Besides straight text and hyperlinks, some blogs specialize in incorporating other forms of media such as images, video, or a particular theme.

Blogs differ from traditional web sites in that, rather than being composed of many individual pages connected by hyperlinks, they are composed of a few templates (usually Main Page, Archive Page, and Individual Article/Item Page), into which content is fed from a database. This provides many advantages over traditional sites because of the easy creation of new pages with new data entered into a simple form (usually with Title, Category, and the body of the article), and then submitted. Templates take care of adding the article to the home page, creating the new full article page, and adding the article to the appropriate date or category-based archive. Also, it allows for easy filtering of content for various presentations, like by date, category, author, or one of many other attributes. Most blogs have an administrator or editor and invite/add other authors to contribute content to the blog adding a level of value that traditional web sites can not accomplish.

Why would a company blog?

According to Investors Business Daily, “45% of the largest 1,000 publicly held companies in North America have blogs or plan to start them sometime this year.” So why would a company want to blog? A blog enables ongoing two-way conversations.

With the rise in popularity of blogs in 2004 senior management caught on to the trend and by January 2005 several types of organizations, small startups and Fortune 500 companies had started using blogs to communicate with their stakeholders. Some believe this corporate takeover of a tool that was used primarily by Internet enthusiasts will lead to a decrease in the popularity of the medium. Others believe that the use of blogs by organizations will add new voices and vitality to the medium. While many think that blogging might be exclusive to technology companies (e.g. Jonathan Schwartz, COO of Sun Microsystems), a prime example of senior management blogging is GM’s Fastlane blog edited, among others, by GM vice chairman Bob Lutz.

So what are some reasons your company would want to blog? There are six categories of corporate blogs:

Internal Blogs

· Knowledge Blogs

· Collaboration Blogs

· Culture Blogs

External Blogs

· Sales Blogs

· Branding Blogs

· Relationship Blogs

Many may argue “that is my PR firm’s job”. However, we don’t see this as a substitution to your normal PR efforts. Much the way web sites and e-mail marketing are accepted channels to reinforce your message, blogs are that and more. Another major advantage is that blogging costs almost no money. What you save by blogging can be put into R&D, or customer support or investor’s pockets.

So how can corporate blogging help increase your chances of venture funding?

The creation of an external sales blog could have a multi-part mission to market or sell products/services, make citizens aware of public services, get donations for charities or political parties etc. It is really depends on your organization and its vision.

The best advice regarding corporate blogs is not to think of them as sales channels, but as disruption channels. This is much more effective because with disruption, it is about creating new and different stories that people want to hear. The best stories have market disruption built in.

Here is another example. Blogs make telling a story easier. When customers can follow your blog, they know what your product is trying to accomplish and they value it might have for them. As a matter of fact, when you meet with them they might be so knowledgeable; they will ask you where to sign on the dotted line.

If you are not familiar with blogs or would like to learn more about how your company could start blogging, contact me to have a 15 minute conversation.

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Written by Steven Fisher on February 11, 2006

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