Hello,
Blogs have gained both credibility and popularity. The reach is phenomenal, the following article showcases the power of blogging as a business Tool.
Is the HR community ready to take on from here ? How can we as a community benefit from this. Share your thoughts and lets have your voices heard.
Raghav
Chief Editor
HRudaya
------------
Blogging is one of the most effective ways for small companies to create credibility, marketing experts now think. It's a development that probably surprises more than a few executives accustomed to dread the flow of misinformation and mischief that the blogosphere can incubate.
But it has to be done right, in the spirit of blogging and not of advertising, and you can't just task the intern with the job.
Successful company blogs involve high-level staffers and the company itself has to have a commitment to an open, two-way conversation with its audience of employees, product users and customers, rivals and the curious who are just passing through.
Trust, it seems, is the dominant theme on the "Conception Connections" blog run by Alternative Reproductive Services, a Chicago-based firm dedicated to matching egg donors and surrogates with interested families.
The blog illustrates what works to build interest that potentially leads to new business. Conception Connections is transparent, making clear that it is run by the company. It engages the reader in a dialogue about issues they will find important, like compensation, ethics, legal concerns and pregnancy. It's also added useful links to other blogs related to infertility.
A successful blog "kind of opens the kimono and from a brand point of view lets people know who you are," says Rob Frankel, a Los Angeles-based branding consultant who has advised clients ranging from Re/Max to Honda Motorcycles and Sea World.
Regardless of the company size, what a corporate blog should not be, he says, is a dumping ground for press releases and other promotional materials hyping the company and its products. Reserve that for the company's web site. "That's all the stuff that nobody wants to read," cautions Frankel and other marketing professionals.
Information and Educational :
Indeed, one of the best ways to achieve credibility when your business is small is through an informative and educational blog, say veteran business bloggers. Let key debates and other important topics affecting your industry drive the content, and always provide a way for readers to become part of the discussion. Post frequently and monitor your traffic.
"It's really just information and talking about all areas of the process," says Robin von Halle, Conception Connection's president. The blog "does foster a sense of community and enlist people in every facet that we work with - parents or people waiting to be a gestational surrogate."
Methods to generate blog traffic are varied. Some companies like to send proactive "push" e-mails to their existing customers and blog subscribers every time a new posting goes up. Others are less aggressive. But most agree that it's important to blog with links to keywords and phrases that anyone searching that particular industry would use.
"Your blog is going to rise in popularity with search engines," says Caroline Melberg, who runs a small marketing communications firm in suburban Minneapolis, who describes the process as "link love."
Source : Deborah Cohen (she covers small business for Reuters.com)
Courtesy: Reuters
