Blogging as a strategic communication tool

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Blogging as a strategic communication tool

A blog is a web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Because the blog can be used to convey various types of information, such as personal, public, commercial, and political, it has become an effective communication tool over the internet. With the rising popularity of blogs, a growing number of organisations, such as Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, now look for ways to accommodate this blogging phenomenon.

Blogs are collections of articles, ideas, news, facts, opinions or inspirations that are “posted” on the internet. They are usually structured, organised by category and are updated often, if not daily. The owner of the blog is able to control the content. The term, which stands for "Web log," was coined in 1999 and has caught on like wildfire.

So how can we use blogs in our business in a way that’s going to promote what we do? Well they provide great supplemental content and direct attention to areas of our business that we may want to feature or highlight and we could use it as a unique, informal way to:

1.  Communicate with colleagues, partners, suppliers, existing or potential customers
2.  Showcase our industry/company news, introduce new products or services, marketing promotions or provide tips
3. Establish a company or individual's reputation or brand
4. Improve operations (e.g. project management or tech support knowledge-sharing)
5. Demonstrate expertise
6. Establish competitive differentiation
7. Simplify and accelerate the publishing process
8. You direct the content but let your readers guide you. You will also need to establish when you will post more articles and adhere to it. Let your readers know what to expect and when to expect it.

We can use our blogs to actively engage customers. Macromedia, one of the first major companies that officially adopted corporate blogs, encouraged its bloggers to post not only product information that will bring value to customers but also enough personal information that will humanise the company and build a sense of community around the products. Despite many potential benefits, many organisations do not appear to embrace blogs with open arms. This reluctance is primarily due to the lack of rules governing the blogsphere, and has resulted in disputes between employee bloggers and management over what is appropriate blogging content.

Worse yet, some employees were even fired over their blogs. A Microsoft contractor was fired after he posted pictures of Apple G5 computers being unloaded at Microsoft. The entry, “Even Microsoft wants G5s”, was deemed as being a security violation (Bonne, 2003). A Delta Air Lines flight attendant lost her job after she posted photos of herself in uniform on her blog. Delta stated that those photos, in which she is wearing Delta uniform with the blouse partly unbuttoned, were “inappropriate and unauthorised use of Delta branding” (USA Today, 2005). A Google blogger was terminated because he posted some complaints about Google’s compensation package, compared to his previous employer Microsoft (Perez, 2005).

When top executives appear in the blogsphere, their blogs generate instant traffic and can be an effective tool to establish a direct connection with stakeholders. Some organisations have launched a newsletter type of blog that officially represents their positions. This type of blog tends to be filled with well-polished messages; examples are Yahoo! Search Blog, Google Blog and Red Hat Magazine. They cover a variety of topics such as company news and product information.

Microsoft is well known for its support of blogs, and this is evident by an army of online evangelists who shed light on the human side of the company. Their efforts are primarily led by celebrity bloggers who are changing public perception of this formerly faceless company. As public awareness of blogs is dramatically growing, organisations are increasingly attempting to exploit the value of blogs. The most important message for those companies is that blogs are all about communication and conversation, and let’s not forget, its enormous marketing potential!

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