I spoke with an experienced marketing vice president this week who had launched a corporate blog for his enterprise software firm. The rest of his site was corporate and perhaps a little dry, but the blog leapt out to tell readers the lights were on and there were people working away inside. I congratulated him on the endeavor – it’s not the best blog (needed comments and trackbacks enabled, an RSS feed) but it was a start and quite unexpected.
“Thanks, but I’m thinking of tearing it down,†he said, having only launched it at the end of May. “I just don’t have time to post something every day, and besides we’re a small firm, so frankly there’s just not that much to say.â€
The point I made to him is that a corporate blog doesn’t need constant maintenance and daily posts. Just regular updates as and when the company has something new to announce or when there’s a specific topic it has a fresh opinion about. He felt that to be valid the blog had to be a destination news site which visitors would return to regularly. Instead, all it really needs to do is provide an additional channel of communication. If you haven’t got anything to say – don’t open your mouth.
Corporate blogs don’t need to be A-list sites. Even if your company’s target audience is small and you know many of them personally, it can simply be a focal point for discussion and communication. It shows the company is active, thinking, able to respond, has passion, perspective and personality. Sure there are benefits in terms of crisis communication, customer interaction and search engine optimization, but launching a corporate blog needn’t become a burden. It’s simply a communications channel – how you choose to use it and how regularly is up to you.