Corporate blogging or employee blogging is an emerging area of Public Relations.
It offers many benefits to the employer, from providing your audience with a human face to your organization to offering a valuable R&D outlet where in political parlance, you can “fly a kite” and see how people react to a new product or service idea.
Of course there’s a flipside. When you provide a more informal access point to your audience there’s the potential for issues a-la Friendster.
There’s a fine line here. If you insist that corporate blogs go through a rigid approval process, then the likelihood is that they will lose the very quality that makes them valuable – namely their individuality.
Steve Rubel notes that Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s highest profile blogger has instigated a media policy, where media interviews must be passed through the company’s PR firm Waggener Edstrom. Furthermore he’s posted an FAQ on the matter.
I see this as a very positive move.
Obviously the nature of business is that employees must be aware of the sensitivity of what they write. It’s a similar issue to what emerged when e-mail and web access became common place. Many people were concerned about the risks. In response most firms have an formal policy on the acceptable use of work e-mail.
Similarly, every organization should have guidelines in place for employees who wish to blog (Examples: Groove Networks, Sun Microsystems, George DaFermos).
Microsoft have clearly noticed that Scoble is a high profile blogger, who has a lot of interaction with the media. As a public company they have to make efforts to manage that element – as they would with ANY employee.
As long as Waggener Edstrom don’t become a bottleneck then I think this move is a good thing – and a further sign that blogs can provide an ideal platform for promoting your organization and your ideas. You don’t have to be a maverick to blog….
Murphy's Law 