So, you think you are ready to launch a corporate blog for your company? Based on previously set goals for your blog and the available resources, the most common types of corporate blogs from which you can choose are:
CEO blog
The CEO blog is the blog authored by someone from the company’s top management. The general trend for such blogs is to publish analyses of the main events in a certain filed, forecasts and statistics, this content pattern thus positioning the author as a thought leader.
Often times this type of blog will be strongly related to the company brand, its products and services.
A few famous examples of CEO blogs:
- Jonathan Schwartz (President & CEO, Sun Microsystems)
- Craig Newmark (CEO, Craig’s List)
- Jason Calacanis (CEO, Weblogs)
Entrepreneur blog
Similar to the CEO blog in what the editorial style is concerned, the entrepreneur blog is set apart by a significantly larger volume of information relevant to the author’s field of expertise and by diary-type entries describing the ongoing projects the entrepreneur is focusing on at the time.
A couple of examples of entrepreneur blogs:
- Guy Kawasaki
- Jeff Pulver
- Kevin Rose
Multi-author company blog
Several authors – company employees from different departments – publish content on this type of blog, each of them writing articles that cover their area of expertise. Often times these types of blogs turn into blog communities aggregating content published by individual, single-author blogs.
Example: Google Blog
Department blog
This type of blog is almost exclusively authored by leaders in certain company department and it is focused on the activity and expertise of said department.
Example: Kevin Lynch – Chief Software Architect at Adobe Systems
Employee’s blog
This is the semi-professional blog of one of the company’s employees and it will use the company’s brand and image to promote the author as a guru of his field. The content of such a blog focuses almost entirely on job related topics.
Example: Lori DeFurio – Adobe Systems
Product/Service blog
This type of blog is dedicated to a certain product or service provided by a company, and it’s meant to help promote it, create a community around it and obtain feedback from the customers.
Example: WordPress Blog – Automattic’s corporate blog dedicated entirely to the WordPress blogging platform
Human Resources blogs
Although not a very common type in the corporate blogging world, the HR blog is characterized by its efforts to present a company’s team and the events they attend as casually as possible, thus opening the company up to potential employees who might be attracted by what they are being offered and the light atmosphere in the office.
Example: Astraware Team Blog
Choose wisely and make sure that the blog type you choose matches your goals and the resources you have.
Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide
Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs (current)
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools