Effective Blogging for Businesses

Blogging can be very beneficial for businesses, but it could also poses a lot of problems and conflicts in the workplace if it’s not managed properly. Some of the benefits of business blogs is your impact on customers can become a lot more widespread, which can lead to more customers. Blogs also give your company a more casual image instead of being strictly business and professional oriented. They allow you to engage more of your audience and in return you can receive feedback from your readers or customers. Companies usually set up blogs for customer support and they can also release news about the company and if they direct it to the audience and promote suggestions than blogs have the potential to be a great help in finding customer needs.

There are some downsides to business blogs. The biggest problem most companies have with their blogs is who controls the blogs and this is because their have been countless cases of workers being fired from the company because of writing something inappropriate on a blog. If they release too much information about the company on a blog then their competitors could use it to gain an advantage against the company. If the person writing on the blog makes a mistake or says something that isn’t true then it could have the potential to hurt the companies’ image.

Business blogging is here to stay and if controlled properly it can spring-board a company into another level. This is why it is so important for companies to have a good grasp on who is in charge of writing on the blog and to make sure that it is well monitored.

http://www.enterpriseblogs.info/corporate-blogging/disadvantages

Are You a Good Listener?

Listening can be one of the hardest skills to improve but if you become an effective listener, then you will see great improvements in your communication skills. Most people think of themselves as good listeners but when they have conversations they don’t truly listen but instead are always thinking of the next thing to say. Once you realize you need to improve your listening skill then there are some very good exercises to help you.

Some things you can do next time you are having a conversation are to not interrupt the person you are listening to, the purpose of this is that you only learn by listening but if you are talking you learn very little. The next thing you can do is ask relevent question and then focus on listening to the answers. What this does is lets the speaker know that you are actively listening and thinking about what they have to say. Instead of just shutting up and starring at the person, through in a word or to that lets them know they still have your attention, examples of this could be “yes”, “I see”, and “I understand”. Another thing that helps allow you to become an effective listener is to maintain eye contact but to not make it awkward you could always glance away from time to time.

The benefits of becoming an effective listener are endless. If you listen to others then they will respect that and in turn they will listen to you more. By listening to someone you learn a lot more than if you don’t let that person talk. If you listen more to friends and family it helps build that relationship because it shows interest and care for that person. Lastly, listening helps improve communication skills which translates into better understanding people and avoiding conflicts that are a result of misinterpretation.

http://www.razvandobre.com/10-Exercises-to-Improve-Listening-Skills-and-Become-an-Active-Listener.html

Finding Your Writing Voice

Throughout this semester I have been following writing assignment guidelines and completing each piece to the best of my ability. Recently though I have been having trouble putting my own voice and uniqueness into my writings, but now that I have recognized my weakness, I hope to improve upon it. Through a little research and practice, I am starting to see a change in the way I write for the better.

The first thing I started doing before writing a report was to start out with a two to three-minute warm-up. The point of the warm-up is to just write as much as you possibly can without stopping. I have come to find that without worrying about quality, I began to let the words flow out of my had and in turn my voice comes out. After doing an effective warm-up I have found that my voice carries onto my report. Another method I have started to do is by using metaphors that relate to me that can help get my point across and describe something I am trying to explain.

When writing with your own voice it makes your work a lot more unique and interesting to read. If you are able to do this effectively then people will always be willing to continue reading regardless of the amount of information you actually have in the writing.

http://www.copyblogger.com/writing-voice/

Communicating Bad News

I recently read an article on how managers should handle bad news to his/her employees. The article discussed how its the responsibility of the manager to know or predict how each particular employee will handle bad news about that employee’s job. It is important for the manager to show intimacy and understanding of the bad news, so that the employee doesn’t get effected to much. This article reminded me of another great article I read awhile ago in an issue of INC magazine. This article discussed how the business runs on a horizontal employee system, which means their are no promotions given and everyone manages their own work according to projects given. This particular company has had over ten years of success doing this, but when they had an employee come to the owners and tell them they wanted a promotion. The employee felt that she outgrew her position and was able to do much more for the company. In response to this the managers/owners had a meeting to discuss what they would do with the employee. The end result was a very successful one because they had let go the employee, which could have been taken as terrible news. These managers cared a lot about their employees so in preparation for telling this employee the bad news, they called a few close friends who were business owners and they were able to get this employee into another organization that allowed her to grow more. The lesson from this article is that when delivering bad news to employees, the manager must think ethically in order to get the best possible outcome.

http://www.businessmantra.net/learn-to-turn-bad-news-into-good-redefining-employee-communication.html

 

Developing an Effective Business Communication Strategy

Developing a highly effective business communication system can set your company apart from the competition. It can make a big impact on almost every department throughout a company. The article I am analyzing discusses how to set up a smooth flowing business communications strategy.

 

The article talks about a few key points such as; fulfilling employee needs, being credible enough to asses the situation, being persuasive so that your goal can be reflected on others, and to get the job done. In my opinion these are obvious musts for any manager and should be a good building block for employees seeking promotions.

 

In my opinion this article doesn’t go into nearly as much detail needed in order to fully understand the topics. It is more a list of traits that a manager must have so that he has the ability to communicate properly.

 

 

Neal, Ken. “Stepping Up to the Plate: Developing an Effective Business Communication Strategy.” Information Management (15352897) 44.2 (2010): 38-41. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 20 Mar. 2011.

Japan’s Nuclear Crisis Sparks Market Panic

In response to the article; “Beware the Energy ‘Panic Trade’: Strategists“.

The article that I will analyze is from the CNBC Stock Market News Blog. They use this blog as a form of business communication to discuss current news events that effect the markets. This blog is intended to be read by their followers as well as financial professionals looking for different view points on a situation.

This article goes on to discuss how the massive earthquake last week, has caused the financial markets to go on an energy selling craze due to the potential nuclear meltdown. It discusses how the event triggered a large sell in the energy sector, but after some time the market will rebound because this incident doesn’t have a devastating effect to all other energy companies. It does appear that the solar industry is taking the biggest hit as it continues to decline.

I enjoyed this article because it used an interview format to obtain most of its content. The reason they were able to do this is because they interviewed well-known investors from large firms such as; Wedbush Securities, and Adam Mesh Trading Group.

Understanding Commas

Another week has come to a close in my business writing class, and again I continue to see improvements on the way I write. What I want to talk about this week is how to properly use commas, because this has always been a glaring weak spot in just about every writing piece I have done. This week our class was assigned group projects dealing with the various problems many writers face when it comes to grammar and mechanics. My group was of course assigned commas, so we put together a presentation on how to properly use commas then taught it to the class. After the project and presentation was complete, I felt as if I have a much better understanding on how and when to use commas. The video that comes with this post was used when we were putting together our presentation. We found that the rules and guidelines presented were necessary for understanding comma usage.

Is Audience Analysis Importent?

This past week we discussed the importance of conducting an audience analysis. In my past writing experience I have never conducted an appropriate audience analysis, but i have always kept in mind who my target audience was while writing something. One of my assignments for the week was to conduct a proper audience analysis on a given topic and targets for a made up scenario. When the assignment was completed, it gave me the knowledge of how to conduct a proper audience analysis, so that you can form your writing to the specific target. I covered several different audience profiling such as; intended audience, audience level of understanding, composition, audience expectations and responses, and the size of audience as well as how the report will be distributed. My thoughts and methods have began to change after this week because before I would just start writing an assignment without truly knowing or even thinking about who I was writing it for. I continue to look forward to what the rest of this semester has to offer, and I will continue to make a strong effort on improving my writing abilities!!!

Introduction

Hello!

If you are reading this blog you will find the thoughts and ideas from me. The purpose of this blog is to document my writing progress. Throughout the next few months I will be making posts discussing the various areas of business communication. I will also be selecting some business communication articles that I have found, and analyzing them to see if they were good or bad examples.