So say the experts. I don’t need an expert to tell me that, but it’s good to have backup. I am a biased believer in the power of the blog.

Blogs are inexpensive, bursting-with-potential marketing tools capable of reaching hundreds of thousands at a fraction of traditional marketing costs. From Tech News World:

A huge number of those blogs are being produced and hosted by businesses seeking to market themselves more effectively in cyberspace. Some companies are even encouraging their employees — of any stripe, not just communications and marketing personnel — to launch their own blogs and tout the virtues of their company’s products and services.

This includes companies like Sun, IBM, Microsoft, HP, and Macromedia, but also smaller brands, like managedcarematters.com, joepaduda.com, moosetopia.com, and publiceye.silkblogs.com, written by Peter Quintas, chief technology officer of SilkRoad Technology.

A company’s PR spin is what turns off customers. Through blogging, a company can cut through the advertising hype and present a clearer, more honest picture of itself. But there are risks:

Some blogs contain sensitive information about an employer — and can raise potential security or even libel concerns. A Google employee was reportedly fired for revealing internal developments at the search engine on his blog….And a court ordered a blogging hosting provider to identify three anonymous Apple employees who had posted secret company information online.

Those aren’t examples of “business blogging,” per se. Employees with personal blogs are different creatures from employees blogging for their company. The latter is what The Language Artist is all about. Businesses can protect themselves from security breaches and other problems as much as possible through company-wide blogging policies.

The benefits of blogging far outweigh the risks.

Technorati tags: Marketing and technology.