Over the last couple of days I’ve run across a lot of different pieces on corporate blogging. Not a new topic by any stretch of the imagination, but very interesting stuff. The Future Tense podcast (from American Public) I listened to this morning included some intelligent commentary from Forrester analyst Charlene Li who has her own blog. So I thought it might be worthwhile to capture some of what Ive seen and some of my own thoughts.
There is a presentation put out by Dublin-based Research and Markets entitled “Web Logs: Blog Threat Management “. Wow! What an absolutely alarmist title. Sadly, having worked at a very large company and knowing the mindset that tends to prevail therein, a presentation like this can foster a “batten down the hatches” mindset. Companies with little understanding of how blogs can work for them are likely to put policies in place that block them out. This also creates a policy hot potato about employee blogging about their employer during their free time as well.
Blogs are beyond the skill set of most PR professionals working in corporate environments from what Ive seen. The profession seems to have veered so far in the direction of damage control that the lockdown mentality prevails. Maybe somebody in the field can tell me otherwise, but my own experience indicates a real lack of the grasp of a dialog which a blog enables, and things like Sarbanes-Oxley has everyone on pins and needles.
PR professionals are going to need to learn new ways of doing their jobs. The world is changing, and blogging is a genie that is not going to be put back into the bottle. Customers (and employees) are blogging about your products, so if you really want to do good PR you can’t pretend blogging isn’t there. Companies don’t have the option of doing this badly.
In what looks to be a much more balanced perspective on corporate blogging, Forrester Research have issued their own report on the subject. From the executive summary:
Although Weblogs (blogs) are currently used by only a small number of online consumers, they’ve garnered a great deal of corporate attention because their readers and writers are highly influential. Forrester believes that blogging will grow in importance, and at a minimum, companies should monitor blogs to learn what is being said about their products and services. Companies that plan to create their own public blogs should already feel comfortable having a close, two-way relationship with users. In this document we recommend best practices, including a blogging code of ethics, and metrics that will show the impact of blogs on business goals.
While the summary doesn’t indicate whether or not it covers the topic of employees blogging, I would suspect it at least touches on the issue. I suspect that most employees would welcome either at least an internal blog to express some of their perspectives on company products, services or practices. An external blogging practice and review of how a company is covered on other blogs would provide a very powerful guide to help companies prioritize areas for improvement, while an internal blog can provide the means to make those improvements (also a great source of competitive intelligence). This approach also provides a channel for both customers and employees to be heard, which can go a long way to helping keep the conversation on a positive note. Done right, blogging also provides that additional visibility for shareholders which Sarbanes-Oxley was intended to deliver.
All of this assumes that a company really does want to improve its products and the level of customer service it delivers and cares about both employees and shareholders. A company that doesnt give a damn isnt going to gain anything from any blog no matter how well its done.
