Denise Shiffman’s Engage Daily Blog

I regularly advise companies to start their new media foray with a blog. Not because I think blogs are a universal panacea. But more for the reason that a well-done, strategic blog forces a company to see what social media is about and what it takes to do it well. And a successful blog creates an open conversation with their audiences that was previously unlikely or impossible.

Although blogging software is free or fairly inexpensive, designing a high quality look and feel that is aligned with the corporate identify can cost significant dollars. Moreover, it takes time to plan and write original, interesting blog posts every week. Social media seems simple on one level, but time is money, and social media is time-intensive.

I like corporate blogs because they force executives who are still accustomed to formal corporate communications to get comfortable showing more of their personalities and revealing more about their company. They also learn to embrace interactions with readers who may say things the company often spends a lot of energy trying to keep a “secret.”

Blogs can help executives to think differently about corporate communications. But interestingly, many companies who encourage employee blogging have missed the point. HP has 60 blogs none of which is focused, original, personal or revealing. Most HP employees or executives who have started a blog don’t post regularly so their blogs don’t have a chance to gain momentum.

Why you shouldn’t start a corporate blog? I couldn’t say it any better than BL Ochman’s recent post on the subject.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 8:21 am and is filed under Blogging, Social media. 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.