Corporate Blogging: New PR tool?

Today personal writing become professional, initially when this blogging introduced it was for passionate writers but now this blogging takes new turn and become Public Relation (PR) tool.

According to Susane M healthfield (HR expert@ about.com): “What sets blogs apart from other online writing … is their dynamic nature (as opposed to static Web pages) and their voice (style).” The voice of the writer (or writers) of the blog, in a successful blog, is unique to that blog.

In her article, she mentioned seven reasons for starting corporate blogs in detaled manners. Today companies are so much customer centric they are trying to involve lot of customer intraction in product development to meet customer demands. So, companies conduct no. of pilot tests, focus groups, brain storming session etc to know about customers demand, perception, requirements etc… Now blogging help companies in similar & in more refined way. When any new product launch or customer faced any problem retaled to company product he/she can directly communicate to the company professional through the corporate blogs & another most important feature of corporate blogging is company time to time updates about its usage, features & new changes in varity of products.

There are no. of companies in European union which are using “ corporate blogging” as PR tools because it’s a informal communication between customers & companies just like communities & forums. There is partial of companies which are using corporate blogging as PR tool in EU.

According to wiki corporate blog research only 8% (40) of the fortune 500 companies were blogging till (may/2006). In one year, corporate blogs increased to 132 (till june/2007).

Check out the list:

In india when pulsar was launched there was dedicated community of “BAJAJ PULSAR” owners and there in the community they discuss about the features, market response, individuals’ reaction for new pulsar. The interesting thing in that community was that it was started by company employee itself to know about the views & reaction of “BAJAJ PULSAR” owners. Same experiment is done by HONDA motors when it launched “ UNICORN” in India, in the initial phase of launch Indian customers were worrying about the mono-suspension in the bike, so company used community as PR tool to promote its utility & benefits from UNICORN users(innovators).

In India, there are some companies which are using blog as PR tool for its PR & promotions: Some of them are given below:

Tata Interactive Systems

ebay India

Tekriti Software

Score India

Now in india majority of population thought that it’s a boring, non effective & cumbersome medium to promote yourself(company).But Sun microsystem promoting blogging among all its employee than any other company in the world, according to the company 3000/32000 emplyees have their own blog and company CEO have corporate blog there are no. of vistors, third party developers visit company blog.

ISSUES:

Code of conduct , what should be the mode of communication (formal or informal)?

Who will look after these corporate blog i.e. entry level managers, middle level managers or Senior mangers?

THANK YOU

PASSIONATE MANAGER