Leading the corporate blog panel was Christi Day/ PR Coordinator from Southwest Airlines and Lionel Manchaca, Chief Blogger at Dell. Once you select the blog tool to use, you need a business plan. Things to consider in defining your corporate blog
Why do I need/want a blog? - conversation is going on in the consumer world with or without your participation….be a participant! Have another communication channel to interact with your customer base
What is the goal of your blog?
Manpower- this is always the one that catches the small business owner by surprise. Are you dedicated to making daily contributions, real time replies to customer questions and complaints, tracking your presence on the blogosphere for hot spot sand damage control? Will you be distributing the blog? Though Dell and Southwest Airlines are both large companies, they do have best practices in place to execute successful blog communities. Southwest has a full time emerging media team of 7 in place strictly for online communication efforts. Likewise Dell has several teams in place to respond to bloggers.
Resources & Time both companies agree that a strong corporate blog has provided an additional communication channel for their company and the value well worth it. But dedication and personnel are instrumental.
Blogs are free? The tool is free. Consider you may need tech, design support, personnel full-time or part-time to make ongoing updates to your blog
Legal Issues- be careful of commenting on competitors, safety issues, claims etc. A lawyer can be helpful in reviewing content before you post
Detractors -negative comments about your business posted on your blog. There will always be that one negative voice out there. Take control and use this as an opportunity to engage that person and provide customer service and resolve problems.
Challenges- Creating content on a schedule. Will you be posting daily, weekly? Adding Video & Podcasting – that is more hands on time to schedule.
These are just a few things I took away from the Webcast .
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