Business Blogging Scenario: Lifting off a Corporate Blogging Program

This one potential scenario plan is for a group of individuals in a corporate setting that agree that business blogging is important, (Although others may not agree) and need a plan to kickstart the process.

Since I’ve been through it in a corporate environment, I’m always willing to help others.

Continue listening
Use all listening tools, technorati, sphere, google blog search, google alerts, talkdigger, and other tools to listen to the voice of the customer. Really, really know what people are saying as when you blog, their voice will connect with your business blog. All though advanced techniques, think about all the things you’ll need to monitor. Also read ‘how to listen to the voice of the customer”

Seek High Level Sponsorship
Socialize why the voice of the customer is so important, and why keeping your company in this conversation is important to stay relevent. Tell your upper management why this medium is helpful as it could save time if used correctly, has a long reach, and is very low cost. Make an agreement for at least 6 months support for a trial program –and you’ll benchmark the success.

Understand the Two-way Medium
Take a look at the tools, perhaps setup a practice blog (on a different subject) and get to know wordpress or movable type/typepad. Learn how trackbacks, comments, RSS, feedreaders all work. It makes sense to setup a practice blog as this is a dialogue, not only a diary.

Selecting the right bloggers
For many companies, allowing all employees to blog is not a reality. I already wrote about how to select the right corporate blogger, I would suggest that you have a ‘testing’ process where blog hopefuls will email proposed blog text once a week for a month. I’ll bet the wash out rate is 50% due to time, writing style, and commitment. (Edit: Brian and I just had a conversation, and in the long run, I believe all employees will be allowed –as the next generation of workers will be blogging before we hire them. Companies that don’t allow blogging will have a difficult time hiring)

Prepare Tools
In the meantime, your web technical team should be selecting the right tools, preparing to setup analytics, technorati, and feedreaders, and provide training for the bloggers.

Kickoff
Kickoff the business blog, not with a lot of fanfare, but quietly. Let is build organically and naturally with your community.

Other Resources

• Go to a blog conference (There are many, but business blog summit is a good start)
• Get business blog books
• Read blogs
• Read “How to be a corporate blog evangelist“
• Read: “Business blogging tips and points“
• Read: “List of corporate blogs at the Fortune 500 list”
• Explore more!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 4:38 am and is filed under Community Marketing, PR, Social Media, Voice of the Customer, Web Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.