Corporate Blogging Today – Usage and Characteristics

Abstract

In the much-observed field of weblogs, corporate blogs are of particular relevance and interest. This study 1 empirically examines the corporate blog phenomenon by reviewing the blog status of 250 companies from the consumer goods industry. Their blogs -if any -were tested with the help of different variables, such as the location of the company, the blog's updating frequency or its interactivity. This allowed for testing certain hypotheses, in particular concerning the existence of corporate blogs in certain companies, industries and regions, or whether a blog's traffic rank depends upon these variables. This survey suggests that a blog's traffic rank is significantly influenced by the frequency of blog postings and its interactivity features. These factors seem to greatly depend upon the sales volume of a company. However, the data sample at hand suggests that there is not yet a widespread usage of corporate weblogs.

Effects of design characteristics on corporate blog acceptance

“…In this context, prior research shows that more personal and credible corporate blogs are more successful (Yang and Lim, 2009). Typical uses of corporate blogs can be found in various areas of corporate communication including customer relations (marketing), investor relations, and media relation (Brecht et al, 2010), resulting in a need to understand the varying effects of corporate blog characteristics on target groups' perceptions and attitudes. While the number of companies using such corporate blogs for communication with stakeholders has continuously increased over the past years (Brecht et al, 2010;Lee et al, 2008), currently only 87, i.e.…”