A list of business applications for blogging in the enterprise

We’re getting a great response to our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report. We’ll get up a discussion space on the site soon.

In the meantime I’d thought I’d share a brief excerpt from the book, in chapter 10 on Blogs in the enterprise. You can download four other chapters from the website, including our Social networking in the enterprise chapter.

Selected applications of blogs in the enterprise

INTERNAL BLOGS

Executive communication

Blogs are increasingly used as a tool for CEOs and other senior executives to communicate within the organization. This provides a more informal communication mechanism that is a valuable complement to existing channels.

Project management

A particularly useful application of blogs is for improving communication on projects. The structure of a blog is well suited for project team members to share current activities with RSS updates and ability to discuss issues as they occur. Blogs are commonly used in project management across a wide variety of organizational functions.

Competitive intelligence

Blogs, sometimes combined with wikis, are well suited to tasks such as competitive intelligence, which allow people across the organization to provide updates on information they have gleaned, and to rate updates so that the most important are readily visible.

Expertise sharing

Blogs provide a ready tool for experts in specific domains to share both general insights and latest developments in the field. They also provide greater visibility and access to subject matter experts. Investment bank Morgan Stanley found that after trying many other approaches, blogs provided the best solution to expertise location in the firm.

Internal communication

Updates and announcements on topics as diverse as social events, training programs, and corporate restructuring are well suited to a blog format, where people can access the latest updates and subscribe to be aware of new information.

EXTERNAL BLOGS

Marketing

Many companies are now using externally-facing blogs to create greater visibility and awareness. These can be used in a wide variety of ways, including helping to attract search traffic, providing company news in a compelling format, and to website visitors, and establishing a thought leadership position.

Customer and community engagement

Blogs are particularly useful for developing a positive presence with existing customers or related communities. Writing relevant blogs enables companies to engage in conversations with customers or potential customers about their interests and issues, both building goodwill and generating insights into how best to serve that community, including new product ideas.

Investor and stakeholder relations

There are still restrictions on the use of blogs in disclosing market-sensitive information, however the US Securities Exchange Commission has indicated it is likely to consider blogs as a suitable channel for investor communication. Blogs can be an excellent mechanism to engage investor and stakeholder communities in more general communication, and are used extensively to communicate about environmental and social responsibility issues.