What is needed to develop a corporate blog?
Blogging Platform
Technology Choice – there are multiple blog systems available from Share point, to Word Press. You have to pick the blogging platform that makes the most sense for your company.
Audio/Video – the ability to convert audio and video assets into web friendly SilverLight or Flash formatting
Pictorial – the ability to Photoshop or manipulate pictures to correct redeye and other technical deficiencies
What level of management/departmental support is needed to operate a corporate blog?
Executive Management Buy In – Company executive management must support the project, and use the technology, a monthly blog entry written by the CEO or other executive sponsors would provide impetus and support for the project.
Legal Buy In – a full set of expectations, rules and regulations on what is appropriate for the corporate blog, as well as liability statements, and other guidance should be vetted by COMPANY legal before the blog goes live
Public Relations – the public relations department should be actively engaged in the blogging community to ensure that the blog is on target and on mission, as well as take ownership of any issues that might arise because of a blog article. Public Relations should allow bloggers to keep their natural voice and writing style.
Bloggers/Writers – volunteers should be sought from each department/division within COMPANY to contribute content. Bloggers can be offered compensation internally with prizes, awards for best blog article, and time to blog from work. Professional bloggers should be followed up with monthly to make sure that they have everything they need to be successful.
The Company – must be able to provide ownership of mistakes or bad public relations. A blog is watched by internal, external customers, as well as by competitors. Public Relations must have a script to go by not to bury bad information, but to clarify and correct. There are multiple examples of what not to do when dealing with information that should not be released, or is released that is not flattering to the company .
Ownership – the blog must clearly be a corporate blog, but must also have its own look/feel and audience. It should have its own graphic, its own style, and its own set of writers that are not on the main COMPANY web site.
Copyright – this is a quintessential question for Web 2.0, is the idea of copyright. The company should retain copyright of all blog entries for the initial publication, but allow for reuse, quoting with link back to source, as well as use of original video, audio, and pictorial assets on other blogs. All non-text assets should be branded with the COMPANY logo to show where it came from.
Reason for Blogging – the blog should not be a corporate front end, rather there should be a clearly defined business case for the blog. what are we doing, why are we doing it, what do we hope to gain by doing it, what is our audience, how do we maintain it, who owns it, what if any rules will be in place for post removal, who can blog, will there be a “new blogger mentoring program”, and how are we going to measure success? These are just some of the questions to ask when starting a corporate blog.
Privacy/Liability statements – the corporate blog should have clear links to their own liability and privacy statements.
Use of Supporting Networks
Use of Social Networks – in order to create buzz, social networks such as Reddit, Digg, Yasvs, Mixx, Facebook, and others should be used to promote and tie in to the corporate blog. The use of widgets, voting and recommendation systems will help expand the reach of the blog and show a progressive attitude towards blogging and the company.
Become familiar with the Corporate Blogging Council – this important resource covers most the good things to do and things not to do when developing a corporate blog.
Voice/Tenor – this is the most important of supporting networks, the voice of the blog must be natural, in the writers own voice and writing style. Consumers of web content will note PR Spin in a moment and invalidate the use of other supporting systems.
Meetings/meetups/Symposiums – members of the blogging team should go to national level blogging meetings, meetups, and symposiums not only to learn better blogging, but to make contacts with other corporate bloggers that can provide support, guidance, best practices, and other information as well as evangelizing the corporate blog.
Allow Comments – all blog entries should allow comments to gain information from readers, answer questions, and otherwise engage the reading public.
Recommended Procedural Guidance
The following practices for procedures should be incorporated into the corporate blog approval process.
• How much time can be spent blogging? How should staff balance this with the performance of other duties?
• Remind bloggers that they act as representatives of your company, albeit they write in their own names.
• Warn against posts that could potentially offend readers (e.g. obscene, threatening, abusive, sexually or racially offensive material).
• Forbid posting anyone else’s content without permission.
• Forbid posting anything that is confidential to the company. Guidance may be necessary – e.g. financial information or information about future projects.
There are also other corporate guidelines that can be incorporated into the process . These guidelines should be vetted against the corporate mission/vision statement and incorporated into the employee handbook.
Summary
There are multiple approaches to developing the COMPANY corporate blogging process. The biggest questions have already been answered by many years of corporate blogging examples and case studies. As well as executive advice, legal advice, and councils, that can provide support for developing a corporate blog.
The biggest internal issues are going to be use, writing, and ownership of the blog as well as liability and minimizing the liability of a corporate blog. Additionally, there will be issues finding writers, and this is where a blogger mentoring program can be supportive of new bloggers, as well as provide an increasingly larger pool of talented bloggers within the company.
The blog must have a clear purpose that meets the needs of the company, without sounding like a public relations press release. However, the benefits gained by having a natural voice blog to increase the visibility of COMPANY in the market place has obvious benefits that can not be gained by any other form of vehicle.
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