The benefits for businesses of blog communities over individual weblogs
12 January 2005
In her assessment of JotSpot’s decision to create a company blog, Evelyn Rodriguez says:
a lot of the team members have their own personal blogs – which as far as I’m concerned does just as much good if not more good than the officially sanctioned company ones
Whilst I appreciate that Evelyn has been in this game longer than my paltry 21 posts, I’m really not sure I agree.
In a previous post, I outlined the benefits I think blogging communities offer over and above a collection of individual blogs:
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They are easily aggregated into a single point of entry, quickly demonstrating the breadth of depth of collective knowledge within an organisation
- They can be “controlled” by an organisation – you can ensure your community reflects your own policies, not those of an independent blog provider
- The software is cheap and simple to implement, whatever flavour of technology you prefer
- Readers can subscribe to your aggregated RSS feed, as well as each individuals’
- The success of individual blogs will reflect well on the wider community – and your brand
- By consolidating category taxonomy, you can create sub-communities of interest
- All blogs within your community can be branded to reflect your organisation
I would be interested in hearing what counter benefits might outweigh these for any business.
niallcook
5 May 2005
4:40 pm
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There’s a debate rumbling in the blogosphere right now about whether advertising in RSS feeds is a good or bad thing. At the end of the day, users will decide because they can unsubscribe to feeds they think are abusing their loyalty. Dave Winer (50) summarises my advice to businesses very well.
niallcook
15 August 2005
3:14 pm
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I just heard about a blogging community that has been set up by the March of Dimes charity in the US…
niallcook
8 November 2005
12:12 pm
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Back in the early days of this blog, I regularly opined on the benefits of business blogging communities over individual blogs. As it turned out, this was what eventually drove us to launch our own business blogging community rather than have our staff setting up Typepad accounts left, right and centre.