-For Businesses-

Blogging is an ever expanding online communication tool. Technorati, the world’s leading blog tracking site, indicates that over 36 million individual blog sites exist as of April 2006. This number has consistently doubled every 5.5 months in the past. We think it’s still increasing.

So what does this mean for your business? It applies in a number of different capacities. There is both internal as well as external blogging.

Internal Blogging

Internal blogging can be used for better collaboration in lieu of e-mail. This way team members can have a place online to post and review new information and/or files. Management can also consider the progress being made and direct efforts more effectively. The blog site becomes a content management system. For particularly complicated projects, especially those involving teams from multiple cities or divisions, blogging and wikis allow people to communicate more easily to get things done.

Also, from a worker satisfaction perspective, when employees are allowed to blog they generally feel as if they are participating in a more open and accommodating organization. Blogging is about being open with people and sharing opinions. When people are allowed to express themselves, not only can management get a feel for company morale, but can avail themselves to potentially useful policy suggestions.

External Blogging

As was noted above, the blogosphere is growing. While most of these blogs are merely personal, they note a trend towards the acceptance of blogging as a standard medium. Blogs can be used for product reviews, and for commentary which may concern your company. When a company blogs, it shows that the company is listening, and it shows the human face behind the product. Blogging is good PR. It allows people to bypass the traditional walls of impersonal support lines and press releases to get the company message across. Additionally, and very importantly, it allows companies to respond to negative feedback from across the web.

Our philosophy on responding to other peoples’ blogs is “centralize and control.” In other words, you can use the Blogtronix engine to track well read blogs and post them on your site in a special section. This way you can immediately respond to what is being said, while simultaneously being viewed by the public as a company that is open and upfront about itself and confident in its products.

Google Ranking

One major benefit of blogging is Google indexing. Since Google bases its indexing on hits and new content, whenever someone posts a new comment or updates a blog in any way, Google immediately re-indexes it. So, since blogs are so dynamic, when you blog you’re guaranteed to increase your Google ranking. If you’re a large company, chances are people are blogging about you. So why would you want someone else’s blog about you to come up before yours in a Google search?

Blogging is something that will not be going away anytime soon. Your company can use it to open up communications gateways, and improve your image. It’s an important medium which has great potential.

-Education-

Schools are all about learning and sharing of ideas. Imagine a situation in which every student could have his or her own blog. Blog application can provide a portal where classes and even entire schools could communicate and collaborate online.

Not only can blogging be used for specific academic purposes, but can also be used with our social networking tools to create school based communities. Administrators and parents could chat with each other about policy, students could discuss upcoming projects, and event coordination could take place. Student run clubs and organizations would be able to have their own blog pages and groups. This would not only allow students to feel empowered and create a sense of school unity, but will encourage the use of technology and free expression in younger kids.

-Government-

Some people may perceive their governmental representatives as being relatively unreachable. People express themselves on the blogosphere about their political views quite often these days, and may not feel that polling and widely spaced elections give them as much of a voice.

Blogging allows them to directly communicate with their constituents and discuss policy. People are already talking amongst themselves, with blogging, you can have a method to explain what is happening and why. This can help assuage public discontent in controversial issues. Demonstrating that you’re willing to listen and respond can be a useful in relating more closely with your support base.

In addition to this, large monolithic government agencies have to deal with public works, laws, and development. Blogtronix can help you more easily manage these projects, and communicate with workers assigned to them from the administrative to the street level. Our service can help bypass much of the red tape which is associated with large projects, and can process the flow of information much more efficiently.

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