Should we be Blogging?

Dear Ms. Hirschhorn (Chief Marketing Officer)

To take the words right off of our intranet, “transforming MetLife into a customer-centric organization is a cornerstone of our strategy”.   Our customers are at the heart of everything that we do and the latest way of reaching our customers is through social media.  MetLife has a Facebook page and a Twitter account however we currently lack a blog which could be a highly effective way of reaching out to our customers.   

In order to be more in tune with our customers and the issues they may be encountering, Executive Group members have been reaching out to customers and personally walking through their issues.  If EG members are individually reaching out to customers, a blog could also be a good outlet to reach our customers.  Customers can share both positive and negative feedback about the organization, while MetLife collects the information and contacts those customers to try to help them.   

Not only for customer feedback and response, a blog could also be a good way for the Company to explain a little bit about each of our products, who may be eligible for them and what might be required in order to apply for coverage.  This may be something that we already do on our website, however in this context customers could post comments about their experience with each product as well as any questions they may have.

After doing some research, I’ve realized that each and every blog post that MetLife would create is an individual web page with our information.  That would mean that each web page is an additional opportunity for search engines like Google and/or web users to find MetLife.  According to a chart on the website http://headwaythemes.com/why-blog-beginner-blogger/ the more indexed pages on Google, the more monthly leads a Company tends to receive.  Having multiple pages on a blog that are updated on a regular basis could cause a significant increase in the amount of customer traffic we see.

Lastly, one other feature that is different about a blog compared to other social media – it is something that MetLife owns and controls.  If, for some reason, Facebook or Twitter were to be shut down tomorrow, we would lose the information that we have on those sites, including any Friend Lists, Followers and information of the sort.  With a blog, the organization would not have to rely on other sites being available or causing us downtime if they are having issues.  We also completely control the layout, content and functionality of the site itself.

Overall, I feel that a blog is yet another way to get our Company’s name out there for web users to learn about our reputation, experience and history.  It is also another way for us to be more customer-centric, reaching out and listening to our existing customers while trying to earn more customers in the process.