Dos and don'ts of successful corporate blogging

Corporate blogging is not a question of budget but more about whether your company is open and transparent enough to engage with customers.

Carine Senft, interactive director Asia for Ruder Finn Public Relations, says the key question for companies starting a blog is: "Are you transparent?"

Shanghai-based Senft has just helped Volkswagen China to roll out a corporate blog on Sina about its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects focused on green topics. She points out that China has a strong blogging culture with almost 50 million bloggers.

According to an iResearch China report in 2007, consumers ranked BBS first followed by internet word of mouth as the top factors to influence their purchase decisions.

Senft says the main challenge for clients is they get a bit lost on how to enter the blogosphere.

A bad practice prevalent in China is for companies to pay students to post fake comments online.

She says marketers should respect the online community and not enter the discussion with lies, fake comments or intrusive promotional offerings. If this persists in the long term, it will kill social influence marketing.

A corporate blog is about creating a relationship with the brand and customers and having the customers directly involved in the company's strategies.

Senft says, "A blog is a human story to tell. Do not push marketing or promotional messages, tell a story and drive conversation".

Clients are usually concerned when it comes to negative comments about the company.

"(There's) no fear to have but only opportunities to seek, explain, apologise and hear," she says.

She adds that when you receive feedback on your corporate blog, you have to listen to your customers and integrate their feedback to your business otherwise they will find out that your corporate blog is nothing more than just a "social strategy to look trendy".

Senft also helps her clients with Blogger Relationship Engagement.

She never send bloggers press releases and doesn't believe in social media releases either.

"We don't pitch the bloggers, we believe in providing them an experience to live and share with readers."

In November last year her agency organised the first Chinese blogger trip outside of China to British Columbia in Canada aimed at creating awareness of British Columbia as a travel destination for Chinese white collars.

The bloggers returned to write three to four stories each and resulted in half a million people reading their blogs.

Companies used to be in the drivers seat in communications but with Web 2.0 and the financial crisis, Senft reckons the world will become more balanced.

The coming years are going to be interesting as the world becomes, "The age of customer thought leadership".

Carine Senft, interactive director Asia for Ruder Finn Public Relations shares the key tips to a successful corporate blog: