Organizations using blogs.

‘A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.’ Source

There are many different blogs differing not only in the content but also in the way they are written and the way the message is delivered. Blogs used by organizations are known as Corporate Blogs.After searching the Internet, I have found that more than 12% of the Fortune 500 companies blog externally. Market research done in the first half of 2006 indicated that 34% of large companies had established weblogs. Another 35% planned to do so by the end of 2008, thus bringing the total to nearly 70%. However there are many advantages and dis-advantages of organizations using blogs.

Advantages -:

• Leaders can communicate directly with customers, suppliers and investors, as well as employees, helping disseminate and explain strategies. Blogs create a friendly ambience for company members where detailed description about almost anything can be shared.

• People are far more likely to give great feedback if they know someone specific is listening. The power of these feedback loops can generate big benefits for the organization.

• They boost your search engine rankings if you add fresh content on a regular basis. Google and other search engines rewards sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links.

Dis-Advantages -:

• There are plenty of areas of business where people are judged on their knowledge, and the competitive edge - and thus the safety of everyone's jobs - is the thickness of a single good idea. Sharing it all on a weblog, with competitors or (worse) an office rival is not really wise.

• Blogs make many organizations look like disorganizations, with multiple tones and opinions. Contrary to what some might think, the average customer prefers it if the organization they are about to purchase from is at least somewhat coherent.

• Even if senior managers trust staff not to give away the company's commercial secrets - and many don't - there are still enough worries about libel and (for publicly listed companies) stock market disclosure rules to have the legal department waking in sweats for months to come.

To view and example of an active organizational blog click here