Using Narrative Analysis For Business Blogging Strategy

When developing a corporate blogging strategy I think it is important for blog managers to review the blogs of people in their community to understand what themes and ideas are important.

In chatting with Dr. Michael Cornfield for my book on corporate blogging, Michael was formerly a senior research consultant to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, who developed the Pew study, “Buzz, Blogs and Beyond: The Internet and the National Discourse in the Fall of 2004,” suggested that narrative analysis is useful for an understanding of the stories told within a community. While narrative analysis can take a lot of time to implement I believe corporate blog managers and community managers should use some of the concepts within the technique in order to develop an effective corporate blogging strategy.

Here's a definition of narrative analysis.

"Narrative analysis is analysis of a chronologically told story, with a focus on how elements are sequenced, why some elements are evaluated differently from others, how the past shapes perceptions of the present, how the present shapes perceptions of the past, and how both shape perceptions of the future."