Corporate blogging.

Blogging turns out to become a more widely used marketing tool for companies. Not only big companies are starting to use corporate weblog solutions but it also enables smaller companies to enhance there online marketing with weblogs. In most cases people from management and the thought leaders of companies are asked to maintain a corporate weblog. In some cases the bloggers are completely free in what they place on there weblog in most cases the bloggers are support by marketing teams who help them create there posts and keep a eye on the corporate value of a post.

In general there are some things to keep in mind when starting a corporate or non-corporate weblog.

- Transparency is Key
- Develop a Community
- Be Consistent
- Make a Policy
- Be Committed
- Acknowledge Faults and Missteps
- Take the Good with the Bad
- Ensure Weblog Usability

Keeping these guidelines in mind will help you to make a success of your corporate weblog. Companies can benefit from weblogs in several ways. They get more exposure which is in the opinion of a marketing department always a good thing, they have the ability to give thought leaders a platform to expose the knowledge they have a so show what knowledge the company has itself. There is a option to create a community of devoted readers and get feedback from this community. And those are just some of the advantages that are there. Also a big plus is that most bloggers get a hang of it and start to enjoy it and after some time do not consider this as part of a job but more part of fun.


Some good examples of corporate weblogs can be found here:
MacroMedia corporate weblog: http://weblogs.macromedia.com
Sun microsystems corporate weblogs: http://blogs.sun.com/
Weblogs from people working at IBM development: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/


As this trend is getting more and more speed there is also done more research, please find some interesting research papers here:

A research paper from Durbin Media Group: CORPORATE PRIMER ON BUSINESS BLOGGING
E-Business Consortium, University of Wisconsin-Madison : Corporate Weblogging Best Practices
Lewis 360 : the business value of blogging
Bloomberg Marketing : Blogs: Beyond A Corporate Handshake