As every business and their grandmothers are haphazardly hurling themselves onto the social media websites, the neglected corporate initiatives of yesteryear patiently lurk in the dark annals of the World Wide Web anticipating the time when high ranking execs will again begin to realize the power of the corporate blog. Just about 5 minutes after businesses began to wake up to the idea of adding a blog to their online presence, Facebook and Twitter hit the scenes, and most companies plans of improving their blogs went from being on top of the CEO’s desk to being ‘filed away somewhere.’ The result- a wealth of business websites, which possess attractively developed blogs that utterly lack any semblance of marketing strategy.

As is true with any form of marketing or content production, the best way to determine an effective presentation method is to consider the audience first and foremost. In many niches, the personal flavor, that only a blog can offer, creates a viral effect due to their friendly and likeable content. Admittedly, applying the personal touch is not the only effective method of corporate blogging, but the personal blogging method does have viral potential for connecting with former and future customers.

One of the things that people like about corporate blogs is having the opportunity to learn about the individuals behind the company logo. By showing potential customers a face, telling them about the individuals in the business, and letting them into your companies world, it makes them feel connected, and lets them care about the businesses on a personal level. Since most people prefer to conduct business exclusively with people that they like, it’s a good idea to use the blog to showcase the likeable aspects of a business.

In John Jantsch‘s book, Duct Tape Marketing, Jantsch asserts that the internal workings of a business are very much a part of the external presentation that marketing efforts should strive to communicate. In other words, the branding process is not just about convincing people that a brand is awesome, it’s about truly being awesome and then communicating that awesomeness to the world. If a company boasts high morale inside of the walls of the store or office, it behooves them to market that morale, since potential customers will want to be a part of it too. Adding a personal touch to the business blog can do just that.

Case and point, the popular online shoe store, called Zappos, has a blog which people simply love to read. The Zappos corporate blog has a deceivingly amateurish chic to it. Interspersed between fun and cute posts, which almost forget to mention the products that they are marketing, are posts featuring their employees. The employees don’t seem to possess any superhuman abilities, but they are totally engaging because of the fun passion that they each posses for their beloved online shoe store brand.

By the looks of many poorly developed corporate blogs, it may appear that the corporate blog was a fly-by-night fad. But smart companies are proving otherwise. Because blogging is an underdeveloped art form amongst corporate marketers, and successful blogging initiative often requires a more personal marketing touch than that which most marketers are comfortable with, this potentially dominant marketing beast appears to be in hibernation until the corporate giants wake up and take their cues from Zappos and other progressive minded businesses.

About the author
Susie Brown is a FastUpFront Blog contributor and business author. Fastupfront offers quick business loans for merchants based on business cash flow. For more information about business loan options visit FastUpFront.com

Alex Cristache, the mastermind behind Blogsessive.com and the QBKL Media design studio, has just release a free PDF eboook called “Corporate Blogging Guide”. This comprehensive collection of useful tips and back to the basic explanations of the whole blogging process is meant to help companies assess their need of a blog, draw some goals, come up with a blogging strategy, choose the best available tool and start reaching out to the blogging community.

All you have to do to get this business blogging ebook is to subscribe for free to Blogsessive’s RSS feed and you’ll spot the download link at the end of each article in the feed. If you’re already a Blogsessive RSS subscriber, you only need to click the link, it’s already there

Yours truly played a little but significant part in the process of getting the Corporate Blogging Guide published, meaning I helped Alex translate and did a bit of editing as well. So download it, read it and let Alex and I know what you think Oh, and happy blogging!