A corporate blog’s general definition is a web log maintained by the company itself to update its activities and share information regarding the company’s products and services. A corporate blog can be viewed by both the employees as well as anyone outside the organization.
So is creating and maintaining a corporate blog necessary? Does it provide any benefit to the company’s image and credibility? The short answer is yes. A company’s website is a professional face of the company on the World Wide Web. It rarely is modified or updated because company’s want accurate information to be displayed on its website. A corporate blog however provides a platform for employees and visitors alike to discuss and share their opinions.
From a perspective of the employees, it serves as a gathering point to discuss the company’s new products and services, product launches, and public relation announcements and events. Whereas, from a customer perspective, the corporate blog provides a means to contact and stay in touch with the company’s new offerings and to give feedback or make complaints etc. Corporate blogs provide a reason for the customers to visit their website and show interest.
Market research suggests that almost up to 70 percent of large corporations have their own corporate blogs set up in order to relay information about their products and services as well as dealing with their customers online.
Let us briefly look at some of the major reasons why every company must have a corporate blog…
- Communication with your customers
Every company would love to know what their customers think about them. Corporate blogs provide an easy and hassle free solution to that. Customers can post their comments on the blog articles to which the customer service representative of the company can reply back to. Customer Feedback, complaints, product idea testing and sales generations are some of the many reasons corporate blogs can benefit an organization
- ‘Word of Mouth’ opportunity
Having a corporate blog can greatly increase the chances of having a particular blog post to go viral on the World Wide Web. People that read articles have the tendency to share the article they like with their networks. Corporate blogs can create the necessary hype for particularly those products which are yet to launch and are in the beta testing phase.
- Easy to setup and low costs
Corporate blogs are easy to setup and have very low maintenance costs. A web designer can be hired for this purpose whose chief responsibility is to look after the design of the blog theme. Whereas, a customer representative from your marketing department can easily handle the customer requests and queries on the blogs posts and duly monitor them.
- Increases visibility and credibility of the company
Corporate blogs provide a sense of credibility to your customers. Companies having their own blogs have greater respect from their customers who give value to feedback and appreciate the company’s efforts to stay in touch with them. Companies can update their policy changes and notify their customers of the ongoing changes in the products and services they have to offer.
Creating and maintaining a corporate identity on the internet is part of the branding of your company and can have a very positive impact on the image of the company in the long run.
