Asia Pacific Corporate Blogging Masterclass 2008

Image via Wikipedia Much to my delights, as what we have predicted in 2006, corporate blogging will take momentum.

The question is always, why not ? But momentum really takes time to gather, now it is starting to roll ? Wow dude, I am excited about this.

LiewCF, KennySia and others will be even more famous.

And rumors claimed that Malaysia's ex ruling political coalition (Barisan Nasional) lost edges to blogs... And they have taken the cyberspace more seriously. Such phenomenon even caught the ex-PM Tun Dr. Mahathir to start his own blog and became the most successful blog (in terms of traffic) within the shortest period of time. Politics, controversies, rumors, gossips simply sell like hotcakes. And Malaysian just love it; to compensate boring lifestyles.

I just received a marketing promotions about Asia Pacific Corporate Blogging Masterclass, I must admit that after years of receiving uninvited emails, this is the first of its kind. Bravo !

Well of course, having said that, bloggers are not specifically gifted people per se. Yes, most bloggers can write good english, some have great ideas to share and to entertaint, while some have great web engineering skills. In my opinion, successful bloggers are usually those who persevere and are able to maintain a blog with the slightest efforts.

In retrospect, not everybody have the license to blog freely. If you are working for a big corporate, high chances that you are not allowed to blog about your job and risk exposing corporate secrets. If you are a CEO of a big IT companies, it is just not too good to blog about topics such as "MLM is a great business". Why ? because that would contradict your CEO image. So, it is kind of complex to mingle blogs with corporates.

Blogging requires a lot of effort per se, particularly a blogger must have the ability to repaint a message into a new dimension by sacrificing time for cigarettes, relaxation and etc. We must always stick to a virtue of not running toooo far away from what we stood for (i.e The IT-Sideways), while at the same time, adapt to the constant interruptions of new trends that massively sweep us daily in the media front, especially the websphere. It is exciting, challenging and always rewarding.

The promotion suggested the following benefits of corporate blogging:

1. Build rapport with customers.
   
2. Free feedback and suggestions from key constituents.
   
3. Increased website traffic from higher search engine rankings.
   
4. Position your business as a thought leader.
   
5. Lead generation.

I agree with all these, but most people still don't really care about it because they would prefer to buy something to earn something rather than dwell into something which is free (blogging).

Blogging is unbelievably lost-cost and its effects can be tremendously fantastic.

In my opinion, all marketing executives must be represented with a blog if not supported by corporate blogs. The logic is very simple, if you are passionate about what you are marketing, why can't you write something about it every few days or at least once per week ? Afterall, this is the most fundamental aspect of your job, to create life out of your products, to associate with emotions and human touch.

Finally, according to the promotion, the following people should do corporate blogging.

• CEOs
  
• Heads / Managers of Corporate Communications
  
• Public Relations Managers and Executives
  
• Marketing Managers and Executives
  
• Online Managers
  
• Marketing Managers
  
• Marketing Communications Managers
  
• Branding and Advertising Managers
  
• Web Marketing Managers
  
• External Relations Managers
  
• Business Development Managers
  
• IT Managers

So, now these people have the license to blog if we can create a culture for that. In a way, I endorse it because if we start to merge our professional life with personal engagement, it is a clear path to a better success.

Check out the promotion here.

By the way, if we do it right, it can be bigger than The Dark Knight ?