We are considering starting a corporate blog; how would we quantify the benefits and the costs?
Answers
Good question. Here are couple of benefits of corporate blogging that are pretty generic since I don't know your industry:
1. Blog content is great for drawing traffic to your corporate site from search engine spiders.
2. Enhances your corporate brand by showing you're a thought leader within your industry.
3. Assists in engaging your customers and building stronger relationships.
4. A direct channel for your customers to provide feedback and for your company to solicit feedback.
5. Gives your company competitive advantage because blogging requires your company to monitor what your online corporate brand says about your company via the blogosphere.
Depending on your industry, the costs of creating a blog might offset costs in other areas. For example, a firm might increase their costs to keep a corporate blog up and running but might reduce costs from their inbound call center because customers are accessing the corporate blog before calling your customer service number.
Hope that helps!!
Great comments above.....I will like to add my two cents -
Once you commit to the corporate blog, you need to ensure that you keep it updated on a regular basis. I have come across many blogs that are not updated on a regular basis.
For the comments that are posted on the blogs, I will suggest that someone in the team should be assigned the responsibility to review all the comments so timely corrective action can be taken. Also this process will also eliminate any spam that is posted on your blog.