Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. Like other marketing initiatives, a company's blog is an investment that should produce a measurable return. It enables a company to enhance the value for both their consumers and their own bottom lines.

One of the companies in Malaysia that owns corporate blog is Air Asia. In September 2008, the CEO of Air Asia, Tony Fernandes joined the blogosphere, become the latest CEO blogger in Malaysia. The reason that he setup this blog is to provide another platform to keep in touch with people despite of his busy schedule. AirAsia's corporate blog provide insights into the company, the people, the culture and the working lives through internet. It helps the organizations to extend the company image in the marketplace. This will enable the customers to know better about the company.

There are some beneficial points of blogging in a company:

• Leaders can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, helping disseminate and explain strategy.

• Blogs give the writer an opportunity to answer critics in a controlled forum.

• Compared with conference or printed memos to all staff, enterprise blogs are highly cost effective.

• Sharing their ideas freely in an honest voice brings the blogging companies new connections and generate trust which will lead to business opportunities galore.

• Blogs have a broad impact on the nature of online media by giving an opportunity to publish words, pictures and ultimately multimedia to the web without specialized geek skills.

However, there are also certain drawbacks:

• Senior managers would worry about libel and employees would give away the company's commercial secrets

• There is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.

• The best non-corporate blogs are spontaneous and genuine. Poorly written corporate blogs can look fake.

• Blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake.

• Blogs make many organizations look like disorganized, with multiple tones and opinions.

Blogging makes a lot of sense in the business world and can act as an effective communication medium and a great revenue earner for your company. It has become one of the most effective marketing communications tool to reach out to people who matter.

Related Links:

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/23681.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog

http://blog.airasia.com/index.php/guide