This chart is a couple of years old. I used it in a post about trust and corporate blogs. If you know of a more recent chart point me to it.
After almost six years of publishing regularly on this blog and other sites, I still see the benefit of blogging.
The discipline and drill help organizations build continuity and consistency in their interactions.
Especially those with customers.
And publishing gives organizations the opportunity to 1) tell their story and potentially version of what went down directly, 2) remind customers of the promises they keep, 3) simplify and clarify information in human terms.
Making a Global Impact
Imagine for example monitoring a patient without wires or cables, or advances in bioscience.
This is what GE’s research blog team writes about -- the agent of change is that in the operating room. If it sounds a little bit heady, you probably still find it useful to know that there are people out there working to solve these very large problems.
What is discussed here is very pertinent to customers. It affects many more of them.
Content and connections
Successful blogs create communities where stories draw people with similar interests together.
While a Web site is written to help the user find information they're looking for, a blog is a kind of place where people who are thinking about that information see each other, choose to interact with the ideas in the posts (or not) and with those who show up to do the same.
This is one of the reasons why marketing communications is (or should be) a core competence for brands. These are the professionals who best understand how to integrate blogs with everything else that is going on -- both internally and externally.
What if your organization doesn't have a baseline before starting a blog?
Start with customers
You won't feel the pressure to make it all about you -- they've already experienced you, and you have a chance to make things better if the experience has not been great. Fix the problem first, of course. Inform them of more ways they can have to interact with you and especially with each other, if they so choose.
Many organizations have user group events and meet ups. Some companies run them with the help of customer Advisory Boards.
One way to integrate some online with the face to face is to give users a mechanism to stay in touch with each other and your team on the topics and discussions they started live at the event.
With the help of a community manager, the organization continues to reap the benefits of its investment in the event and into the next one. The customer community gets continuity after a successful event.
It would be a pity to waste the energy the emcee and sessions created.
Here's a list of skill sets for a corporate blogger I put together a while back. Is it still current? What would you add?
Taking the road less traveled
Is par for the course for Mike Critelli, retired executive chairman of Pitney Bowes.
His willingness to “see a different game” goes hand in hand with accomplishing as much as possible under the radar screen as the most successful change management requires a blend of highly-public activity and behind-the-scenes facilitation, he writes.
Maybe more than an example of how to do a corporate blog successfully, this is about using one’s intellectual curiosity and honesty to frame issues so we can get into problem solving mode. Critical thinking at work.
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Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.