GM’s Fastlane Blog

GM’s blog is call Fastlane, where there is one moderator that controls the blog. In the article titled A Study on Content and Management Style of Corporate Blogs the author explains that the employee’s send what they want to post to the moderator, who then edits it before it is posted. This is called a centralized style, the moderator decides if the post follows the companies policy of blogging and if so it is then posted with the authors name. This style also helps keep a constant theme for the blog and makes the company unified. GM’s blog has discussions with car buyers, the blog is an efficient way to to build relationships with their stakeholders by eliminating the use of  traditional media. In Corporate Blogging Strategies of the Fortune 500 Companies it explained how GM has also started a smaller promotional blog more for a specialized group. This has not been as successful because there is low readership. Along with the fact there wasn’t a human voice and seen more as advertising. That is why the traditional blog with conversation has more feedback because the company is not trying to force their product on their consumers. So the success with GM is because they follow the criteria for a good blog by having a conversations with their constituents. I think that GM has a good start by having a blog where they value their consumers and discuss updates with them. However, I wonder what customer would think if they all knew that posts were being monitored. 
GM Fastlane Blog

GM’s Stratagies:
One moderator to keep the blog unified.
Having conversations with their stakeholders
Not making the blog more of an advertisement

Macromedia’s Blog

For those who do not know what Macromedia is, they are a graphic and web development software house. They are responsible for Flash, and are now controlled by Adobe systems.

In an Emerald article it explains that Micromedia’s blogs are good examples of how a corporation uses a blog successfully. They were one of the first companies to start a corporate blog. They have knowledgeable bloggers who are encouraged, to post product information to help customers, and to personalize their blogs to me more “humanized.”

In the Wiley InterScience journal there is a study of 4 of Macromedia’s blogs. The blogs that were product specific and focused on Macromedia technology, quickly racked up comments. Customers like to give opinions, and Macromedia understands this because they post questions on how to better their Flash programs, and other ways to improve. On posts, found in the study, comments ranged from 107 to 430. This meant that the customers spent the time to read posts and leave comments because they felt valued by the company because bloggers were genuinely asking for ideas.
The researcher in the study mentioned that Macromedia had four types of interaction: socialization, information sharing, help seeking, and teaching and learning. All this interaction help the corporate blog. Bloggers along with being a helping hand to customers, would ask for opinions and feedback. Macromedia actually listened and implemented some of the ideas. Macromedia’s blogs are publicly open and actively updated.

Effective Strategies:

• Macromedia had focused posts that were easy for users to follow, which increased participation
• Macromedia acted on the information that was given to them, they would have weekly meetings where they would discuss comments on the blogs, and implement some.
  
• They trusted their followers opinions and built solid relationships
• They had multiple employee bloggers

About this Blog

This blog talks about corporate blogs and bloggers. I have picked corporations that have blogs, most are fortune 500 companies.  There are case studies on corporation’s blogs, and I have analyzed how each blog runs, and who writes the posts. At the end of each post I have strategies the company has used with their blog. Readers will gain knowledge of what possibilities to follow when creating their own company blog, and what to avoid.