A Look into Three Corporate Blogs....

Today I spent a few hours educating myself on weblogs and their varying purposes. Check out this website belonging to SCOUT, the blog marketing service of Backbone Media Inc.at http://www.scoutblogging.com/index.html. It had a plethora of useful information and resources on blogging. I selected three different corporate blogs to analyze using some of my new-found blogging knowledge.

Dell’sCorporate Blog at http://direct2dell.com/one2one/default.aspx

Even at first glance, I was struck with how organized and well-designed Dell’s corporate blog is. They appear to adhere to all the basic rules of successful corporate blogging by presenting the necessary background information at your fingertips. Tags are presented on the right side of the screen making navigation to topics of interest very easy. Additionally, the right column also contains a link to contact information, a blogroll, and an option to subscribe to the Dell blog. The link to leave comments is readily visible, and it did appear that many customers made regular use of the service based on the number of comments to the various postings.

Dell states the purpose of the blog as “One-2-One Communication with Dell.” This blog exists to communicate ideas, product problems, new products and other initiatives to the customer. Based on their blog, it is apparent that Dell prides itself on dealing directly with the customer and not with a middleman vendor as most other product suppliers do.

The Dell blog made use of vlogging or video blogging on occasion as well. Several of their posts contained videos from employees in Dell’s product group. In my opinion, the use of vlogs in Dell’s blog adds some interest and a personal face to the company. The verbal posts written by different Dell employees, predominantly in the Digital Media Group, were generally fairly short and seemed relevant to the stated purpose of the blog.

Overall, the Dell blog appears to be a successful tool for this company to communicate and interact with the customer. The company definitely comes across as one that cares about the input of the customer by using this blog, among other things, to solicit opinions about website design, products etc., as well as to offer explanations and apologies for delayed shipments of products.

Southwest Airlines Corporate Blog at http://www.blogsouthwest.com/

I liked this blog right away. It has a clean and interesting design with the crisp white background with the bag of peanuts falling across it and the witty catch phrase, “Nuts about Southwest” emblazoned across the top. Southwest Airlines’ blog leaves nothing to guesswork. They have a detailed User Guide which states the precise purpose for the blog. The stated goal of this corporate blog is to give readers “the opportunity to take a look inside Southwest Airlines" and to interact with them (http://www.blogsouthwest.com/guide/). While no definite “reader” is described, it is clear that this blog is intended not only for existing customers of Southwest Airlines and their internal readers/other employees, but also for the world at large. A link is also provided to book a flight on Southwest Airlines if the reader is presumably so persuaded from reading the blog.

The blog posts are written by a diverse cross-section of Southwest Airlines’ employees who are, supposedly, anxious to hear from their readers. Comments are, therefore, encouraged. However, I did notice a disclaimer in the user guide that indicated that the blog was not to be used for personal customer service issues with the airline, but only for subjects of broader or more general interest.

I found this blog very interesting to read because the posts did not seem to adhere to any one main topic or to a prescribed length. The bloggers seem to be given much leeway on the approach that they wish to take in their post. There were posts ranging from addressing the current hot topic pertaining to the airline, i.e. the Southwest Airlines Customer who was asked to cover up her outfit (http://www.blogsouthwest.com/2007/09/), to a flight attendant talking about a tour he took of Chicago (http://www.blogsouthwest.com/2007/06/19/my-kind-of-town-chicago-is/). There are numerous images and a few videos thrown in to keep thing interesting and visually stimulating.

Overall, I took away from the Southwest Airlines blog that their purpose in interacting with the reader was to present their corporation as one that was fun, energetic, efficient, and made up of great employees. They also use the blog to inject a dose of passion for travel into the reader by describing cities visited, posting pictures etc. so that the reader is ultimately persuaded to go to their website and purchase a ticket.

Zillow.com’s Corporate Blog at http://www.zillowblog.com/

I ran into this corporate blog via a Google search for “best corporate blogs.” I was drawn to it simply because it was a completely different type of company that either of the others I just discussed. In fact, I had never even heard of Zillow.com until I did this blog analysis. Zillow.com is an online real estate service that specializes in providing tools and information to the buyer with “the goal of helping people make smarter real estate decisions” (http://www.zillow.com/corp/About.htm). It is a completely free service to the consumer and the company makes money simply by selling advertising on their much-visited site.

I found their blog quite interesting. The entries varied in length and had no shortage of visual elements in the form of images and maps. The right column of the blog had a blogroll as well as links to connect to the corporate website of the company and to learn more about its services. Comments seemed to be generally encouraged as the links to leave comments were readily visible in each post. However, I did not notice a contact e-mail for personal correspondence.

Zillow.com’s blog appears to be written to any homeowner, homebuyer, or anyone interested or curious about real estate, home values and related information. The blog entries are written by a range of employees from PR Interns all the way to the upper level executives. The precise purpose of the blog was not stated, but I got the impression that it was being used as a tool to gain exposure for the company and to present themselves as a knowledgeable and useful real estate resource to the interested homeowner or homebuyer. The blog seemed to focus quite heavily on presenting sort of a “girl next door” type of image of the company. Many of the postings had the personal musings of the blogger on a particular home or town and what made that home or town endearing to them.

Overall, the corporate image of this blog was one that was striving to be both personal and professional at the same time. It was an interesting read, but I cannot say that I was persuaded by the blog to look further into this company or to make use of its products or services.

In conclusion, I found my study of corporate blogs quite enlightening. Just like in technical writing, I think blogs can end up being either user-centered or writer-centered, or usually a combination of the two (desirable in the case of blogging). The very user or customer-centered blog entries seemed to focus more on the needs of the customer and on soliciting their input to improve a product or process. The writer or corporation-centered posts tended to highlight the company and their virtues and innovations. Overall, for a corporate blog to be successful, good blogging seems to be only half the story. The "other half," as Southwest Airlines' blog calls it, is good and frequent interaction from the reader. Only when the two are achieved is a corporate blog successful as an interactive medium that sets it apart from an static corporate website.