How Blogs Can Help Your IT Department

An IT blog is a kind of conversational or analytical website posted on the World Wide Web containing formal, often academic blog-style text articles. Blogs are typically displayed in reverse chronology, i.e., the latest article appearing at the top of the page, usually in the top position. There are some websites that display all posts in top page order (called the “backlog”) while other use the chronological order. In other words, a blog, like a forum or a social bookmarking site, would not display posts that have been posted since the last time they were updated, hence the term “scheduled” or “logged”.

A blog may be written by a consultant for a particular product or support provider. A virtualization or cloud computing blog could be written by a technology expert for a particular product or service provider. Both could share information, such as technical news, tips and guidance, security vendor updates, new product announcements, management news, etc. Another common type of blog is business related IT blog which covers products, services, market analysis, and corporate plans and strategy, often from an IT viewpoint. In addition, this type of blog would also include some information regarding backup, storage and network security.

For every kind of IT blog, the purpose of maintaining it is different: for some companies, blogs provide an opportunity to build a brand for the company; for others, blogs are tools for readers to become more knowledgeable about the company and its products and services. Every blogging program has its own goals and objectives, and while many blogs are strictly educational in nature, others are designed to influence or motivate customers to buy a specific product. It is interesting to note that when it comes to blogs targeted at marketing, the main concern is gaining the interest of target audiences, since marketing blogs are more focused than informative. Both informal and formal blogs are extremely helpful to organizations, no matter what its aim may be.