Today sees the formal launch of the ‘O2 ideas room’ (www.o2.ie/ideasroom) which is a blog geared towards businesses, offering expert advice from other specialists ranging from marketing and sales to HR and finance. Most interesting, however, is that O2 Ireland (which is a client) is offering business people a platform to build their own online profile either by commenting on existing blogs or contributing their own blogs.
Jonnie Cahill, Head of Communications & Sponsorship at Telefónica O2 Ireland comments, “With the O2 ideas room we are enabling businesses to connect with each other and to share comments and ideas on how to be successful. It is also an easy way for SMEs to start to try out Social Media marketing tools. We are looking for business blog contributions and many of our contributors are first time bloggers.”
Why should you consider this? Corporate blogging is part of the New Media revolution that can help SMEs boost profile at low cost. A blog or “Web log” is a regular online opinion or educational piece which used correctly can increase your company’s searchability.
A regular blog attracts the interest of search engines. As Debbie Weil points out in ‘The Corporate Blogging Book’, “That’s because a blog is constantly being refreshed with new content. “
She adds, “Blogging is a powerful, low cost way to get found by the search engines. Get found in Internet search results and your voice will count. Be absent online and your company, product or service practically doesn’t exist.”
The primary reason for corporate blogging is best summarised by Internet analyst Rick Bruner, research director of DoubleClick.net, who is credited with coming up with the mnemonic: “BLOG = Better Listings on Google”.
In researching this article the author utilised LinkedIn (another social media tool) to generate views on corporate blogging. Niall Devitt, founder of sales training consultancy Beyond the Boardroom, went so far as to comment, “My blog is my main business development tool. With social media becoming increasingly important I rarely do cold calling any more.”
Ronnie Simpson BBS, FPRII is founder of Simpson Financial & Technology Public Relations which won the 2009 PR Excellence Award for New Media. He was one of the first Irish PR bloggers. (www.simpsonftpr.ie).
This blog is an edited version of an article “Blog Standard” which appeared in August 2009 edition of “The Market” and may be accessed at http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/NR/rdonlyres/74D2561C-A84A-4FD0-9371-27B03E206B4F/0/Blogstandard.pdf