Corporate blogs - do they work? You be the judge.
A Toronto Star article by Tamara Cherry on June 14th raises the issue, “can companies hire bloggers to flog products without ruining the blogoshpere?”
She points to betterthanbeer.com as an example of one such blog. Sure, what is blogged about is filtered by Bacardi Canada (its creator) - but does the site deliver the brand experience? This is open to debate.
Hiring a blogger I suppose is one way to do it, and perhaps it can achieve its goal, or if perceived to be a fake, it won’t. Having a blog where those in the organization are the authors, is another approach.
Sometimes, a foray into blogging is for an immediate purpose – which can then take a life of its own. Here’s one example. The Art Gallery of Ontario blog site was introduced as a communication channel during the Catherine the Great exhibition (which closed in January 2006) as a way to make a series of sold out lectures available for free by podcast. This Blog Testimonial on the CMA website tells the story.
