Blogging
lhill
334 Posts
Our GM/CEO sent a copy of some articles regarding blogging. He is wondering if it would be useful to us. Do any of you blog? If so, is it helpful? I tend to think it would be a waste of time. The examples I read were so very boring I think I would have to spend a lot of time sifting through the musings to get any useful information. I am, however, willing to be corrected. Thanks for input.
Linda
Linda
Comments
Ok, seriously, it's another one of those asinine fads started by my degeneration X cohorts. I find it absolutely useless for a business application.
Gene
I would be interested in learning just how your executive thinks this teenaged activity would contribute to the business bottom line.
I resemble those remarks. :oo I have a blog on our family website. I enjoy blogging ... in fact, I think I'll just blog on blogging right now.
I also wonder what business applicability blogging has at this point in time. The May 2 issue of Business Week had a long article, "Blogs will change your business," which I just finished reading. According to the article, these are some of the ways blogs apply to businesses:
- Start a blog to create a buzz about your company and further open lines of communication between you and your customers (or your "public," whomever that may be). GM's vice-chairman Bob Lutz started the new [link:http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/|FastLane Blog] which bypasses PR and mainstream media, a straight-from-the-horse's mouth (where did that phrase come from anyway?) approach. It's been swamped with visitors and comments.
- Read the blogs of your customers to understand them better and know how to market to them and produce products that meet their needs.
- Read blogs of your employees to make sure they aren't sharing sensitive information or trash-talking your company. (I'd be interested to know if blogging has become a tool in unionization and if companies have been forced into blogging to defend themselves in that respect.)
- Read blogs of your competitors to get the scoop on what's going on in your industry.
- Monitor industry blogs to see if your competitors are getting a leg up by advertising in blogs or alongside blogs ... or advertise your own company or products.
- Create blogs as a front to advertise your own services.
- Consultants blog to gain credibility and create a buzz for their services. (This one I would do in a heartbeat if I were a consultant.)
- Companies feed information to bloggers to get their name and products out there. (This is controversial - some pay the bloggers, some don't.)
Another way not mentioned in the article might be an internal blog - probably more helpful in large companies - for example, from the president to employees to keep them informed about what's going on in the company and create a more personable relationship between management and employees.
Personally ... well, I'll reserve my personal opinion for later. This is long enough as is.
But speaking of blogs, maybe we're ahead of the game. Employers Forum is about as close as you can get to a blog without [i]being[/i] a blog. Egad, Don and Gene ... you might just be the trendsetters of the HR blogosphere. x;-)
I wouldn't want all of our ee's "blogging" but I wouldn't say that it's useless either.