Blogging is a way for a company or organization to enhance their image. Companies such as Microsoft and Nike have followed the trend and have set up company blogs. My previous post showed how GM used blogs to advertise automobiles and reach their audience online. Blogs are another form of communication with publics. Blogs create conversation in an open and casual way, which is one reason why the number of blogs increase by 100,000 every day.
The benefits of blogging apply to small companies, as well as, large corporations. Smaller companies can benefit from a blog because it saves money. Setting up a blog is cheaper than other traditional ways of advertising.
Tom Bradley, VP and Executive Director of PR for Cronin & Co., shares the “three Ps” of a thriving corporate blog: passion, persistence, and participation.
Bradley stated that the blogger should feel passionately about the subject. I completely agree that a blogger needs to be passionate. Whether it’s a company or its products, the blogger must enjoy the topic. If they don’t, it will be hard to find new topics for the blog. After reading a few blogs, I have seen how boring the blogs can become if there is no passion or enthusiasm in the posts.
The next quality is persistence. Developing a blog takes a lot of commitment until the right voice is found. If the blogger sticks with it and is consistently creating valuable posts, the blog will be a success.
The third key factor is participation. I think this is an important factor because having a presence online makes your blog credible to readers. Successful bloggers read other’s blogs, comment on them, and build a blogroll. These things drive awareness and traffic to a blog. After a blogroll is built, then the readers can see that the blog has many consistent followers.
After hearing about the benefits to having a corporate blog, I think most companies would agree that a blog would be an asset to their business. It’s easy and inexpensive. Tom Bradley’s tips also gave guidance to future bloggers to help them create a successful blog. (Just be sure to avoid the top five corporate blogging mistakes in one of my previous posts!)
