Boehringer Ingelheim is another company that hasn't heard that corporate blogging is peaking. The pharmaceutical company plans to launch a corporate blog soon, according to PMLiVE to be called "The Future Just Happened." In addition, it will include work by guest bloggers—such as patients.
Other elements of the blog will include content from a partnership it inked last year with PSFK, under which the US aggregation company collects interesting stories for Boehringer's Facebook page.
Blog Strategies
Bringing on guest bloggers will likely be a key to the blog's success. Despite examples such as Boehringer Ingelheim, the use of corporate blogs is declining, according to a study by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Women Use Blogs for Recommendations
However, companies that think creatively in their use—such as by recruiting guest bloggers, especially the novel approach of taping patients–will find they can still be an important marketing tool.
Women can be more easily targeted through blogs than social media, as they more often turn to advice from blogs to help with a consumer electronics purchase, according to a survey by BlogHer. Among BlogHer respondents, blog reviews and recommendations (69%) led by a wide margin, followed by CE review sites (48%), visits to a CE store (47%), and manufacturer site (46%).
Social networks (35%) also lagged among these respondents, as did Twitter (19%) and mobile phone apps (3%).
A Rich Field
Companies looking to partner with bloggers—particularly parent or mommy bloggers—should find a rich field of prospects. Tots 100, the UK’s largest community of active parent bloggers, polled [PDF] more than 500 active UK parent blogs in December 2011, asking bloggers how they make their blogs pay. 59% of UK parent blogs have made money from blogging in the past 12 months, but 90% of respondents would either like to make more money or start to monetize their blogs.
Popular ways for bloggers to make money include sponsored posts (22%), advertising (17%) and paid text links (12%). Something to keep in mind though: a second survey of 250 parent bloggers asked about their experience of working with brands through public relations. The results showed that bloggers are receiving more pitches than ever before, and this means they are increasingly choosy about which brands they will work with. One in three bloggers will opt not to work with a brand they don’t personally like.
