Corporate blogs

Another tool of e-PR and e-marketing, supporting company’s image manage-ment is corporate blogging. The word blog refers to an online journal and is one of the most popular Internet-related terms. The dictionary of media terminology defines it as „a kind of personal website, on which the author places notes of his current ex-periences, reflections and different, interesting – in his view – information.”¹² It is esti-mated that today there are about 10 million blogs around the world and this number is doubling every six months.¹³ Basically, blogs are one of the easiest ways for the indi-vidual to exist, self-present and communicate own opinions on the Internet. Jan Zajac writes in his report „Motivations, behaviors and views of the authors and readers of blogs”

that online journals are of great importance in realizing psychological and social needs such as confiding, describing feelings and significant events as well as sharing them with others. An important part of blogging is also making and maintaining contacts or gaining popularity of readers, and additionally receiving feedback through comments.

Currently, thanks to mediatisation of social life, blogs have become effective tools used in public relations and marketing. Blogging is a form of building and creating a corporate image online which will appeal to its readers¹⁴.

11 P. Okonek, E-PR czyli jak skutecznie prowadzić PR w Sieci, (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo PARP, 2009), pp. 5-10.

12 W. Pisarek, Słownik terminologii medialnej, (Kraków: Uniwersitas, 2006), pp. 18-19.

13 A. Turska-Kawa, Blogi jako forma dyskursu politycznego, in Mediatyzacja kampanii politycznych edited by M. Kolczyński, M. Mazur, S. Michalczyk, , (Katowice: Wyd. Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2009), p. 252.

14 Raport: Motywacje, zachowania i poglądy autorów i czytelników blogów.

Loic Le Meur is one of the most famous bloggers in France who prepared Nikolas Sarkozy’s online election campaign. A few years ago he published a list of reasons why one should benefit from support in the form of a blog as a communicator which is creating an image. The main reason is the opportunity to get closer to potential clients and creating a bridge in order to facilitate communication with recipients, discussing with them important and current issues. By using a blog it is also possible to present ideas or projects before their realisation, and thanks to the corresponding feedback one can get to know public opinion. The substantial number of quoting the blog can position its address in search engines.

According to the words of Dominik Kaznowski, taken from his essay „New Mar-keting”, „it is the employees that are now creating an image of the company. Blogs led by experts in their fields telling of the work for the company are becoming a common phenomenon. This creates new challenges for those responsible not only for commu-nication but also for information policy, investment, protection of information and, fi-nally, legal departments in companies. Nowadays, companies more often have to opt for the selection of specific solutions protecting their interests, and at the same time go on against the new reality”.¹⁵

From a technical point of view setting up and maintaining a corporate or pro-duct blog is not at all complicated. Much more problematic can be conpro-ducting it profe-ssionally. Not all types of firms, however, can benefit from running blogs. In managing the image, presenting competence and building expert position, corporate blog can help institutions operating on the basis of intellectual capital, Thus, there will be consult-ing-related industries, planners and designers, architects and other companies which benefit from selling its know - how. Moreover, even companies that have customers with strong emotional associations with the brand of product or service, such as: gour-mets and travelers. The basic element is to have a loyal group of customers associ-ated with the particular brand who will enhance their knowledge about the products and services interesting to them.

Corporate blogs will also help in managing the image of companies offering products that require specialized knowledge (breeding of exotic animals, philately, pho-tography). The company that is a manufacturer, distributor or seller may provide inter-esting information about the industry and the products just through a blog. Running a blog connected with a field arousing social emotions such as politics, ecology, art or charity work is a good solution image-wise. This gives the opportunity to present company’s views and their reach to a wider group of recipients. The corporate blog can also be a supporting element of the image management of technological companies and the ones offering services or products for business. If we run a service business, it is

15 D. Kaznowski, Nowy marketing, (Warszawa: Wyd. VFP Communications, 2008), p.161.

much more likely that potential customers will try to find information about our services, exactly on the Internet - and there thanks to the blog they will be able to find us more easily. The above list does not exhaust the possibilities offered by this type of network ac-tivity. Its task is rather to show different ways and uses of blogs, than to give clear-cut an-swers as to who should create them. However, before the company decides to conduct such a site, it is worth asking yourself a few questions that may facilitate the decision and work on the blog in the future¹⁶.

Dr. Cornfield, a consultant of Pew Internet & American Life Project, conducted a research concerning the influence which had political blogs on the society during the last two months of the American presidential campaign in 2004. It shows that a po-litical blogger can initiate a discourse in which hundreds of people get involved creating in this way a kind of “buzz” calling citizens to be active online which will contribute to generate sound that will become the voice of social democracy. This is further evidence to support the thesis that the blogosphere for some time can become the fifth power, as it already has a huge impact on the political mood¹⁷.

Businesses with corporate blogs have almost unlimited possibilities to express their own opinions. This form of communication may refer to the current, important events, and above all, to establish closer relationships with customers. Blog entries be-come the starting point for discussion and give feedback, whereby the company can verify their actions. However, the blog will never replace the traditional website, although it may be the perfect addition. So, blogs are the place of self-promotion, creating an in-teresting, close to customers image and, above all, a perfect means of communication and dissemination of opinion. So the question: ”what is the purpose of corporate blog?”

has many answers. Among others, information about products, consumers engage-ment in discussions about the brand, customer service improveengage-ment, enhanceengage-ment of the company image in the eyes of the environment and better positioning of website in search engines.

Another issue within the management of corporate image on the Web is the online activity of employees on social networking sites, blogs or discussion forums.

Portals such as LinkedIn or Goldenline may not only build business contacts, but also lead discussions on professional topics, and create thematic groups. On one hand, the use of social networks can expand business contacts, but on the other happens at the expense of working time. Not without significance is the fact that these sites are used to search for new employees by recruitment agencies or competition. And this is one of the reasons why more and more employers restrict the use of such sites during work hours. In 2007, this issue was raised by one of the largest trade unions in the UK. Trades Union Congress

16 Ibid., p.162.

17 P. Kołodziejczyk, Blog jako instrument komunikowania politycznego… p. 259.

has defended the right of employees to use social networks such as Facebook.

Sharing your own job profiles in LinkedIn or Goldenline certainly helps the potential competitors to find attractive candidates. Many sites of this type offer its us-ers the opportunity to take up job offus-ers, thus while creating a strategy for managing the corporate image on the Internet it should be taken into account that employees by posting information about their position and career details reveal data of the struc-ture and strategy of the particular company. In some cases, such information may play an important role for the organization. Additionally, the increasing problem in terms of corporate image and information management is when a friend from social networking website is a person who works for a competitive company. Professional social networks bridge the gap between business people and the sites of a private nature.

Another important phenomenon associated with the activities of companies are blogs run by employees. Problems appear, however, in cases where the employee moves to work topics while using a private blog. Among other things, it is worth to maintain a constant monitoring of online media, including blogs. Failure to do so may lead to a situation where an anonymous blog about the company will be read by everyone ex-cept the management. In fact, such situations are very rare. Much more often, people initiate conducting a blog about their work. This is quite a popular form, especially in large corporations. Frequently these type of blogs are created by white-collar workers.

The primary function of this blog is to facilitate the contact between employees and people outside the company, customers, partners or business partners. In the era of in-teractive marketing, the management through control of information becomes mean-ingless. Today’s consumers of goods and services are aware that firms have a very per-suasive policy of promotion and self-presentation, and thus lose confidence in such transfers. Therefore, a major challenge for public relations, especially regarding the Inter-net, is to rebuild confidence by building lasting relationships with customers, objectivity and openness in dealing with partners in the communication process¹⁸.

3. Microblogs

Presently, the phenomenon of social networking sites are also microblogs.

This new way of communication involves writing a short (about 140 characters) informa-tion. The authors of microblogs, like in case of any other social networks, create a group of people with whom they share their thoughts, write about what they do, ask others for advice or recommend an interesting web pages, and each message is sent to the cock-pit - in other words to a personalised website which means to millions of users at the same time. Information published in this way are attractive because they are not long,

18 D. Kaznowski, Nowy marketing, (Warszawa: Wyd. VFP Communications, 2008), p.162.

and more importantly, they fit on the screen of the mobile phone. In this way, microblogs combine the features of instant messaging, news, forums and blogs, and even by some are considered to be an example of new journalism, part of Web 2.0 trend that is a con-cept of Internet community.

American microblog Twitter gained popularity in Poland during the elections to European parliament in 2009. At the beginning it was used by the politicians from PiS party. Soon, however, this method of communication was taken up by politicians from other parties, recognizing the potential of this messenger. Currently in Poland microb-logs are just starting. We have so far Blip, Pinger and Flaker, but prognosis is that at some time soon they will become as popular as Facebook. Blip is the largest of Polish microb-logs, founded in 2007 by a group of Gadu-Gadu (Polish instant messaging service) which outrun American leader in terms of numbers of members. It is worth mentioning that Blip accounts were set up for instance by Polish Social Security Service, the Polish Post Office, and the Prime Minister. This large potential of microblogs has also been noticed by private entrepreneurs¹⁹.

Blip or Twitter is also a good place to chat with interesting people and gain new knowledge. But mostly it is a great information channel, where one can find out about many things much earlier than from traditional media. Microblogs can help in running businesses (...) and are great in maintaining relationships with friends. Their hidden mea-ning is in “watching people” after all²⁰. ”Politicians, trying to keep up with the voters and the requirements of the new political cybergame, more often publish their posts on the microblogs as they benefit much from it. Their micromessages are often picked up by the media. Currently, microblogs are used only by representatives of selected indus-tries such as advertising, IT or marketing²¹. With microblogs entrepreneurs can create or improve their public profile. The results of a study by Megapanel PBI/Gemius shows that currently about 1.2 million Poles are using microblogs. Mostly men use this form of communication (53.6%) whereas women blog almost twice as long. Microblogging ser-vices are most popular among those aged 15-24²². Entrepreneurs quickly recognized its potential and are trying to best fit in this trend of communication.