Scott Rafer, the CEO of Feedster, makes an excellent point about corporate blogs. When a corporate blog is established, customers are the most likely people to find it, and you can share almost anything you want with them, provided you correctly set their expectations and keep your commitment. Once you do that you can expect them to share their wants and needs with you. Read the whole article for plenty of common-sense tips about starting a corporate blog.

Link: iMedia Connection: Customer Relationships are Fundamental.

The most common misconception among corporate communications and marketing groups is that their blogs need to be fascinating, or interesting, or controversial. The only things required are that they be timely, give the reader some mechanism for feedback and that they meet the expectations set by their authors. If your local car dealer wants to start a blog that lists this week’s specials, that is completely appropriate as long as he sets expectations, meets them and responds when he hears feedback from his readers. That latter circumstance is the most important. In each of our businesses, our customers and potential customers want things from us that they are not yet getting. If we give them a public, timely forum based on internet standards (as opposed to proprietary message boards common over the last ten years), they will tell us exactly what we can do to sell to them more effectively.