Freelance writing for business blogs 5
November 1st 2010 10:54
Blogging is amongst the fastest-growing areas of the interactive digital world, and the business world is embracing this powerful promotional tool quickly. New corporate blogs are appearing every day, and as a result Craig's List and other web hangouts for freelance writers are teeming with opportunities.
To win business blogging contracts, however, writers must be able to show that they understand the corporate blogging environment. You must show a potential client not only what you can write for them, but why and how that will benefit them.
In this, our fifth post on the world of corporate blogging, we look at the selling the idea of a powerful employee engagement tool: internal blogs.
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Inside story: the radically changing face of internal communications
"Internal communication is a means to an end, not an end in itself and part of its rationale is to help turn strategy into action by engaging, informing and directing employees." So says Bill Quirke, a former director of Burson-Marstellar and now managing director of Synopsis, a leading voice in the field of internal communication and the management of change.
The value of engaging employees in the aims of a company, and in the strategies chosen to achieve those aims, has long been known. The tools have developed over time, from bulletins pinned on notice boards through newsletters to emails to interactive web-based information pages.
And then came the internal blog, which is "radically changing the face of communications within enterprises", according to an academic paper prepared jointly by IBM and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The paper was presented to the second annual International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, held in Boulder, Colorado, in March 2007.
The "radical" change offered by internal blogs is that they allow communication between management and workforce to flow both ways.
"While at the minimum blogs empower employees to publicly voice opinion and share expertise, collectively they improve collaboration and enable internal business intelligence," the paper said.
Blogs offer a "more open medium of communication, enabling authors (bloggers) to reach out beyond their social networks, make new connections, and form communities. Collectively, this makes the community of bloggers highly influential.
"Tapping into this new channel to listen to and interact with their customers requires new initiatives from corporations. Businesses, both large and small, now recognise the power of blogs for engaging with customers, developing trust around their products and services, and improving media visibility. Most corporations are now blogging publicly.
"However, this covers only one side of the story. A second key aspect of blogs for business is their use within the organisation.
"Internal corporate (enterprise or business) blogs encompass all non-public blogs hosted within the organisation on their intranets. Employees use such blogs during the course of their daily responsibilities, to share expertise on products and services, to voice opinions, and to initiate discussions on issues of interest to other employees.
"Blogs protect the ownership of employee ideas. Overall, blogs are viewed as a collaboration tool enhancing productivity, and as an enabler for business and competitive intelligence. They are also considered as a tool for workforce journalism, an activity that can influence an organisation’s external presentation through public facing blogs or other communication channels."
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