Taurus Marketing Blog

Of all the social tools used in the digital age, blogs have arguably become the major tool for the young (and old!) wanting to share their thoughts, desires and interests in the digital world. On the other hand research suggests that less than five percent of large and mid-sized companies worldwide currently have a corporate blog. So there is great debate on the merit of blogging in the corporate world. From my research I have come up with six possible advantages of blogs for businesses.

1. Builds and strengthens relationships The strongest argument put forward in favour of a company blog is its ability to foster and promote relationships between current clients and your organisation as well as the ability for potential clients to engage on a more personal level with your organisation - which in today’s age - is a significant factor for companies in choosing the businesses they work with.

2. Improves internal relations Teamwork and communication within your office environment has become a major goal for companies of all sizes. Having an internal blog roster allows everyone in your organisation from the upper levels to junior staff to get involved in ‘having a say’ within the organisation. Doing this will help both individual morale as well as the overall team culture of your business.

3. Shows experience and innovation Utilising a company blog provides an arena to show both your current and potential clients that your company is in tune with the changes and movements in your particular market. A cutting edge article that is well written will show your business is right on the ball, a market champion!

4. Feedback enables your business to provide better product and/or services

Due to the nature of blogs allowing for readers to provide feedback, a company can use this feedback to their advantage by providing a personal response and if necessary act on the response. Showing your willingness to take on the thoughts and feelings of all involved with your organisation both internally and externally has the potential to further strengthen the relationship between you and your clients.

5. Help strengthen your SEO

How your organisations website ranks amongst others should be of vital importance to your business. Blogs are a valuable resource for your company’s SEO for three major reasons.

1) The search engines place an emphasis on fresh content, and a blog is an easy way of adding fresh content, compared to modifying a homepage

2) The search engines place an emphasis on the size of a website, and if you use the correct blog client, each post adds a page to your website. This is much easier than writing fresh pages for the main site

3) It is an easy way to add keyword rich content to your site.

6. Easy set up and maintenance

Company blogs are inexpensive to set up. There are a range of vendors providing outlets for you to facilitate blog setup which can be done at relatively no cost. Maintenance is just as easy, requiring just an internet connection so you can access and add to your organisations blog anywhere in the world. A suggestion to monitor its maintenance is to develop an office roster of contributions so that your blog keeps on ticking over and does not remain stagnant.

Can blogs really work in the corporate world or are they just limited to the social sphere?

Alex Yiannikas

The American Presidential election is rapidly approaching and it is clear the heat is turning up on the election campaigns of Obama and McCain. It is interesting to see how times have changed; we no longer need to get the print newspaper from the nearest newsagent, I can view real time information on smh.com.au!

I am fascinated how traditional political campaigns have transformed as a result of Web 2.0. Candidates market their ability to be future President of the United States using viral marketing, EDM (electronic direct marketing) and social networks to name a few. Yesterday, I was perusing my Facebook page and noticed one of my English friends had “become a fan” of Democrat, Barack Obama on Facebook! The Obama Facebook fan page is evidently a new vehicle to drive the political campaign on a global scale.

This left me wondering though, how can Obama’s campaign committee accurately measure the effectiveness of their social marketing strategy when sites like Facebook are a global means of communication, rather than a US only market segment? And then a light bulb went off in my head and I came to realise this really isn’t all that relevant to the bigger picture. The fan page is an excellent strategy to raise profile and build the “Obama” brand amongst Gen Y’s like myself.  Profile is all about illusion, demand and in some cases, exclusivity… I guess time will tell when the ballot papers have all been counted and the final measurement resides with the outcome.

 Megean Leece

Account Executive