July 20, 2006

Overall, most organizations say that corporate blogs help increase media attention and provide a broader exposure of their products and services.

Cymfony, a market analytics company and public relations firm Porter Novelli yesterday announced several findings from a recent study. The report helped to identify the best practices in corporate blogging.

Conducted during the spring by Russell Research, the study investigated various activities and overall interest levels across a wide section of corporate blogs.

The Cymfony report helps to better understand the resources, processes, personnel and management that corporations devote to their blog strategy, their monitoring programs and the results benefited from those programs.

Andrew Bernstein, CEO of Cymfony commented, "Early experiences with blogs show promising results and emerging implementation practices to efficiently manage the entire blog process. These blog pioneers show the importance of moving from experimental practices to a real discipline in the corporation."

The survey, which polled persons responsible for maintaining or monitoring blogs within their company, showed several notable findings including:

1) The majority of companies surveyed (76 percent) indicated that they have noticed an increase in media attention and/or website traffic as a result of their blog(s)

2) 75 percent of respondents reported that the initial goals of their blogs have been met

3) Three-fifths of corporations have guidelines in place which outline the company's responsibility for posting and maintaining their blogs, yet nearly two-thirds do not review content prior to posting

4) 42 percent of respondents said that specific blog posts have affected the company or a brand and in the vast majority of cases it has had a positive affect

5) Despite what companies consider general success of their blogs, 71 percent responded that they are not satisfied with the interaction level on their company blog

6) The top goals for monitoring competitor blogs were to gain awareness of developing trends, competitive insight, and tracking the "buzz" within their respective corporate community

On Tuesday, July 25th at 12:00 p.m. EDT, Cymfony and Porter Novelli will host a free webinar entitled "Corporate Blog Learnings -- The Discovery Age."

Jim Nail, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Cymfony, and Barry Reicherter, Director of Persuasive Technology, Porter Novelli, will present and explore the findings of the recent survey, and discuss ways companies can implement some of these learnings in their blog strategy.

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how companies are leveraging blogs, why they need to tune-in to consumer generated media, what tools are available to monitor blogs, as well as the resources required to drive better interaction and garner long-term value from blogs.

"Looking at the survey data and Porter Novelli's own experiences in helping clients develop blog strategy, it is clear that there is still a lot of uncertainty for corporates on how to successfully leverage the blogosphere," commented Barry Reicherter.

"Although survey respondents reported that the initial goals of their blogs have been met, findings also suggest that corporates could benefit from initiatives to ensure that blog efforts are aligned with established business objectives and practices, which is one area we will address in the webinar."

Interested participants can register for the webinar at https://cymfony.webex.com/cymfony/onstage/g.php?d=754520333&t=a.

Source: Yahoo Finance