Sunday, August 20, 2006

Business usage of Blogs (part 4) blog as company website

In this last chapter of my guide to business usage of blogs I wanted to touch the subject of blogs as company website. Can blog be good material for company website? We associate blogs mostly with personal and private diaries. However blogs boil down to 2 key elements:

  • content management system (CMS) that is used to create and frequently update webpages
  • websites where informations are stored time-ordered order - from newest to oldest.

Such combination - to get new information often + to easily see what’s new and added is excellent way to create bond with visitors. Therefore it’s best used for companies and brands that have or want to build strong customer loyalty. Think about such brands - Harley Davidson, Nokia, Starbucks… their loyal customers may want to check-out what’s new in them. For them - blog-type website can be attractive to customers.

You don’t have to be superbrand to try same approach. Think about following case (not real - just artificial one):

Ristorante Fiorentino
Imagine that you run good and popular local Italian restaurant. Blog-type website can work for you well. Of course you need to have set of basic links to current menu, address, contact info, reservation, etc. However the main content of the site would be blog posts. The content could be:

News from the restaurant:

  • changes of menu
  • new meal or desert in the menu
  • opening of the outside garden in spring
  • special offer or promotion
  • theme evening - e.g. for various regions of Italy
  • celebrity visiting the restaurant
  • various celebration - 10 years of restaurant, 1000 pizza served

Value added content:

  • Italian recipes for home cooking
  • facts and hostory of various Italian specials
  • information about Italy (for tourists, food lovers)
  • information on Italian ingredients used (e.g. how to choose best tomatoes for your pasta)
  • mini-competition on the knowledge of Italy with dinner at restaurant as the prize.
  • possibilities are almost endless

As you might see there should be plenty of content flowing on daily and weekly basis. All this can create “sticky” content that can make people come back to the website and also to the restaurant.

The restaurant and website should cross-promote itself - customers of the restaurant should be directed to the website and vice-versa. The website can offer coupons and discounts for restaurant that could be extra reason to visit it.

So - blog-type experience is great when creating bond - especially when you offer value added content to your blog - not just company information. And not just for restaurant... ;-)