The Role of Blogging in Corporate Communication and its Application by Hungarian Companies Ágnes Borgulya and Judit Háhn 1. Introduction Corporate communication has had to adapt to the increasing dominance of CMC (computer-based communication). The spread of web 2.0 applications has creat- ed the opportunity to establish a direct, bidirectional form of internal and exter- nal communication. As Cornelissen (2008) points out, the business environment itself has also undergone changes, which have enhanced the development of new communication genres. The business environment has become more complex for many organizations because stakeholder groups are less homogeneous than be- fore. Enterprises have to reduce the costs in order to operate more efficiently. The changes, which have been brought about in the past two decades, have made companies turn to new, revolutionary forms of corporate communication, which satisfy both the needs of the heterogeneous stakeholder groups and of efficient operation. In our study we discuss the role of blogs and social media within corporate communication in general and in CEE countries in specific to highlight those features that make this form of online business communication unique. Follow- ing this, we are going to focus on the way Hungarian companies apply corporate blogging. 2. Social media The concept of social media is based on the network of digital communities that have been created by common interest or shared content. Social media can be characterized by: the active participation of the members: participants are expected to make contributions and reactions; value-creation: the contributions can mean added value – the situation of the wisdom of crowds (Weinberg 2009: 3); openness: the services offered are open to reactions and participation;
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The Role of Blogging in Corporate Communication and its Application by Hungarian Companies
Ágnes Borgulya and Judit Háhn
1. Introduction
Corporate communication has had to adapt to the increasing dominance of CMC
(computer-based communication). The spread of web 2.0 applications has creat-
ed the opportunity to establish a direct, bidirectional form of internal and exter-
nal communication. As Cornelissen (2008) points out, the business environment
itself has also undergone changes, which have enhanced the development of new
communication genres. The business environment has become more complex for
many organizations because stakeholder groups are less homogeneous than be-
fore. Enterprises have to reduce the costs in order to operate more efficiently.
The changes, which have been brought about in the past two decades, have made
companies turn to new, revolutionary forms of corporate communication, which
satisfy both the needs of the heterogeneous stakeholder groups and of efficient
operation.
In our study we discuss the role of blogs and social media within corporate
communication in general and in CEE countries in specific to highlight those
features that make this form of online business communication unique. Follow-
ing this, we are going to focus on the way Hungarian companies apply corporate
blogging.
2. Social media
The concept of social media is based on the network of digital communities that
have been created by common interest or shared content. Social media can be
characterized by:
the active participation of the members: participants are expected to
make contributions and reactions;
value-creation: the contributions can mean added value – the situation
of the wisdom of crowds (Weinberg 2009: 3);
openness: the services offered are open to reactions and participation;
juhahn
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Judit Hahn - Borgulya, Agnes (2013) The role of blogging in corporate communication and its application by Hungarian companies. In: Christopher M Schmidt, Ainar Dimant, Jaakko Lehtonen Martin Nielsen (eds.) Kulturspezifik in der europäischen Wirtschaftskommunikation. Baden: Springer-Verlag, 181-194
Ágnes Borgulya and Judit Háhn
discussion: bi- or multi-directional form of communication is supported;
community-forming: the collective rather than the individual is empha-
sized;
connectedness: users can enrich the number of links leading to the web-
site and can provide new links pointing to other sites.
Compared to traditional media, social media is not based on one-way com-
munication between the sender and the receiver of the message. Instead, it is a
bi- or often multi-way conversation among users and website operators. In social
media the control of the message is given up (Weinberg 2009:20-21), the balance
of power is usually lost, but a new form of value-creation appears that attracts
users to social media sites. The essence of social media lies in the lack of bound-
aries between the consumer and the creator of content. As a result, communica-
tion among users becomes more frequent and more open. Social media sites are
typically online social networks, wikis, podcasts, discussion forums and blogs.
Social media websites have brought about new opportunities for corporate
communication, especially for online marketing. Social media marketing as a
term was first defined by Rohit Bhargava (2006): he explained it as “optimizing
a site in such a way that written content garners links, which essentially acts as a
Weinberg (2009) adds that social media marketing also involves the process of
listening to the community and responding to their needs, as well as reviewing
content or promoting certain pieces of content within the social sphere of the
internet.
In the developed part of the world the decision to utilize social media tech-
nology is a management-led and not a technology-based decision. However, this
is not the case in Central and Eastern European countries, where – according to
the IAB Gemius CEE report1 – there were altogether five countries that recorded
over 50 percent of online penetration in January 2009. These countries were
Estonia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovenia and Lithuania. Among them the
rate of online penetration was the highest in Estonia, where internet users consti-
tuted around 68 percent of the population. For the rest of the CEE markets the
penetration rate was still below 50 percent. It was significantly lower than in
Western European countries, such as Germany, France or the UK – where it
1 Gemius – the European leader of online research on the internet and via the internet has compiled a
report entitled ’Do you CEE? Interactive Overview of Central and Eastern Europe Markets 2009’ to
give an up-to-date picture of the internet market in thirteen CEE states, i.e. Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia,
and Ukraine. (http://www.gemius.dk/dk/news/2010-01-18/01)
fluctuated at around 70 percent. Looking at the latest statistics2 (as of June 2010)
on internet usage, we can see that although the rate of online penetration has
increased, it is still at around 50% in Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Ukraine and
Russia (see Table 1). Although the number of social media users is growing day
by day, the opportunities for users to access virtual counters is not increasing
with the same rate. As a comparison, in the USA the rate of online penetration is
77.3%.
Table 1. The rate of online penetration in CEE countries
(June 2010)
CEE countries % Population
(penetration)
Bulgaria 47.5%
Croatia 50.0%
Czech Republic 65.5%
Estonia 75.1%
Hungary 61.8%
Latvia 67.8%
Lithuania 59.3%
Poland 58.4%
Romania 35.5%
Russia 42.8%
Slovakia 74.3%
Slovenia 64.8%
Ukraine 33.7%
Source: Internet World Stats3
3. Blogs
The blog is a form of social media channel that lets the writer publish his person-
al thoughts in reverse chronological order, accompanied by the comments and
questions of the visitors of the site. According to Wolf (2007: 6) a blog should
possess some or all of the following characteristics:
postings are listed in a reverse chronological order,
2 Internet World Stats (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm#europe) 3 Internet World Stats (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm#europe)
Although social media is attracting more and more Hungarian users10
, com-
panies are still reluctant to engage in social media channels. One of the reasons
can be the fact that Hungary has a short history – not more than five years – in
corporate blogging and social media marketing. It is usually the Hungarian affil-
iates of international companies that are first in using the new forms of online
communication. Large multinational and international companies establishing
their subsidiaries in Hungary spread their practices (creating social media guide-
lines, social media strategies), making an outstanding influence on Hungarian
corporate communication.
As a result, some of the bigger Hungarian companies are working on their
online social media presence. The Hungarian Suzuki Zrt, the Hungarian Telekom
or the company Raba already have their own wiki pages (Buzás 2010)11
. The
social media opportunities offered by Facebook and Twitter are, however, still
not exploited by Hungarian companies. Small- and medium sized enterprises
tend to use mainly e-mails and the corporate website, which do not involve any
other online communication channels12
. These businesses do not have the pre-
conditions to employ social media experts who could manage and supervise a
social media marketing campaign. However, it does happen that the representa-
tives of SMEs keep contact with customers in topic-based discussion forums,
trying to convince them to navigate to the company’s website and use their prod-
ucts or services.
Corporate blogging is not very popular among Hungarian companies. The
benefits of using this form of online communication are not clear for most man-
agers, and there is a lack of expertise and experience in blog-writing. The tradi-
tional one-way business to customer communication rules: Hungarians are usual-
ly not active in posting comments on to corporate blogs. Customers are often
indifferent, and do not feel it important to let their voices heard. This passive
attitude is a further reason why companies in general do not blog.
Corporate blogging started in 2005, when the first corporate blog was
launched by the Research Institution for Physics, KFKI, and the same year that a
blog for the community of business people (http://kozgazdasz.freebolg.hu) also
appeared on the web. Hungarian blog providers, such as blogol.hu and free-
blog.hu were launched in 2002 and 2003. Today the most frequently visited blog
10 According to the findings of Facebakers.com run by the Czech Candytech the number of Facebook users in Hungary exceeded 1.2 million in April 2010. 11http://www.hrportal.hu/hr/blog-wikipedia-telepresence-a-ceges-kommunikacio-uj-eszkozei-
20101215.html 12 A survey of the online tools used by Hungarian SMEs. http://honlapozo.com/felmeres-a-magyar-
The world’s most valuable brands. Who’s most engaged? ENGAGEMENTdb. Ranking the Top 100
Global Brands July 2009. Online publication. Prepared by the Wetpaint/Altimeter Group. http://www.engagementdb.com/downloads/ENGAGEMENTdb_Report_2009.pdf
Weinberg, Tamar (2009) The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web. Sebastopol,
CA: O’Reilly Wolf, Mark van der (2007) The business value of blogging. LEWIS Global Public Relations. March