Building better communities through blogs

Employees at certain companies are blogging about work because their employers view it as good marketing. The idea driving this train is that the brand community becomes stronger. I have a few reservations about this concept.

One, for some companies this could work nearly as promised. Users of the company's products will enjoy the interaction afforded by the blog. What about insurance companies? How many policy holders want to read the thoughts and musings of a claims clerk? An insurance agent? An actuary?

Two, most companies will need to establish guidelines and boundaries. Everybody knows Micro$osft is working on a OS code name Longhorn. What about Longhorn's successor? Or an OS that controls your kitchen appliances? Micro$oft probably is working on those items and more; most of these ideas will never see the light of day. Do you want employees writing about them?

Three, not all these people reading and responding to the blogs are customers. Your competitors absolutely should be reading these items. When will Longhorn be released? Officially, Micro$oft says X. But if an employees writes Y, which is 1 year later than X, then would you as a retailer, the marketing manager at Bob's Generic Computer System, or a project manager at Sun want to know this information? How will your company handle such loss of sensitive information. You cannot reprimand or fire an employee for doing exactly what you said to do.

Four, success is always relative. How do you as a manager know the blog worked? How can you tell if your brand community is stronger?

We will talk about this concept more in our section on Integrated Marketing Communication, IMC, later in the semester. Also, look at the link to the Nike blog. Gawker, which runs the Nike site among others, proves a company can make money in blogging.