Implications for theory and practice

A range of implications can be derived for research regarding corporate blogs and for corporate blog management and corporate communication strategies regarding the use of corporate blogs in varying institutional contexts.

For academic research on social media, this study contributes to a theoretical un-derstanding of the effects of corporate blogging practices within an international management context. This study integrated these two research areas, focusing on corporate blogs from Germany, Russia, and the U.S. Such integration is of particu-lar relevance given the international proliferation of the Internet, its increasing function as international information and communication channel, and the fading

boundaries of business and communication in a globalizing world. At the same time measures were developed or adapted in order to capture different aspects of corporate blogging practices.

The study also generated several insights for corporate communication and market-ing. First of all different types of acceptance measures were introduced that allow companies to evaluate corporate blog acceptance. Focusing on linking within the blogosphere (Technorati Authority) and the amount of collected feedback (average number of comments per post), the study then identified factors influencing the level of these two measures.

Technorati Authority as a measure of overall blog acceptance was found to be posi-tively  influenced  by  a  corporate  blog’s  diversity.  In  particular  the  number  of  authors   and topics on the blog are important determinants. Companies that can increase the number of authors (for example by increasing the blog editing team or by ac-tively motivating employees to voluntarily contribute) or topics (for example by encouraging employees from different departments and functional areas) are there-by able to attract more links from other bloggers and websites. Networking, i.e., proactively linking to other blogs, was found to have a similar effect, as reciprocity is an important determinant of popularity within the blogosphere. This concerns the blogroll on a corporate blog but can also be extended to other types of links on a corporate blog, for example within individual posts.

Furthermore, several factors with a significant influence on the average number of comments could be identified. The number of navigation functions and sidebar elements such as archive, categorization or search functions had a significant posi-tive effect. The company can therefore increase the amount of feedback collection by making the blog easier to use for interested users for example by making past content better accessible or categorizing content in accordance with reader (or in this context rather commenter) preferences. An inverse effect was identified for post length. Shorter blog posts were associated with a higher number of average com-ments. Also media usage was overall found to negatively affect commenting, as too frequent use of media elements rather cater to readers that seek entertainment ra-ther than ways of interacting with a company as can be observed by the range of corporate blogs that feature mostly media content rather than text content such as the General Motors FYI Blog, which attracts many visitors but features very little interaction³. Consequently, companies need to increase awareness among blog au-thors and editors regarding the effects of individual post characteristics on the level

3 This might be one of the main reasons why the FYI Blog was in 2011 turned into a pure media portal, featuring pictures and videos of General Motors products, abandoning the blog format and thus the commenting function.

of interaction. Companies can even conduct trainings for corporate bloggers regard-ing writregard-ing style or good text and media usage. In contrast to Technorati Authority, comment frequency was adversely affected by the number of topics. The average number of comments was higher for corporate blogs covering fewer topics. This implies that companies can better engage readers and attract feedback and contribu-tions by limiting the topical scope of the activity. This adverse relacontribu-tionship also re-quires companies to decide what benefits they actually seek from corporate blogging activities as it might be difficult to achieve traffic- and feedback-oriented objectives in parallel.

Blog age was found to positively contribute to both link popularity as well as com-ment frequency. Older corporate blogs have a higher acceptance in terms of both success measures. For companies this implies that success builds over time and companies can benefit from showing some patience with their corporate blogging activities. Many corporate blogs such as the German Fischer-Blog (by Fischerwerke GmbH & Co. KG) are very quickly abandoned when companies become disap-pointed with the size of audience or amount of collected feedback. However, cor-porate blogging as a social media activity has a strong social relationship aspect and the desired social networks around a corporate social media activity grow slowly.

Therefore companies should not only look at the current absolute benefits from a corporate blog but should rather monitor the development over time to arrive at conclusions  about  their  blog’s  performance.

Last but not least, the study was able to reject some of the general (mostly theoreti-cal) assumptions about corporate blogging practices. First of all, it was shown that post frequency is not an important factor for corporate blog popularity, indicating that quality rather than quantity is key to success in the blogosphere (at least in terms of incoming links and number of comments). Second of all, the common belief about authenticity as a means to rising blog popularity can be de-mystified.

While seems to be a common feature of corporate blogs to be less formal than other corporate communication activities, there is no specific impact on a corporate blog’s  popularity.

Figure 17 summarizes the key findings of this study for corporate blogging practice:

Figure 17: Key findings for corporate blogging practice