Understanding Your Image

Learn how corporations are using blogging and blogger’s to further their industry reputation.

Blogging, who has the time to sit and type all that stuff – nobody reads it anyways.  Wow, if this is your thinking, then answer me these questions?

• Have you researched a product or service in the past year?
• Were you like me and instantly turned to the Internet for a product review?
• Did you find the review in a blog?

If you have answered, yes to each question, then think about it. A blog with reviews gives insight to the product/service and reader commentary provides an in depth user experience. Most of these “review blog sites” are by people who have an interest in this field and are willing to give biases review both pros and cons.  Bloggers search other internet blogs, buy the product or use the service, work in the industry, or have connection to the industry and in reader’s opinions perceived as an expert. Many blogs have a couple followers to thousands of readers that quote their blog as a reliable source.

So where do these so-called blogging experts get their data?  Many times they look through technical manuals, researches the company, or dig through news releases. Some will contact the company directly and ask questions of sales people and technical staff.

Businesses that blog, create a communication channel, allowing blogger’s to review and digest the ongoings of the company and to freely distribute these finding to their readers. Corporations like Virgin, Go Daddy, Oracle, Marriott, Boeing, Monster, Kodak, Delta, Yahoo!, General Motors , Ask, LinkedIn, Digg, Dell, Yahoo! Search, Facebook, Flickr, Adobe, and Google are just some of the corporations providing information to blogger’s, who in turn, reprocesses this information and share it to Internet readers. President Obama, while running for president, used twitter in his early campaigning and motivated bloggers to write about his activities.

No longer do blogger’s have to rely on second hand data. They can go to the source itself, grab a quote from the CEO, and place it into their blog posting. This allows accurate information to spread quickly from blog to blog and in some cases, mainstream news media outlets.

Now, I am not suggesting that you need to be like the movie Miracle on 34th Street, where Mr. Macy’s gets the idea to provide comparative pricing and send his customers to his competitor or become a movie critic and review every product or service in your industry.  What businesses need to do is take advantage of their staff and create a corporate blog.  Allow department experts to answer common questions and provide advice for the best solution to problems. Give blogger’s a reason to connect with the company and create a communication channel that allows a blogger to get the information they need to pass on to their readers.

Become smarter in your corporation PR practice and seek out blogger’s in your industry, include them in press releases, and encourage them to attend corporate sponsored functions. Allow them to spread the word of your blog, your success, your CEO vision with the world. Blogging is a social tool that if used right, can enhance your corporate image while getting valuable information to consumer.