Over at the Earthling blog Dave asks just how much a corporation should blog. Specifically Dave was talking about employees blogging on behalf of the company. There are some great thoughts in the comments, but I wanted to expand on things a bit more.
Earthlink's issue is how they should roll out blogging to the staff. We're not talking form a technical standpoint (that's another post). What we're talking about is from a strategic perspective. The desired result is to have a number of employees blogging in their areas of expertise, ultimately joining the conversation that's going on out there and dare we say humanizing the company.
One issue is that some of the employees already have active blogs elsewhere and you can't really say to them, "Hey why don't you move your blog to our new corporate blog network". Think about Scoble, he had Scobeizer before, during and after his Microsoft tenure. It's his brand. Compare that to the Microsoft employees that blog under the MSDN Blogs domain. Also, when you write for a number of similar blogs you're constantly battling with, 'which blog should I post this on?'
Getting back to the main question though, how much blogging? What's a good mix? Fifteen percent of the workforce? Five percent? Who decides which employees get to blog? Can anybody sign up or do you have to present a business case? How much time is allowed for blogging? Do we use Google's 20% rule?
Within a traditional corporation you could easily have bloggers writing about subjects such as:
Public Relations/Marketing
Human Resources
Logistics
Finance
Technology/IT
Community Involvement
Customer Relations
If a corporation the size of Earthlink had say 25 bloggers all blogging in specific content areas I think they could easily represent the company on the blogosphere. Could they have more? Sure, but what happens when you get crossover? I think it would be a waste of resources for a corporation to have say 10 people all blogging about public relations.
We might be talking about a whole other level of corporate politics. "Sorry Steve, we just don't need another blog about gadgets, why don't you blog about parenting?"
Talking with Dave Coustan of Earthlink he says one of their goals would be to allow employees to have a number of blogs if that's what they want. One corporate, under the Earthlink banner, and any other personal blogs they might also write. This allows a degree of separation, between work and personal life. However I think that the separation is a bit of a fallacy. This is nothing against Earthlink, but I think that it's hard for somebody to say, 'That's my work blog and this is my personal blog and they don't cross over'. If all the blog posts are public, any blogger or journalist is able to connect the dots if they want.
There is no absolute number/answer for the question, "How much corporate blogging?" I think the answer is unique to each situation. Perhaps the percentage rule is a good baseline, but ultimately it needs to relate back to your corporate culture. Have you always been a company that 'talks' to outsiders? if so, then go for it. If you're not the talking type take it slow to start with.
Visitor Comments
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on all of this, Josh. To clarify, the goal of supporting the idea that one could have a 'work' blog and a personal blog is something that I'm advocating, not EarthLink. We're in ongoing discussions on this internally, and we have a new policy coming out shortly but that's about it for now.
My feeling on individuals keeping multiple blogs is that it should be totally up to the individual. As a corporation, you(I?) wouldn't be asking individuals to move their blogs to your platform; you'd be offering them the ability to keep a separate blog for work if they so chose. If they wanted to include their own blog in your aggregation, I for one would be fine with that. It's less about telling them to move and more about offering everyone a blog on your company's platform if they want it.
I do think that could help with adoption. In my opinion and in my case, it makes it easier to blog about your company if your company gives you a place to do it that's understood as "theirs" as much as yours. If I didn't have Earthling, I don't know if I'd write about the company on my own other blogs. If you blog about the company in your own space, then it obviously increases the likelihood that your company will read everything you write all the time. They could always do so anyway, and might find your blog even if you didn’t want them to (and will if they decide they need to), but this makes it more likely. I like having the option of keeping thematically different identities if I choose to do so. But it's a complicated discussion once you start getting into it from either side.
Posted by: Dave Coustan | August 28, 2006 11:00 AM
I really liked what you had to say about the companies giving the option of having a company blog and a personal blog. I agree that there isn’t much difference in content or formality. A blog is essentially an online journal, whether you are blogging about personal things or professional things is up to you but I would bet that it’s going to crossover a lot, so why not just have one?
I think that the number of people that you have blogging in your company should depend on the total amount of people in that company and in all the different departments. Maybe on your company page you have different blogs for each department and then leave it up to the department to decide who blogs when and why and for how long. Blogging can be handled in so many different ways that a company that is just coming into blogging should do their homework and look at other sites and styles, then adapt something that fits into what their goals are as a company. The more they know prior to jumping into the blogosphere the better off they will be in the long run.
Posted by: Michelle P | August 28, 2006 3:29 PM