Corporate blog – the audience

Before engaging in developing a corporate blog, one should pay attention to the audience. Will the focus be on “existent customers” , on “prospective clients” or on partners? There are also corporate blogs that focus on prospective employees. Such blogs present the working environment in the company, some of the employees and their achievements. For example, see the Adobe blog in Romania , it’s a nice one: transparent, friendly, well segmented, people oriented, funny. Among the blog categories I mention: the team members, the company events, some general articles about nowadays technology, the Adobe projects in Romania.

Overall, a blog can address to all types of audience. Let’s summarize the main ones:

• current customers
• prospective customers
• partners, sales channels
• prospective employees
• press

But why should your audience go to the blog and not your website? Because it helps them communicate with you, it’s more user friendly. If you have a voice, you don’t appear to be a nameless and faceless corporate entity.

For example, a customer would be interested to deal with people rather than with a cold press release. So, the blog helps  customers feel like they are buying from a real person. The information they find on the blog is usually fresh and not filled with advertising. It gives them the power to control what they read and what they comment. Some may choose to spread the word, as well.

Partners can also get an informal voice on your blog and find useful information about your audience.

The press might be more attracted to get behind the scene rather than checking your website for press releases.

Blogs get syndicated and people do social bookmarking with them. A corporate blog can be an instrument of viral marketing, the wave of the future.

How can the audience find about your blog? I’ll think about this next time I write on blogs.