More Curious Than Worried

Business Communication (pt 3): Two Examples of Corporate Blogs

This is part 3 of 3 in a series of blog posts talking about corporate use of blogs. It’s a way for me to get extra credit for my Business Communication course and add what is hopefully valuable content to the Internet.

This third and final part of my assignment asks me to research and identify two companies that are effectively using blogs to communicate with their employees or with their customers.

While looking through different blogs, the one constant I noticed in all good blogs is enthusiasm. The two blogs I’ve decided to highlight show great enthusiasm for their company.

Randy’s Journal, Boeing – http://boeingblogs.com/randy/

Randy’s Journal is a blog written by Randy Tinseth, Vice President of Marketing for Boeing. He posts a blog about twice a week, but he only posts about subjects that are relevant to Boeing’s newest planes. The site has a very simple layout with the a column to the right of the posts with a calendar to show when the latest blogs were posted, a search field and a welcome section with a link to a page that tells you about Randy. I cannot understate the importance of telling your readers about the author! People read blogs, not only because of the content, but also because of the people who write them. There is also sections with site navigation links, links to Boeing sites, links to aviation interests and a section to make subscribing to the blog easy.

Randy’s audience consists of prospective clients, current clients, others in the airline industry, as well as aviation enthusiasts. His conversational style appeals to the aviation enthusiasts, but is not too casual to worry clients and others in the industry. He doesn’t just talk about what is new and exciting at Boeing. He mentions his travels and makes the reader feel like they are traveling with him to the different Boeing marketing events. There are also pictures and/or video in every post. The pictures and video aren’t just the professional marketing images, they are also candid pictures of the author at the events. This makes the blog more personal, which makes it more interesting. Very few people would want to read his this blog if it was just a copy of Boeing’s press releases. His enthusiasm and writing style make this blog worth reading.

Comcast Voices, Comcast – http://blog.comcast.com/

Comcast Voices is a blog that allows Comcast employees to announce and talk about Comcast products and services as well as news that affects Comcast and their customers. The timing of the posts vary because it is authored by many different Comcast employees. The site has a simple navigation bar at the top with links to the blog’s home page, archives, about page, media gallery and help. The column to the right of the posts has a lot of information and is, understandably, a little cluttered. The color scheme of the site helps keep most of the reader’s focus on the actual blog postings though. At the top of the column is a link for customer and reader feedback. Below that is a link to Comcast’s customer support page and links to subscribe to the site. Following that is sections for featured media, and lists of authors, categories, key words, previous posts and other sites the reader may be interested in.There is also a gadget that shows the latest tweets by Comcast’s Twitter account which you can follow at http://twitter.com/ComcastCares.

One of the things I like best about this blog is that at the beginning of every post it shows the name of the author with a link to their page, the author’s title in the company and the topic that is being covered in the post. The author pages are written by the authors and have a short professional history as well as personal information and a picture. This is great because it makes it feel more personal! As a Comcast employee, this blog would be a great way to highlight products, issues and news that affects your department, your company and especially your customers. It’s also a great way to show your knowledge and enthusiasm for your job, which is never a bad thing for a supervisor to see. As a customer, this blog shows that Comcast is run by people and not just by policies. It’s also a great way to talk with Comcast employees about general issues. The blog does a good job at making sure customers know where to go if they have a specific problem with their account.

I found both of these blogs from a list on the Fortune 500 Blog Wiki on Socialtext.net. This wiki is a great resource listing blogs by Fortune 500 companies as well as reviews about those blogs.