Co-Blogs
All companies are ultimately in the education business, no matter what a company's product or service may be their customers need to be constantly educated about the many advantages of doing business with them. Customers may wish to be shown how to use the company's products and services more effectively, and taught how such make improvements in their lives.
Blogs are a phenomenally effective way of communicating with, and educating customers. Afterabc recognise that many companies want to benefit from what new technology and communication techniques offers but lack the resources, be it time, money or expertise to fully engage with the medium. For such clients, and indeed for clients seeking the benefits offered by a highly sophisticated blogging platform, but without the related high costs, Afterabc has developed Co-Blogs.
Afterabc offers companies the opportunity to utilize our managed hosted blog platform, whereby a managed fully customisable blog site can straightforwardly be created. The benefits are numerous, and below are just some of the more commonly required:
Send update notifications
Afterabc's Co-blogging tools facilitates automatic updates via email or XML feeds whenever the company updates the website. Most sites require people to remember to visit, and then to judge what has been updated since their last visit on their own, but blogs reduce the amount of effort required to keep up to date. Many companies already have websites that offer information people could find useful, but those people are not going to remember to come back. Enterprise blogs solve that problem by reminding them to return.
Publish XML feeds
This technology (often called RSS) notifies customers of updates, but it also gives the company the ultimate flexibility in reaching its audience. Feeds can be read or displayed on mobile devices like iPods, PDAs or phones and can automatically be delivered to desktop and laptop computers, either in the web browser or on other websites.
Set the tone of conversations with customers
Co-Blogs are a space online that the company "own". This is an important idea: It means the company sets the tone of the conversation and the expectations about behaviour. Enterprise blogs can make sure a conversation online is productive and stays on topic while still being welcoming.
Feedback through comments and links
Interactivity with customers is essential for any successful company, Companies benefit greatly from finding out the sentiments and suggestions of their customers. Co-Blogs helps a company take advantage of that potential with the deployment of comments and feedback. Feedback, can be published on the company site, collected through email, or displayed using a system called 'TrackBack'. (TrackBack shows when another blogger has linked to the site). This kind of direct, personal feedback used to be expensive to collect, but with blogging, it is a natural part of participating in the community.
Co-Blogs vs. regular websites
Co-Blogs are more dynamic than traditional websites, and are more likely to have a human voice. That means readers form a tighter connection with the blog and the company that publishes it. Blogging promises an ongoing relationship, without requiring a lot of investment or obligation on the company part. A static 'brochure' website does not always indicate that there are real people on the other end who care about customers and their needs.
Blogs vs. email
Email is a fantastic tool for updating customers or members of your team, and Co-Blogs complement email by being more permanent and reliable, less demanding or intrusive for readers, and able to reach a wider audience. Using Co-Blogs to share a message eliminates concerns about opt-in and privacy. Subscribing to blogs or XML feeds automatically verifies a reader's interest in the content, and makes it easy to send new messages without having to learn new technology or tools.
