Blog Relations concerns using blogs to communicate with an audience. There’s two elements to that lofty objective. Firstly how you can reach out to bloggers who are of interest to your audience and secondly how your organization can communicate using your own blogs.
Corporate blogging, has to date, been primarily taking place in the technology industry, however the growing number of weblogs means that other industries will undoubtedly follow suit. It’s common sense for the employer and the employee to have some agreed guidelines to ensure that everyone is clear on what’s acceptable, in the same way that companies have formal e-mail and web usage policies.
(Aside: I am always surprised at the number of organizations who don’t have formal e-mail and web usage policies, if you don’t already have one you should consider it.)
The objective of these blog guidelines isn’t to stifle creativity or create a Big Brother environment, but rather to help staff and employers make use of blogging without any negative repercussions.
With Microsoft now boasting over 400 staff bloggers, it’s no surprise to hear that Sun Microsystems is planning to enter the world of corporate blogging. Tim Bray at Sun has published some common sense guidelines for Sun employees interested in kicking off a blog.
There are also a host of other guidelines and essays on the Web regarding Corporate blogging and if your colleagues are beginning to blog, it’s useful to try and agree some groundrules.
Here are some examples:
- Ray Ozzie – Guidelines for Weblogs at Groove (The original)
- George Dafermos – Corporate Policy on Employee Blogs
- Rebecca Blood – Weblog Ethics (General)
- Jorgen Thelin – My Personal Weblog Policy
Here’s some additional reading:
- BtoB Magazine – Corporate Blogs Make Personal Connection
- Nick Wreden – Ten Rules for Corporate Blogs
- The UK Guardian – Why Blogs Could be Bad for Business
- The NY Times – The Corporate Blog is Catching On (Free Subscription Required)
- Robert Scoble – The Corporate Weblog Manifesto
- Deborah Branscum – Blogging PR and All That
Footnote:
Thanks to Constantin Basturea for the link to Tim Bray’s guidelines.
Murphy's Law 