Home›Blog› Social Media
Is your corporate blog branded? More importantly, should it be?
Posted by Hilary Weber on November 03, 2008 at 02:25 PM PDT
I had an interesting conversation recently during a Blog Council roundtable discussion with some other "big brand" bloggers and whether or not their blogs were "branded". It became apparent that people interpret the term "branded" differently. In teasing this out further, we talked about the difference between brand messaging and brand strategy -- even brand "spirit" came up. We had a general consensus that brand messaging generally isn't appropriate for a corporate blog, because readers will be turned off if it's just another vehicle for one-way "marketingspeak", as I like to call it. If that's what your corporate blog content is based on you may be in for a backfire situation. On the other hand, companies like Intel, for example, who have been blogging for several years and have many different people blogging about various products and topics, avoid using any brand messaging as blog content, but the blogs do have an "underpinning" of brand spirit and strategy, with the result that the people who blog for the organization have the freedom to express themselves as individuals who are passionate and knowledgeable, lending authenticity and believability to their blog posts. The result is ongoing, high quality, two-way interactions that ultimately give strong support to the Intel brand. Some "best practices" food for thought if you're considering your initial foray into corporate blogging; also, http://blogcouncil.org/ is a growing resource for corporate social media professionals (the focus is much broader than just blogs -- don't let the name fool you), so check it out.
Hilary Weber
Director, Internet Marketing Services
Kaiser Permanente
Return to the top.
Forgot your password?
RELEVANT POSTS