Professional Documents
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To
Enhancing Communication
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Author: Judy Beddoni
Date: 25TH March 2008
Executive Summary
How our company will introduce blog technology to enhance communications between our
staff and clients by creating a blog for our business.
A business blog will drive our business to a new beginning a change is needed for our
company to continue to grow with the changes in technology.
Staying abreast of interactive marketing changes and competitive campaigns can be daunting
for our company but having a business blog is a simple and highly effective way to enhance
communicates with our current and potential clients.
This is especially true today due to the media and advertising consumption changes that have
occurred with the advent of the internet and other new media technologies, like podcasts,
videos, instant messaging these changes are impossible to ignore every person that uses the
internet are doing more and more with interactive technologies.
A business blog also give our company and those who work for it, a place to collect and
share ideas and relevant information with our current and potential customers
I recommend that we implement the strategies outlined at section 5 “Strategy for introducing
the blog technology” and start to enhance communications between our staff and clients with
our business blog as soon as possible.
Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t
Executive Summary.................................................................................................................2
1.0 Introduction.......................................................................................................................5
2.0 Proposal..............................................................................................................................6
2.1 Purpose .............................................................................................................................. ........6
3.0 What is a Blog?.................................................................................................................7
4.0 Evidence That Blogs Can Enhance Communications....................................................8
4.1 Elements of a Blog................................................................................................ ....................8
4.2 Examples of businesses using blogs to communicate ...................................... .......................9
4.2.1 Play Station Blog ................................................................................................................. ..9
4.2.2 Dell Computers................................................................................................. ..................10
5.0 Strategies for Introducing Blog Technology..................................................................12
5.1 Strategic Overview.......................................................................................... ........................12
5.2 Strategic Objectives....................................................................................................... ..........13
5.2.1 Implementing Blog Technology............................................................... ...........................13
5.2.2 What types of Content................................................................................................. .........13
6.0 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................16
7.0 Recommendations...........................................................................................................17
8.0 References.......................................................................................................................18
9.0 Appendixes .......................................................................................................................19
9.1 Play Station Blog Image.......................................................................................... ................19
9.2 Dell Blog: Image............................................................................................. .........................20
9.3 Blog link to video studio website: Image......................................................................... .......21
9.4 Blog link to Ideastorm website: Image............................................................................. ......21
9.5 Blog link to forum website: Image.............................................................. ...........................22
L i s t o f F i g u re s
I n t ro d u c t i o n
1.0 Introduction
Assumptions made when our company was established may no longer hold true with web 2
technology available on the internet.
We need to analyze changes in this new technology and explore the opportunities for our
company’s communications enhancement and revitalization between our staff and clients by
commencing a business blog.
A business blog can encompass everything from our client’s perception and experience to
quality, look and feel, customer care, retail and the tone and voice of communications, and
more.
The more interactivity the higher its success and visitation rates will be leaving our clients
satisfied with the enhanced communication methods implemented on our blog.
Report
2.0 Proposal
2.1Purpose
A business blog will drive our business to a new beginning a change is needed for our
company to continue to grow with the changes in web 2 technology.
Creating a business blog for our company shows that we care about the way we communicate
and view our business and we will stand out with a blog that's smart, professional and
unforgettable.
• What a blog is and how effective it is as a communications tool for our businesses
to enhance communication between our staff and clients.
• Evidence that a business blog can enhance communications with two examples of
successful business blogs.
Blog
The term blog [1] is a shortened form of weblog or web log it could also be considered as a
special type of website where entries appear in chronological order, hence often giving the
appearance of a journal type format it combines text, images and links to other blogs, web
pages, and other media related to its topic.
As an effective communications tool [2] for our businesses the main elements of a blog that
we should be aware of are:
Multiple Authors
• Not only can one person add content but we can allow access to any number of
staff members so that we have several authors contributing to a topic or a series
of topics.
Automatically organised
• Categories’ and ‘archives’ are integral parts of a blog and each post will
automatically be placed correctly according to the selection we make. This allows
our clients to select their preferred topic of information.
Permalinks
• Every post and every category has its own individual address, forever! This means
that our staff can refer to them in articles, emails, newsletters etc safe in the
knowledge that they will always be found by our clients.
We b s i t e l i n k s
There is no better evidence than how competitors are using the above blog elements to
enhance there communication with their clients, the following two blog sites are examples of
businesses using blogs.
Since its development the play station blog seems to have everything required to
communicate with their gaming clients from:
• Subscriptions via RSS feeds or email
• Capabilities to Search the blog
• Different section categories: Developer Corner, Find Us, Hardware, Industry
Outlook, PlayStation Network, Statements, Title Spotlight with regular updated
postings.
• What’s Hot
• Contests to enter
• Reader’s comments
• Downloads
• Playstation conversations
• Quick polls
• Archives
• Contact us
• Recent announcements
For some great ideas view the Playstation blog site image: appendixes 9.1
Dell's direct2dell blog was a year old as of July 2007[5], and they've learned a lot about
their customers and the blog's keeper, Lionel Menchaca, has acknowledged the challenges of
maintaining a corporate blog here is an outline what they have learned last year:
• It's not a good idea to ignore tough issues that come up from customers
• It takes time to build your blog and it helps to have "a thick skin"
• Lionel notes that when they kicked off the blog, they saw 50% of the comments
they received were negative, and now a year later they've seen that number
decrease to fewer than 25% negative.
Over the past two years, [6} they have built some listening posts that open up lines of
communication between Dell and their customers. They get feedback from customers via
monitoring conversations in the blogosphere, on Direct2Dell, the Dell Community Forum or
IdeaStorm. Internal staff collaboration is vital to their long-term success. Without it, they
would not be able to keep up with the volume of feedback they receive through social media
every day.
For some great ideas View the Dell blog site image: appendixes 9.2
Dell’s blog have menu links to sections of their website which communicates vital
information to its clients with out having to go searching.
For some great ideas View the Dell website links site images: appendixes 9.3, 9.4, 9.5
I n t ro d u c i n g B l o g Te c h n o l o g y S t r a t e g y
5.0 S t r a t e g i e s f o r I n t r o d u c i n g B l o g Te c h n o l o g y
“ J A B I T ” needs to enhance communications between our staff and clients the aim is to
introduce a blog that will enable staff to communicate more effectively with our clients.
First of all we need to encourage our clients to engage with us and our blog [6]:
• R e a d : We need to create subject matter which will encourage our clients to visit
our blog and then read what we have writing about.
• R e t u r n : once they have visited for the first time, we have the opportunity to
give our readers something they’ll wish to read more of, hence encouraging then
to return to our blog.
• R e p l y : We are looking to encourage dialogue and communication so we must
find subjects and a style which encourages them to express an opinion about it
and reply to the post.
• R e f e r : provide our readers with enough compelling, relevant and interesting
content and they’ll want to recommend it to everyone.
• R S S : encourage them to sign up and receive what we are writing as and when it
appears using RSS either directly or via email.
By using a blog our staff will be able to keep our clients aware, informed and up to date with
all aspects of our business:
5.2.1 I m p l e m e n t i n g B l o g Te c h n o l o g y
Getting Ready
Informative Information
Podcasts
Figure 6: Ipod
Vi d e o - O n - D e m a n d
Figure 7: Video
Communications
Figure 9: Login
Conclusion
6.0 Conclusion
• A Business Blog is a flexible and yet a powerful communications tool for any
businesses and offer a surprisingly large range of options and benefits it makes sense
for our business to commence a blog.
• In fact, once we have all the questions answered about blogs and understand what
they can offer, the focus of the questions tend to change from “Why have a blog?” to
“What sort of a blog will be best for us?”.
Recommendations
7.0 Recommendations
• This is especially true today due to the media and advertising consumption changes
that have occurred with the advent of the internet and other new media technologies,
like podcasts, videos, instant messaging these changes are impossible to ignore every
person that uses the internet are doing more and more with interactive technologies.
• A business blog also give our company and those who work for it, a place to collect
and share ideas and relevant information with our current and potential customers
R e f e re n c e s
8.0 References
Website:
1. Wikipaedis What is a blog(2008): Accessed 19th March 2008 Web site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Journal Article:
2. Better Business blogging (2006): Accessed 19th March 2008 Web site:
http://www.betterbusinessblogging.com
Journal Article:
3. Ozymandias blog archives - Official Playstation Blog Arrives (2007 June) : Accessed 24tht March 2008
Web site:http://ozymandias.com/archive/2007/06/13/Official-Playstation-Blog-Arrives_2100_.aspx
Website:
4. Play Station Blog site (2008) : Accessed 24tht March 2008 Web site:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/
Journal Article:
5. Lionel Menchaca (2007 July) : Accessed 21st March 2008 Web site:
http://blogs.msdn.com/mthree/archive/2007/07/14/direct2dell-blog-071407.aspx
Website:
6. Dell Blog site (2008) : Accessed 21st March 2008 Web site:
http://direct2dell.com/one2one/default.aspx
Journal Article:
7. Mark White-Blog Consultant Key Blogging Questions(2007 March): Accessed 15th March 2008
Web site: http://www.betterbusinessblogging.com/category/glossary-of-blogging/
Journal Article:
8. Interactive Media content Podcasts (2007): Accessed 15th March 2008 Web site:
http://www.houckassociates.com/wd-dat-p.asp
Journal Article:
9. Interactive Media content VOD (2007): Accessed 15th March 2008 Web site:
http://www.media.com/wd-dat-p.asp
Appendixes
9.0 Appendixes