By building a blog, you are giving your corporation a voice to express opinions and thoughts related to your branding. Without a blog, you would have to do this on a website, which would not be as effective.
Blogs are personable, need to be updated more often, and convey any kind of image you are looking for. By blogging you are giving a voice and personality to your business, which will build you credibility and make consumers like you, increase loyalty and build brand awareness. Also by building a blog you can create a link back to your website and get more traffic to your products. By having a blog you can announce new products, include testimonials, review products, announce contests, have an ezine, and so much more.
Before you build a blog you should plan what you want your blog to say, and what the brand is that you are trying to convey with your customers. Remember to keep it consistent to what your company image is. So keep in mind who your target audience is and what they are interested in reading about.
Make sure you do your market research, look at similar corporate blogs to see what works and what doesn’t. A great way to get material for your blog posts, is from other blogs. (How do you think I got this post idea?)
Define key people who are responsible for updating and maintaining the blog. It is important to keep the image and personality consistent. If one day you are friendly and the next day you are cold, and impersonable, you will confuse your readers and you might lose them. Keep a few people, and verse them on how you want the tone and image of the blog to be. If you want it to be light and breezy, keep it that way.
If you want it to be more real and with hard facts, don’t suddenly be flaky. Your readers loyalty depends on getting what they need out of your blog. Make sure your blog is updated as least once a week. Unlike a website, a blog needs to be updated regularly for people to enjoy. Look at other corporate blogs to see how often they update.
Make it a goal to write two posts, minimum per week. Make sure your posts are solid and informative, but also reflect your brand image. Remember to proof your work, as this is represents your company. Also, keep the comments open so that readers can comment on your posts. I think feedback is important and can help you immensely.
What might not seem obvious to you, could be obvious to one of your readers. Comments is a great way to engage the reader and make them feel like their opinions and views are valued.
Either way I think a blog is a great way to go, it can help drive traffic to your site, convey a personal side to the corporation, and keep everyone in the now. There are many free software and programs for you to try a blog out if you are unsure. Myself I like blogger.
Either way, good luck.
Tressa
http://www.google.com
