A successful example of a corporate blog maintained by a communications department is Rubbermaid. Rubbermaid is a brand that represents durable products made to simplify life, mostly to help organize consumer’s homes. Rubbermaid started their blog about a year ago and the blog is managed by seven employees. The seven bloggers represent different areas in the communications department at Rubbermaid. Jim Deitzel, the Senior E-Marketing Manager, found the blogging platform to be a chance to communicate with consumers and professional organizers in a less formal tone than the main corporate website. Deitzel monitors posts before they are submitted, but because of the no controversy organizational content, he doesn’t really have to edit or adjust the posts.
A few months ago, John Cass interviewed Jim Deitzel from Newell Rubbermaid for a case study on his blog. Deitzel explained to Cass that they experimented with who would blog. Now only employees write for Rubbermaid, but in the beginning an outside writer was used for a few posts. Deitzel informed Cass that Rubbermaid chose people within the communications department to write for the blog even if they did not offer to help. Fortunately, he found that they ended up enjoying writing in this new medium. He did notice that even though there are many employees at Rubbermaid signed up to blog, not all of them post regularly.
I value the posts at this blog because they incorporate the Rubbermaid products in a way that shows how they help organize in real life situations rather than just saying how great they are and that you, the consumer or organizer, should own them. The communications writers have found a good conversational tone with their audience leading to interesting and varied responses.
In my first post, I discussed how consumers are wary of corporate blogs. With this is mind, do you agree with Rubbermaid’s practice of choosing people within the communications department to write for the blog? Could other Rubbermaid employee bloggers increase the trustworthiness of the blog?
