In our Five Starter Moves[93] discussion so far, we've talked about framing the idea to our organization and about listening/hearing. Now, let's talk about blogging.
I ask this question because I believe most people advising organizations about social media go straight for a blog as their first option. I'm going to step out and say that maybe a blog isn't a good first choice. Why? Because I think that blogs are fairly substantial steps and that an organization might feel really exposed if its first attempt at clearing its throat is an onstage a cappella moment in front of thousands.
Why not start with a tumbleblog or a posterous account? In fact, an organization could even do a stealth trial of the feel of blogging by doing a few throwaway tumbleblogs that aren't about the organization. Start with something that appeals to those who might be asked to blog. If they're into Texas hold 'em, cool. See if you can get them to post once every few days about poker.
Find some blogs that you'd want your organization to emulate in tone, style, and/or content, and subscribe to those in the reader, too (at this point, you might consider adding some folders to the reader, one for "listening" and one for "blogs"). Add a mix of related business blogs and maybe even some fun blogs to read, like poker blogs (to use my previous example).
Blogging is fun, empowering, and a great way to build the face of an organization, but it's also some people's version of standing naked onstage. Ease them into it. Give them a chance to get comfortable, then break out blogging.
I advocate blogging inside the firewall (privately), as well as having a public-facing blog. The internal blogs make a great way to share and compare knowledge, and now that your company is full of professional RSS listeners, they can learn quickly the benefit of using a blog instead of e-mail for information sharing.
Back outside the firewall, facing the public space, your organization will want to be able to use its voice and talk about what matters to it. Some companies, such as Sun and Microsoft, have tons of company blogs, several written by engineers and people in the trenches. Blogging is not the responsibility of the marketing/communications team or the CEO. It's the responsibility of those who should be sharing their voices to open up the conversation to the company.
This isn't very important in the scheme of things, but I'll put in a plug for WordPress as being simple, configurable, and non-threatening. Hosting a copy of the application on your own site makes it a lot more configurable, but if that's an issue for IT reasons or because of some other roadblock, there's a free, hosted version, too.
Other platforms you can check out in the free and hosted camp are Blogger,[94] TypePad,[95] Vox,[96] and then about a gazillion others. As I said: It's not especially important, except in understanding the level of customization you want at your disposal.
If your organization has been reading other blogs that you've recommended, or blogs in your space, you should start to get a sense of what's important. From there, I'd recommend just trying it out. Post something. See what happens. See how people respond or not (comments should be enabled).
At www.chrisbrogan.com, I tend to talk about things on two levels: I start with a simple strategy and then finish with some actionable ideas. I call this notion "giving your ideas handles." Meaning, I want you to take what I share and apply it to your own needs, to make it your own. It's a great strategy for me, because it keeps people engaged, and it is, I hope, most often helpful.
There are tons of ways to start the conversation. Don't bog down on that. Just try something and see what happens. With that said, read what follows.
Here are some easy land mines to avoid:
It's okay to remove potty talk and unruly trolls from your blog's comments section. (Lots of people follow this rule: "If I wouldn't allow it in my living room, I won't allow it on my blog.")
But don't delete comments that criticize you, provided the people stay civil. This is just begging for a brawl. It's considered in poor taste. Besides, that's one part of blogging: understanding what people think of you. If you can't learn from your critics, where are you getting all your advice? Only from fans who rave about you?
Don't repurpose other people's content without appropriate permissions. Learn about the Creative Commons and understand the difference between RSS making it easy for people to consume content and making it easy for people to steal content (a hot button with creative types).
Don't just post press releases and marketing junk into a blog. No one will read them, and things will go "ghost town" quickly.
Try to keep your blog open to more than just pitching yourself, your organization, and your services. It's your place, so you can do what you want, but if it's just a big fat ad, it will get boring, fast.
Sounds like there are lots of negatives to this blogging stuff, huh? Not exactly, but there are lots of ways to make a crummy first impression, and I wanted to cover all those.
Blogging, when you're comfortable with it, is a great way to keep people in the loop about what matters to you. It's a great way to represent your organization. It's a wonderful way to share information back and forth, especially once you start learning from experiencing other people's blogs.