The recently held US Presidential Elections have effectively proved that blogs can be one of the most effective ways of getting your message across. And, it is not only politicians, activists and hobbyists who are using to spread their messages but companies like Sun, Microsoft, Audi, eBay, Google and Monster are using blogs as marketing tools.
“Blogging gives your customers a real view into your company in ways that newsletters and seminars simply aren’t able to do.” says Jeremy Wright, who writes the popular Ensight business and technical blog, which is read by more than 60,000 readers a month, and is up for auction on the internet auction site eBay as a professional blogger for.
Mr. Wright confesses on his own blog that what he is doing is nothing more than a stunt to raise the profile of blogging. Plus, being a writer as well as a consultant in a past life, he knows that he can help companies figure out if blogging is the right space for them to be looking at.
The winner of the auction will be able to have Jeremy Wright work for them for three months. He will produce between 5-10 posts a week. In addition, Mr. Wright would work with the winning bidder to see what potential there is for blogging for them and their company – in effect acting as a blogging consultant for the period.
According to The Blog Herald,”We’d naturally be skeptical of such an endeavor but Jeremy is a top blogger with a strong background in writing, although the current bidding price at the time of writing of $112.73 USD greatly undervalues his services.”
This also brings to mind the question — how much should an outsider be entrusted with a medium of corporate communication which has the potential of making or ruining the image of the company as the world sees it?
“Given the choice, yes, the companies should have internal people blogging. In the same way that, given the choice, companies should have all marketing and branding materials created internally. That’s the ideal. However the reality is very different. Employees may not know the segment, may be constricted by marketing principles which simply won’t work in blogging and may end up doing more harm than good.”, says Jeremy.
He further adds, “This is a dry run with an industry expert. If you were learning to golf you’d hire a pro, and that’s all this is. Someone to teach a company to blog, if it fits them.”
This auction would end on December 3rd,2004 and can be seen at http://www.ensight.org/auction.
murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
Your source for investigative ebusiness reporting and breaking news.
