Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

A corporate webblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals.Although there are many different types of corporate blogs, most can be categorized as either external or internal.

An internal blog, generally accessed through the corporation's Intranet, is a weblog that any employee can view. Many blogs are also communal, allowing anyone to post to them.

An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services, to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. It also allows a window to the company culture and is often treated more informally than traditional press releases, though a corporate blog often tries to accomplish similar goals as press releases do. In some corporate blogs, all posts go through a review before they're posted.

One of the corporate blog with recently added listing is Coca-Cola Coversations(http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/), authored by Phil Mooney, the historian/archivist for The Coca-Cola Company for the last 30 years.

Corporate blogs are not only interesting and useful, they are also helping the companies that author them develop a totally new relationship with their customers. In some cases, the blogs have helped the company move the needle in reputation, likability and thus purchase consideration.

The advantages of the corporate blog:
1) Leaders can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, helping disseminate and explain strategy.
2) Blogs give the writer an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum.
3) Compared with conference or printed memos to all staff, blogs are highly cost effective.
4) A well written blog can give a human face to an otherwise anonymous corporation.

The disadvantages of the corporate blog:
1) The best non-corporate blogs are spontaneous and genuine. Poorly written corporate blogs can look fake -- or perhaps worse, they reveal incompetence on he part of the writer.
2) It is difficult for executives to write freely, particularly at listed companies where they are legally required to publish significant information to all investors at the same time.
3)There is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.