Corporate Blogs - Challenges and Success Factors

Corporate BlogsChallenges and Success Factors

© 2009 www.telezent.com

www.Telezent.com

By Sandeep Arora

[email protected]

• Corporate blogs are not yet mainstream.• Many companies do not have corporate blogs.• Moreover according to report by Forrester Research most people don't trust corporate blogs.

"How much do you trust* the following information sources?"

Email form people you know- 77%Consumer product ratings/reviews- 60%

Portals/search engines- 50%Social networking site profiles- 46%

Wikies- 28%Online classifieds- 20%

Personal blog- 18%Social networking site profiles- 18%

Company blog- 16%


Here are some challenges of corporate blogs. - Jeremiah Owyang

• Often, no ending date.• Most don’t receive a lot of traffic.• May require a lot of time.• Being conversational is unnatural.• Hard to measure success.• Legal has hang-ups.• Our employees don’t represent our brand.• As employee bloggers become popular, brands get concerned.


• Blogs are next-generation websites.• Believe it or not, we're in early days of "Corporate Blogging".• Companies are just beginning to get the hang of it. - Debbie Weil

Company Executives

Corporate Blog Success Party


• Corporate blogging, unlike search engine marketing, doesn't lead instantly to directly purchase of services.• Top management should support the corporate blogging initiative or it will lose stream and fail. - Kfir-Pravda

Management Support- Factor 1

Top Management

Complete Support

Bloggers/Evangelis

A recent McKinsey Report "6 ways to make Web2.0 work" list management support as a key factor to success.


• An evangelist is one who is passionate about writing, blogging or social media in general.• Who will push the effort internally- and it is very important to give him/her incentives and management support.

- Kfir-PravdaEvangelist (or Champions)- Factor 2


• Companies need to educate and train their employees on Social Media in general and the importance of Corporate blogs.

Education- Factor 3


• Everyone needs to understand that this is not just another technology.• It calls for a change in company culture.

Educate your Employees


• Before companies get into corporate blogging they need to make their goals pretty clear.

Make Goals Clear- Factor 4Product/Service Related News and Information

Industry news, tools, education and knowledge

Customer Feedback

Company Inside Stories/Entertainment

Marketing

Business-to-Business

What is your Objective

• Social Media activities, including blogging, take time to take off and provide tangible results.• They are also increase their value over time, as more people are exposed to the blog, write comments and become part of the interaction with the company. - Kfir-Pravda

Corporate Commitment- Factor 5

• It requires sustained and continuous effort on the part of the time.

Corporate blogs today are not a option.Customers are expecting/demanding it



• Based on my experience with VizEdu and a previous blog it takes atleast 6 months for visible results. –Sandeep Arora

Reality Check


• The corporate blog owner must work with other departments to establish Blogging Guidelines and Commenting Policies. • This will prevent corporate blog efforts from hitting a road block.• Companies like HP have established such guidelines.Establish Blogging Guidelines and Comment Policy- Factor 6


• Blogs are a great vehicle to have 2 way conversations with customers.• Companies need to be open and transparent to have meaningful conversations.

Dialogue with Customers- Factor 7

THE END

www.Telezent.com

By Sandeep Arora

[email protected]