Article: What Makes for a Compelling Corporate Blog?

eMarketer estimates that, even with the hype around newer social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, nearly two in five US companies will maintain a public-facing blog this year for marketing purposes. This usage is on the rise as firms will increasingly realize the value of the blogosphere to further a variety of corporate functions, such as communications, lead generation, customer service and brand marketing.

Among Fortune 1,000 companies surveyed by blog printing firm Blog2Print, nearly a quarter had a corporate blog. The marketing department was most often responsible for writing it, followed closely by a social media or blog specialist, and the tone of blog was normally set by the company’s CEO. Asked what made a blog great, respondents cited an engaged community nearly twice as often as any other attribute.

The survey represented engagement in terms of blog posts that receive comments, so the CMOs polled consider blogs more effective when they produce a lively discussion rather than just pushing content out into the world. The next-most-important characteristic was daily posting; about a quarter of respondents thought it was critical to keep the blog constantly fresh.

CMOs specifically cited Netflix and JetBlue Airways as the companies with the best corporate blogs.

Netflix’s blog gets hundreds of comments on each post, demonstrating how engaged readers are. JetBlue receives considerably fewer comments but posts at least once a day, compared to a looser publishing schedule for Netflix. And the airline still demonstrates user engagement when posts are directly relevant to readers, such as a series done in late December about digging out from the snowstorm that hit the East Coast.

Keep your business ahead of the digital curve. Learn more about becoming an eMarketer Total Access client today.

Check out today’s other article, “Rapid Growth Ahead for Mobile Game Ad Spending.”

Get more articles like this one delivered every day.
Click here for the eMarketer Daily newsletter.

View the original article here

Product Branding Vs Corporate Branding

By Debapriya Chakraborty on April 14th, 2010  

What is common between the brands Wildstone, Secret Temptation and Heavens Garden, apart from the fact that they are all brands of deosprays and perfumes? Only few people will know that they are all products of same company – McNROE. But the name of the company is hardly known as much the brands of the company are known to the consumers. This is the difference between corporate branding and product branding.

Product branding is when an organization focuses on branding of the individual products of the organization. McNROE is an example of product branding. On the other hand, some organization goes for branding of the company name and all products are branded under the umbrella of the organization’s name also known as umbrella or family branding. Asian Paints previously concentrated on product branding. Their products like Tractor emulsion, Ace and others did not bear the name Asian Paints but recent brands like Asian Paints Royale, Asian Paints Utsaav – all advertisement was aimed at branding the organization rather than any individual product.

This is an example of corporate branding
Companies adopts either of the two strategies of branding depending upon their marketing orientation and many other factors. However both the strategies have their own strengths and weaknesses. Corporate branding helps to convey the vision, values and intent of the organization, lead to cost effectiveness and uplifts the entire band of brands of the company. The disadvantages of this strategy are that negative impression of any individual product might hamper the entire organization’s image and also special qualities of any particular product might lose its focus to the organization‘s branding strategy.

Product branding however overcomes the latter disadvantage of corporate branding. With product branding, an organization can have gamut of product portfolio having different brand image which might or might not be in resonance with the brand image of the company. For example ITC ‘s product portfolio includes products like cigarettes holding  a particular brand image to food products having different brand image to other product groups exhibiting another kind of brand image.

On the other hand, the disadvantage, as already being stated, is that the organization does not receive the consumer awareness and consumers could not identify with values and brand equity of the company. With the products on the market reaching decline stage, the company has to investment hugely to establish new products or go for brand extensions. For corporate branding, delivering a new product becomes lot more easy due to the brand name of the company as whole.

Completed B tech in Information Technology under West Bengal University of Technology.Currently pursuing Masters in Business Administration(MBA) from Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management(IISWBM),Kolkata with marketing as major specialization and finance as minor specialization. Have penchant for blogging and broadening my learning curve. Like to explore more insight on branding and its nuances.

View the original article here