Is your company blogging yet? If not, why not?

Posted by Jim Stroud

October 18, 2005

Business blogging is taking off. Companies are using blogs for both internal and external communications, to improve customer relations and improve business processes, according to a survey released on Monday.

Results of the BlogOn 2005 Social Media Adoption Survey were released at BlogOn 2005, taking place in New York this week. The conference is organized by Guidewire Group, a research firm focused on emerging technologies. The survey was co-sponsored by Guidewire and corporate blogging software provider iUpload.

The poll of corporate marketing and communications professionals found that 55 percent of corporations are blogging, with 91.4 percent of those using them for internal communications and 96.6 percent for external outreach. More than half had launched their blogs within the last year.

“It’s a recent phenomenon,” said Mike Sigal, CEO of Guidewire. “We thought we were still waiting for the turn in the hockey stick of adoption, but we’re already on the steep part of the curve.”

Of those not blogging, 70 percent felt positive about the idea, with 7 percent intending to start a blog immediately and 13 percent intending to start a blog within a year. Only 11 percent of the total respondents were are blogging today and had no plans to do so.

Four out of five of the companies with internal blogs used them to improve intra-company communications, with one in three replacing e-mail-based processes with blogs. One is six is using blogs to replace other software.

READ: Corporate Blogging Takes Off