Six Types of Corporate Blogs

As discussed in the previous entry on Corporate Blogging, there are 2 major categories of corporate blogs namely Internal Blogs and External Blogs.

Fredrik Wackå in his www.corporateblogging.info has wrote the following 6 types of corporate blogs. Sales, Relationship and Branding blogs are part of the External Blogs and Knowledge, Collaboration and Cultural blogs are forming the Internal Blogs.

He further explained the purpose, blogger and the target groups for each of the blog types.

Six Types of Corporate Blogs

Corporate (or Business, Organisational) blogs can be classified into six different categories. Each category shares common characteristics and the blog content can be expected to differ between the categories.

Furthermore, there are differences in terms of target groups and purposes. Even if we also see hybrid forms where blogs are examples of more than one category, an organisation that professionally incorporates blogging into its communications strategy will likely prioritize one purpose (for each blog).

Sales blogs - external
Purpose: To market or sell products/services, make citizens aware of public services, get donations for charities or political parties etc.
Blogger: The organisation itself, or more specifically individuals within it writing on behalf of the organisation.
Target groups: (Potential) clients/customers and citizens, that is persons and/or other organisations that are directly involved with the publishing organisation, or those it wants to reach with the purpose above.

Relationship blogs - external
Purpose: To create, uphold or strengthen relationships.
Blogger: The organisation itself, or more specifically individuals within it writing on behalf of the organisation.
Target groups: Often smaller and more specified than with sales blogs. Examples are support blogs aimed at customers of a certain product, finance blogs for IR purposes, PR blogs for media, blogs trying to reach students, future employees, politicians/officials etc.

Branding blogs - external
Purpose: To strengthen the brand, the profile, of the publishing organisation or individuals within it.
Blogger: Not necessarily the organisation itself. Individual employees’ or executives’ blogging ("insider blogs"), if supported by the organisation, can be viewed as a branding blog. The same goes for adverblogs and blogs that are not apparently connected to the organisation.
Target groups: See Relationship and Sales blogs.

Knowledge blogs - internal
Purpose: To give employees information and insights relating to their work assignments; news, business intelligence, reports about ongoing projects etc.
Blogger: The organisation itself through one or more designated bloggers, or potentially all employees through a entirely open blog publishing model.
Target groups: All employees with a certain interest.

Collaboration blogs - internal
Purpose: To provide a working team with a tool for research, collaboration and discussion.
Blogger: The team.
Target group: The team.
(There’s only a fine line - if any - between this blog category and business wiki’s. You could also see for example Relationship Blogs change into more wiki-like publications.)

Culture blogs - internal
Purpose: To strengthen organisational culture. Typically through informal content of social or non-work related character.
Blogger: The organisation itself through one or more designated bloggers, or potentially all employees through a entirely open blog publishing model.
Target groups: All employees as employees, and not as professionals (developers, managers, assistants and so on).

(As part of the copyright requirement by Fredrik, no amendment has been made to the original content.)