Companies Show How To Blog

Further reaffirmation of why blogging is becoming so important for companies wanting to get their vision out in front of the consumer and not let the message be shaped by external bloggers.

McDonald's blogs on corporate responsibility. General Motors' blogging team posts pictures from photo-sharing site Flickr and videos from YouTube. Product groups within Wells Fargo use blogs to exchange ideas. And Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, one of the first execs to start a blog and really make waves with it, is seeking approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to write about Sun's financial performance on his blog.

Despite the blog's reign as Internet trend of the year, these companies are in the minority. For many businesses, blogs remain a mysterious medium dominated by teenagers and technology geeks. Most execs 'do not read them, they do not understand why people write them,' Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li says. According to a tally by blog vendor Socialtext, just 40 of the country's largest 500 companies have blogs. That will need to change if they want to stay current with customers. "It's a different mind-set that they have to understand," Li says.

Revenge Of The Suits: Companies Show How To Blog - News by InformationWeek