It's understandable businesses might be nervous about allowing their employees to maintain blogs. Decision makers contemplating a corporate blogging strategy might be tempted to throw their hands up in the air and ask rhteorically, "Is it really worth the risk?
For those who might be baffled by this and similar questions, it helps to know that you are not the first to face these questions, and you are not alone. In fact, you're in good company.
For a good case in point, check out a recently published article on CNet's news.com website. If you're considering an enterprise blog or are in the process of rolling one out, this article is a must-read.
CNet writer Ann Broache uses as a starting point the legal issues that Cisco Systems is facing after one of its employees was outed as an anonymous blogger. The article does a good job of driving home the significance of transparency, discretion, and delineation.
Transparency is ensuring that when employees post content related to their employer on the net, the employee clearly identifies him- or herself as an employee of that company.
Discretion means that employees don't disclose information that would compromise trade secrets, violate confidentiality agreements, or expose the company to further legal liability.
Delineation involves making clear what aspects of an employee's writings are representative of the company and which are the views of the employee alone.
The article also is valuable because it discusses how several large companies and organizations have dealt with this question. Links to corporate blogging policies and net conduct guidelines for companies such as Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Yahoo, IBM, Google, and the BBC are provided in the story. With big names such as these, the story serves as a great launching point for identifying blog best practices.
One of the best ways to ensure transparency, delineation, and discretion is to provide a common corporate blogging platform like Compendium Blogware. Employees get the ability to write original content while being clearly identified as a company employee. Compendium's post approval feature helps mitigate the risk of inappropriate content.
I've never met Jason Fried, and my life is a little empty because of it. Jason is one of the founders 37Signals, and his 
Setting goals for our customers may sound tricky, but we pull the rabbit out of the hat by focusing our clients first on their overall goals, then remind them how corporate blogging fits in. All of our clients are blogging for a purpose, and going back to that purpose gets our customers right back on track. More specific goals are then set; a simple one is post frequency. We know a direct relationship exists between frequently updated content and search engine rank. For enterprise blogs, content contributors must be involved in the process and understand the overall blogging goals the company has set. If you don't have engaged employees adding content to your blog on a regular basis, certainly the ability to meet your goals will slip away.
Here is one way I draw the distinction between leveraging business blogging for Search vs. a Social Network for Business.
For the most part people don’t want to subscribe to your business blog
and they don’t want to join your social network. Organizations that
think that a “build it and they will come” strategy should just set up
a group in Facebook, you will have a much higher likelihood of success
than trying to make “Your” thing a “destination” that people will
return to.
When thinking of Corporate Blogging, you have to think of the reality that people are only going to come once….they search and your job as an organization is to be standing in front of them when they reach the results page.
This is the highest value of corporate blogging
Any Questions? Corporate Blogging Software adds real tangible value.
finding local information) I of course suggested that the Small Businesses start Blogging as a solution….
