Corporate Blogging: A New Marketing Commnication Tool for Companies

Blogging has caused quite a buzz. From political activists to aspiring novelists, industry pros and avid hobbyists, everyone seems to be starting a blog. Corporate blogs are giving established companies and obscure brands alike the ability to connect with their audiences on a more personal level, build trust, collect valuable feedback and foster strengthened business relationships. More importantly, these companies are enjoying tangible returns in their blogging investment in the form of increased sales, partnerships, business opportunities, press coverage and lead generation.

Companies that employ a well thought out blogging strategy encourage the strongest community goodwill, and that goodwill, in turn, promotes significant marketing and sales gains. It is said that success breeds success.Thus, successful blogging breeds success in other marketing and sales initiatives.

Example for the successful company is Microsoft. The company is in the middle of the bridge at the moment. Once crossed, as Macromedia's example demonstrates, customers become blogging brand champions, better products are developed, even more links and higher search engine rankings are achieved. While crossing the corporate blogging cultural divide makes sense for some companies, especially product companies; we believe the idea may not make sense for every company.



Sales blogs - external

Purpose: To market or sell products/services, make citizens aware of public services, get donations for charities or political parties etc.
Blogger: The organization itself, or more specifically individuals within it writing on behalf of the organization.
Target groups: (Potential) clients/customers and citizens, that is persons and/or other organizations that are directly involved with the publishing organization, or those it wants to reach with the purpose above.

Relationship blogs - external

Purpose: To create, uphold or strengthen relationships.
Blogger: The organization itself, or more specifically individuals within it writing on behalf of the organization.
Target groups: Often smaller and more specified than with sales blogs. Examples are support blogs aimed at customers of a certain product, finance blogs for IR purposes, PR blogs for media, blogs trying to reach students, future employees, politicians/officials etc.

Branding blogs - external

Purpose: To strenghten the brand, the profile, of the publishing organization or individuals within it.
Blogger: Not necessarily the organization itself. Individual employees' or executives' blogging ("insider blogs"), if supported by the organization, can be viewed as a branding blog. The same goes for adverblogs and blogs that are not apparantly connected to the organization.
Target groups: See Relationship and Sales blogs.

Knowledge blogs - internal

Purpose: To give employees information and insights relating to their work assignments; news, business intelligence, reports about ongoing projects etc.
Blogger: The organization itself through one or more designated bloggers, or potentially all employees through a entirely open blog publishing model.
Target groups: All employees with a certain interest.

Collaboration blogs - internal

Purpose: To provide a working team with a tool for research, collaboration and discussion.
Blogger: The team.
Target group: The team.(There's only a fine line - if any - between this blog category and business wiki's. You could also see for example Relationship Blogs change into more wiki-like publications.)

Culture blogs - internal

Purpose: To strengthen organizational culture. Typically through informal content of social or non-work related character.
Blogger: The organization itself through one or more designated bloggers, or potentially all employees through a entirely open blog publishing model.
Target groups: All employees as employees, and not as professionals (developers, managers, assistants and so on).

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.backbonemedia.com/blogsurvey/8-corporate-blogging-cult-divide.htm
http://www.backbonemedia.com/blogsurvey/

Prepared By Agu.

All right reservced by EnT02 Group Rui,Ean and Agu™

Review Post on Legal from Ecommerze.blogspot.com

Another spammer gets jailed

Another SMS scam

Crackdown on Internet scam in Malaysia - 6 sites blocked

2 more Internet scam sites blocked by SC

After reviewing all of these spamming and sms scam cases, i have some thought about all of these cases.

Firstly, about the email spamming, although Window Live Mail and Google Mail are work hard on their filtering of spam mail and junk mail, but some of these spamming are still able to reach us. I will normally receive about 10 spam mail daily, both from Window Live Mail and Google Mail. The content inside are mostly the same, such like Free Download Software, Donation, or some rubbish information such as Friendster are closing soon, Window Live Messenger account are finishing etc.All of these spamming are actually annoying and cannot be fully prevent, and these causes us a big problem by cleaning up a dustbin that will be filled up daily. According to my mates, all of them are receiving those spammer's present and its seems like unstoppable. We can do nothing on it but just don't open and view it to avoid any issue such as virus or trojan.

Friendster account and Window Live Messenger are also a hot issue that being hacked by spammer and hacker. We are hardly to image that how are them are able to reach us, but it does happen. This hacking or hijacking are infriging our privacy, especially Friendster, which might content our private information. Window Live Messenger are now become the channel for spammer to build up their zombie networks. They try to send out their trojan to those user which are cheated by them and become their media to continuously infect their contact list.

Ok, here comes the SMS scam. We heard many about the phone call from mystery numbers and telling you that you win a huge sum of money from lottery or lucky draw from oversea company. And i think i need not further explain the rest and you will know what i am talking about. Besides phone calling, SMS scam might be another big problem for all of us. Mobile phone, is another device that are hugely used by our people, compare with Internet. Now not only Internet, even our Mobile Phone are also facing such sms scam. For example, My friend and I are experienced from a call which sound like doing survey, but the speaker are spoke with China slang. We guess that we are picked by random generated number from software and we just ignore it. Moreover, we also receiving some sms claiming that petronas are closing or Astro are giving cash bonus, and suggest us to giving our personal information such as IC number or Bank Account Number.These scamming are not only annoying, but might be useful to cheat those people which are lower securing sense.

So, we are better keep our mind clean and beware of any of those scamming or little trick that might cause us big losses. By living in this high technology world, we are not only enjoying the convenience it brings, but also the problem that we people incurred.

Referemce:
http://images.google.com.my/

Prepared by Ruiz

All right reservced by EnT02 Group Rui,Ean and Agu™

Thing To Take Note To Prevent E-Auction Fraud When A Consumer Participating In An E-auction

E-auction is a market mechanism by which buyers make bids and selleres place offers; its charecterized by the competitive and dynamic nature by which the final price is reached. Auctions, an established method of commerce for generations, deals with products and services for which conventional marketing channels are ineffective or inefficient.The online auction business model is one in which participants bid for products and services over the Internet. The functionality of buying and selling in an auction format is made possible through auction software which regulates the various processes involved.

Protecting Against E-Auction Fraud

The largest Internet auctioneer, eBay, has introduced several measures in an effort to reduce fraud.The following are some of eBay's antifraud meausures :

1. User identity verification.
-eBay uses the services of Equifax to verufy user for a $5 fee. Verified eBay User, a voluntary programme, ecourages users to supply eBay with information for online verification. By offering theirSocial Security number, driver's license number, and date of birth, users can qualify for the highest level of verification on eBay.

2. Authentication service.

-Product authentication is a way of determining whether an item is genuine and described appropriately. Authentication is very difficult to perform because it relies on the the expertise of the authenticators. Beacuase of their training and experince, experts can 9 for a fee0 often detect counterfeits based on subtle details. However, two expert authentications may have different opinions about the authenticity of the same item.

3.Gradind services.

-Grading is a way of determining the physical condition of an item, such as "poor quality " or "mint condition." The actual grading system depends on the type of item being graded. Different grading systems- For example, trading cards are graded from A1 to F1, whereas coins are graded from poor to perfect uncirculated.

4. Feedback Forum.

- The eBay feedback Forum allows registered buyers and sellers to build up their online trading reputations. It providees users with the ability to comment on their experinces with other individuals.

5. Nonpayment punishment.

- eBay implemented a policy against those who do not honor their winning bids. To help protect sellers, afirst -time nonpaymant results in friendly warning. A sterner warning is issued for a second-time offense, a 30-day suspension for a third offense, and indefinite suspension for a fourth offense.

References :

1.http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000107619&start=160

2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_auction

Prepared by Lew Pei Ean

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Review of Lelong.com.my

The topic of this week is to review one of the local e-commerce website. I have choose Lelong.com.my as my idea to be sharing with all of you.

Lelong.com.my is founded by History Interbase Resources Sdn. Bhd in the end of 1998. Lelong.com.my is the pioneer of e-auction in Malaysia, and until now, Lelong.com.my still doing good to work out their principle, which is a mission statement of "Serving the community and bringing a high standard of quality into homes and businesses by providing an avenue for on-line trading at a low cost".

Ok ,I am talking too much, but what really Lelong.com.my is ? A means of identifying Lelong.com.my is to use an international comparison that everyone is familiar with. Styled and functioning similar to the international auction site, eBay.com, Lelong.com.my powers a robust and secure avenue for trading in Malaysia. Starting based on Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) transactions, Lelong.com.my is now moving to becoming a channel for Business-to-Consumer (B2C) relationships. Many distributors have realised the power and ease of using the auction system and are now using Lelong.com.my to trade and grow their business.

So, as a local e-auction website, how can Lelong sustained for so long ? Firstly, Lelong.com.my are providing a double secure and verification system, which is much more secure and better than other e-auction website. Any user which are willing to post or trade item in Lelong.com.my are required to verify their member status and telephone numbers. In the verification of buyers, sellers or company, its required the user's MyKad and Bill heading to verify their status, which preventing them to fraud or phising. Besides, the telephone verification are needed to process the transaction and bidding. By using this 2 security and verification systems, both buyers and sellers are much more comfortable to trade at Lelong.com.my

So, How actually Lelong.com.my can be compete against eBay? As we known, eBay is a worldwide e-auction leader and have experienced work team with superior network from other countries, How do Lelong.com.my develop their competitive advantage over eBay.com.my ?

First of all, eBay were launched their services in Dec 2004, which compare to Lelong.com.my on 1998, Lelong.com.my has succesfully to build a user-friendly interface and reputation in Malaysia. As a local based e-auction website, the resident in Malaysia are keen to use Lelong.com.my rather than eBay. For example, i will visit Lelong.com.my more frequently than eBay because i have used to it. Habitually user will choose what they keen to use in past experience.

Secondly, Lelong.com.my have more choices than eBay.com.my. What i mean is due to more users are choosing Lelong.com.my as their channel to trade, they are more product available at Lelong.com.my and the market are bigger. Hence, user in Lelong.com.my have more choice and can find a more competitve price in Lelong.com.my rather than searching in eBay.

Reference:

1.http://investor.ebay.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=149589

2.http://www.lelong.com.my/

Prepared by Ruiz

All right reservced by EnT02 Group Rui,Ean and Agu™