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the business valueof blogging
LEWIS Global Public RelationsMarch 2007
 
The business value of blogging Table of Contents LEWIS PR, 20072
Table of Contents
Table of Contents.........................................................................................................................................2
 
Key findings & insights...............................................................................................................................3
 
Blogs: nice-to-have or need-to-have?......................................................................................................4
 
Introduction...................................................................................................................................................5
 
To blog or not to blog?...............................................................................................................................5
 
Blogs – what are they really?....................................................................................................................6
 
Types of corporate blogs...........................................................................................................................7
 
The Four-Step Guide to Blogging..............................................................................................................9
 
Step one: identify possible benefits..........................................................................................................9
 
Step two: determine requirements..........................................................................................................13
 
Step three: evaluate alternatives.............................................................................................................16
 
Step four: adjust for non-influenceable success factors........................................................................18
 
Corporate blogging worldwide................................................................................................................20
 
Survey background..................................................................................................................................20
 
Asia Pacific...............................................................................................................................................21
 
Australia................................................................................................................................................21
 
China.....................................................................................................................................................21
 
Singapore.............................................................................................................................................22
 
Europe.......................................................................................................................................................23
 
France...................................................................................................................................................23
 
Germany...............................................................................................................................................23
 
Italy........................................................................................................................................................24
 
The Netherlands...................................................................................................................................25
 
Spain.....................................................................................................................................................26
 
Sweden.................................................................................................................................................27
 
UK.........................................................................................................................................................28
 
USA...........................................................................................................................................................29
 
About LEWIS...............................................................................................................................................30
 
About the author...................................................................................................................................30
 
Methodology.........................................................................................................................................30
 
Disclaimer.............................................................................................................................................30
 
 
The business value of blogging Key findings & insights LEWIS PR, 20073
Key findings & insights
Corporate blogging worldwide
A qualitative questionnaire among 10international blogging experts and aquantitative survey of 300 companies from10 countries yielded the following results:
Less than 5% of companiesworldwide currently have a corporateblog;
Only the US is seeing some uptakeof corporate blogging across multipleindustries;
In other countries, corporateblogging largely remains restricted tomarketing, communication and newmedia agencies;
Key barriers for corporate blogging inAsia-Pacific include a great relianceon traditional media outlets, abusiness culture that values face-to-face communication and governmentmedia regulations highly;
Key barriers for corporate blogging inEurope include uncertainty aboutbenefits and best practices, as wellas a traditional caution whenadopting new technologies;
Remarkably enough, every countryexcept the US seems to think it’slagging behind the rest of the worldin regards to corporate blogging;
Which means that in reality, nobodyis lagging behind: corporate bloggingis just not happening yet.The survey has focused on ‘true’ corporateblogs: blogs that are permanent, outward-facing and opinion-driven.
Deciding on a corporate blog
In the ‘Four-Step Guide to Blogging’, LEWIShelps companies decide whether or not tostart blogging. It offers a set of helpful toolsand insights, key among which are:
Corporations who want to startblogging should either do it well, or not at all. Half-hearted attempts are awaste of money;
Corporate blogging requires asignificant investment of time, skilland knowledge. Time and skill canbe sourced externally, knowledgecannot. Ergo, involvement from keycompany personnel is alwaysneeded – for at least 5 hours per week;
Hiring a third party to write the blog isnot necessarily cheaper, as qualitycontent has a price tag;
The primary power of a corporateblog is its ability to engage in one-to-many conversations, affecting amultitude of company stakeholdersat the same time;
On individual business objectives,such as increasing morale or networking, blogs score worse thantraditional methods on a value-for-cost basis;
Corporate blogs affect marketing,sales, CRM, HRM and PR.Therefore, it stands to reason thatthese departments work on, and payfor, the blog together.

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kenonaleft a comment

Really i like this group to benefit me

SA singhleft a comment

hi! frnds my self MBA 2nd sem student, i wanna helf about my research topic consumer behaviour towards fast food retailing. thanks.

biblioleptleft a comment

It's good to analyze this more dispassionately and soberly, rather than simply accepting benefits or drawbacks in the form of unproven assumptions.