Leadership

Lessons Learned in Corporate Blogging

By Jon Greer

Updated on: May 9, 2008 / 3:03 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

In brief:

Lessons learned in corporate blogging from LinkedIn's corporate blogger, who also links to a post by a blogger at EMC Corp. about their lessons learned

Face it -- if you don't already have a corporate blogging program, you're probably going to have one in the next couple of years. It's a little like the early days of the fax machine -- at first, people asked "why do I need one," but after awhile, the question changed to "how did I ever live without one?"

Maybe the biggest hurdle to starting a corporate blogging program is getting over the fear of the unknown. So take some advice from people who have traveled this path already -- here are some tips gleaned from corporate bloggers at LinkedIn and EMC Corp.:

Good in-house bloggers will rise to the top because they want to -- you can't force it
Have an internal corporate blog "playground" for people to get up to speed
Titles have nothing to do with who will be a good blogger, or for that matter, who will most effectively use blogging to further corporate objectives
Keep corporate sensibilities to a minimum -- we rail on this blog all the time about corporate-speak, and the point here is that no one wants to read a blog filled with corporate-speak or written by someone so constrained in what they can say. Create policies to limit damage, not to hinder creativity
Social media means "social": -- make sure you foster and encourage the conversation.