Your corporate blog doesn’t need to be boring!

Most corporate blogs are bland and untrusted. This is not a reason to dismiss corporate blogs, but rather a clarion call to do them well.

There is no one way to do a corporate blog right. Among the good ones, some are penned by the CEO/executives (examples: AMD, Sun Microsystems), some by a group of employee bloggers that sometimes includes the CEO (examples: Southwest Airlines, Rubbermaid), some by a group of employee bloggers without CEO involvement (example: Transportation Security Administration). You’re not limited to these models; in fact, you can employ any approach that meets your needs as long as you adhere to some basic guidelines:

• Be strategic. Don’t blog because you need a blog. The blog should be aligned with your core business objectives. Consider creating a mission statement for your blog, even if you’re the only one who ever sees it.
• Post regularly. Infrequent posts don’t create community or attract new readers.
• Address controversy and bad news head on.
• Don’t pitch products or engage in happy talk; it’s not why anyone would read your blog.
• Don’t use your blog as another channel for news release distribution. If you have news, the blog is a great venue to offer perspective to your audience not available in the press release.
• Know your audience. If the blog is focused on customers, address customer issues or problems. If your company or its product(s) has fans, skew your blog to those fans.
• Accept comments (based on a comment policy). Address comments that need addressing, either within the comments section or with follow-up blog posts.
• Use a genuine voice. Avoid corpspeak. Nothing turns your network off more than formal speak and it’s even worse if it’s your blog.

If you are interested in looking at best examples in the industy, feel free to have a look at SocialText’s wiki for the Fortune 500 companies with blogs here.

Social Media is not a checklist.

Reminder: Social is not a check list. It’s a conversation. It doesn’t stop at the last checkmark.

I shared this on our internal IBM social network and it caught lot of attention, positive attention. It irks me to see social media managed like a typical campaign. It is not a checklist, or items on a to-do-list. Yes, it needs a coordinated framework to be successful and it has to be implemented and executed in a manner where it properly exposes your organization in a positive manner. Don’t get me wrong, there has to be a strategy in place.

However, it is not a check list. It doesn’t stop.
Focus on the conversations, engagement and you will see positive ROI.
Formalized framework with informal, personalized and social front end is the perfect balance.