Company blogs: a good and a bad example
I chose Taloudessa.fi as an example of a good blog. It is a blog of Finnish bank and insurance company OP-Pohjola and it was actually chosen as the winner of “Finland’s best corporate blog 2014”. I haven’t ever read it before even though I’m OP’s customer but when I read quite many posts and browsed it I understood why it has been chosen as the winner. Taloudessa.fi has many bloggers, overall 31, and the bloggers work in digital marketing, sales, management, investment etc. so most of them actually work for OP. There is also a brief presentation of all of them. I think that the blog is for both private and corporate customers. Probably because of so many bloggers the blog updates really often which is good and keeps up the interest. I think one of the best sides of this blog is that it is not all about marketing their company. Of course they do write about their services sometimes but there are for example many posts about leadership and wellbeing in work. Quite many posts have also comments and bloggers have also answered to them which also makes it a good blog.
It was surprisingly hard to find a bad company blog. I chose to analyse the blog of a travel agency called Lomamatkat. I wouldn’t say this is a bad blog but to get better they should do some improvements. Bloggers who write the posts are travel agency’s guides who present and write about their current location. When reading the blog I felt like this blog was all about marketing their holiday destinations and different trips. It would’ve been nice to also read for example about travelling overall, tips how to pack or choose your destination etc. The posts haven’t got many comments either so I think the posts could be more conversational. I have to admit that reading this blog made me feel travel fever so on the other hand I guess their goal is fulfilled but I won’t still end up as their regular follower.
Successful blogger
I chose this blog called L.A.Madde. This is one of the blogs that I like to read because I like traveling blogs and she lives in Los Angeles and works as a flight attendant and a photographer. She was previously a blogger for Finnish Cosmopolitan and now she is an independent blogger so my assumption is that the makes money with the blog. I think she’s successful because she lives in California so everything she does is different than we have here in Finland and she also takes beautiful photos.
I asked from her in one of her posts why she’s blogging but she hasn’t answered yet. I will be back if she answers it.
Doing business in Wikipedia
I think I found a good example of using Wikipedia in marketing. The article of Finnish company called Myllyn Paras tells a lot of basic company info but when you read especially the products-part the text sounds a bit like an advertisement and not so neutral. The text looks like it is taken straight from the company’s website but I of course don’t really know who has written it.
I use Wikipedia a lot to get basic information about something but I wouldn’t use it as the only source if I needed reliable facts.
- Jenna
I have always been very satisfied with OP's customer service, so it's no wonder they have a good blog also! Even better if bloggers actually answer the comments. :)
VastaaPoistaL.A.Madde seems interesting, I only checked out the first post made by the blogger and the beautiful travel pictures already got me reading more.
Yup it was hard for me too to find a company blog which could actually be considered bad! I didn't know that OP's blog has been selected as Finland's best company blog of 2014, wow!
VastaaPoistaThat L.A.Madde sound amazing! It's always nice to find blogs which are interesting in many levels :)
I also share your opinion on Wikipedia: for basic information it's good but not if you want to have reliable facts as you said.