LinkedIn was started with the goal of helping working professionals network with other potential clientele and business partners. The blog itself would assist this process, as well as provide updated reports on the company's new features, services, business advice, and related meetings. LinkedIn's blog does allow and encourage their audience to send in their comments. The company also attempts to make this a more personalized blog by introducing a host to answer any questions and moderate discussions on relevant topics, as shown on the third paragraph of the early blog entry in April 2007: “I’m Mario Sundar, the Community guy at LinkedIn and your blog guide. We consider your feedback an integral part of this conversation, so feel free to share your two cents on how we could make this blog more useful and informative to you.” Most of the entries provided, however, seem to be from the LinkedIn staff. They are 1 to 3 paragraphs on average. Rarely do the entries go any longer, unless some interactive media is embedded (such as videos). This brief style must have been purposefully implemented in order to provide quick updates about the company and the business world in general as efficiently as possible to fit the busy schedules of their audience.
To enhance the viewing experience and participation, there is frequent usage of online video clips from news broadcasts, interviews with the company executives, and of course, photographs. Sometimes these videos were posted by the company on YouTube, possibly to spread the word about the company and its blog, but on other occasions, it has been uploaded onto the website as an independent feature. The overall corporate image that LinkedIn wants to create is the idea that this company is a company of progress and expansion. Press releases and news reports of the company’s growing popularity and increasing sales/partnerships evokes a sense that LinkedIn is a reliable business tool for all working professionals, and the blog gives the opportunity for those professionals to speak their mind regarding the company and the workforce in general.
The second corporate blog is from through Kodak, found at: http://1000words.kodak.com/. If one were to view the webpage, on the left-hand side, there is a small caption which reads the intended goal of the blog... as: “...a place for stories from the people of Kodak. We love what we do, and we want to share our stories about imaging and its power to influence our world. We invite you to join our conversation with stories of your own.” Therefore, though not explicitely stated, the intended audience is comprised of Kodak customers and clientele who share their personal photographs amongst each other and with Kodak employees.
Unlike the previous site which does not have as many subscribers to send in comments as there are LinkedIn employee entries, the majority of the blog entries for Kodak are indeed authored by customers and clientele, in which they share their photos and stories about those photos with the rest of the community. Also in contrast to the LinkedIn blog, this website presents fairly extensive blog entries. Usually there is one blog out of two or three which run about 75% of the entire webpage. The entries are so extensive because these are authored by customers and clientele of Kodak who choose to share their personal experiences and artistic expression. They are presented more like diary entries, with detailed stories told in text, image, and sometimes video. The images (photographs), as well as images that have been altered to convey some optical illusion (possibly using Adobe PhotoShop and the like). In essence, Kodak wants to promote their products by showing the high quality images it is able to create, while also providing a sense of community and artistic expression with their customers and clientele.
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1 comment:
Nice site. I like the design, but you may want to reconsider the color you chose for links. The dark text on the dark background makes the links difficult to read.
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