Should companies integrate corporate blogs into their communication strategies?

Résumé du document

This article focuses on analysing the phenomenon of the corporate blogs which have recently come up in France; it intends to understand the role(s) they play within the global communication strategy. The balance between expected benefices and potential risks is random as this tool, diverted from its original use, obeys to informal rules which are not yet clearly established. Moreover, this article defines the characteristics of those blogs in order to measure their pertinence and cogency for the companies. However, concrete illustrations demonstrate that an in-depth knowledge of the blogs does not always guarantee its success. It is then essential to wonder whether companies should create and develop a corporate blog or not?

Extraits

[...] The benefits of the corporate blogs From a technical point of view, corporate blogs are easy to set up as they do not require HTML expertise (Robyn ABER, 2004), contrary to a website project. Moreover, companies can save time by integrating content extracted from other blogs into theirs (Marc-Olivier PEYER, 2006). If we respectively compare corporate blogs to PR and e-mails, this tools provides more authentic information, which considerably improve the brand image of the company and readers feel more involved. [...]

[...] Too many useless plugins could slow down a corporate blog. Some blogging softwares are not able to manage more than one blog; it is then compulsory to set up each blog individually if the company aims to have several blogs on one server linked to blogspot.com), a company could loose all the links referring to its posts when it decides to use Some tools require a high degree of HTML expertise to modify a template. Hosted Corporate blogs only have access to the statistic system of the blogging platform; then cannot customize it according to heir needs. [...]

[...] What will be the publication rhythm? Which intellectual property to apply? The survey “Corporate blogging: is it worth the (BACKBONEMEDIA, 2004) reveals that the two main companies' preoccupations before setting up their own blog are: costs in terms of man hours” and risk to spread confidential information” Which return on investment? One of the main difficulties copes with the track and the measurement of the ROI (Yaw SCOTT, 2006): this perilous exercise is often subjective. Our survey strengthens this point: 48% of the people interviewed do believe it is impossible do measure it. [...]

[...] From a technical point of view, the use of “trackbacks” is essential: they inform the “blogger” that a blog refers to his. Regarding, the navigation into the corporate blogs, the implementation of is high recommended as they hep the readers to find the information they seek more easily (BACKBONEMEDIA, 2004). To maintain solid relationships with the readers, while establishing a community spirit based upon ideas and interest. Thus, the corporate blog will gain in credibility and will save time in harmonising the contents. [...]

[...] We partly answered to our main problematic by analyzing the different types of blogs and the roles they play within a global communication strategy. Another question seems primordial: which companies would take advantage of coporate blogging? Would traditional or conservative companies embrace the informal rules of corporate blogging? (Robyn ABER, 2004). It seems delicate to precisely answer to this question as the notions of “traditional” and “conservative” are very large do we refer to the products, the interlocutors or the markets? (Jacques DIGOUT, 2006). [...]