How companies can use blogs - part 1

I’m preparing for my colleagues from marketing departments analysis on how companies could use blogs. I’ll report my findings and ask for feedback as I go forward with it here in my blog.

First distinction is way of usage - ranging from very passive to very active.

On very passive side - companies can use blogs to listen to customers. If you use any of the blog search services out there - good one are Technorati, very promising, quick and complete one is coming from google. It is very good way to hear feedback on products, advertising campaigns and recent events. Lots of trash there but also lots of real valuable feedback.

Going further into active mode - companies can monitor blog and respond/comment on blogs. This is usually very well received by blog owners. However the bigger the company gets the more difficult it’s to find right owner for this. For publicly traded companies things are even more difficult as these companies need to be very careful in what kind of messages they pass and to make sure that various communication channels are treated equally.

Next steps are to allow employees to blog - it requires setting clear policy for blogging. It sets clear boundaries but also opens the door for blogs done by employees under company name. Good summary of similarities and differences of various corporate blogging policies can be found here.

In next days I’ll give overview of corporate usages of bloggings - in which cases it makes companies to start company blogs and marketing usage of blogs. Comments are welcome!