Corporate Blogging: New PR tool?

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

According to Susane M healthfield (HR expert@ about.com) said: “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 no. of reasons for starting corporate blogs. Today companies are so much customer centric that they are trying to involve lot of customer interactions in every stage of product development to meet customer demands. So, companies conduct a 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 related 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 variety 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 in corporate 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 daily they discussed about the features, market response, individuals’ reaction for new pulsar. The interesting thing about community was it was started by company senior managers' team to know about the views & reaction of “BAJAJ PULSAR” owners & prospective customers. 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).

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

1. Tata Interactive Systems
2. ebay India
3. Tekriti Software
4. Score India

Now in India majority of population thought that it’s a boring, non effective & cumbersome medium to promote yourself(company).But Sun micro-system promoting blogging among all its employee than any other company in the world, according to the company 3000/32000 employees have their own blog and company CEO also have corporate blog there are no. of visitors, 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?

In next article i will answer you the questions but till the time think about it?