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
