More thoughts on blogging in the org:
Bottom Up vs. Top Down Corporate Blogging:
As business blogging becomes more widespread, two main approaches have
emerged. There are bottom up bloggers and top-down bloggers - and then
there are a scant few companies who are in between. Each approach is
vastly different.
Bottom-up blogging can either start organically or with an edict or
blessing of the corporation. Famous bottom-up blogging corporations
include Microsoft and Sun.
Basically, this is blogging at its best. It's real employees dishing
out the straight dope from the bowels of a corporation. It's
unfiltered, fun and, for many, incredibly risky. However, when done
right, bottom-up blogging can change a corporation.
The majority of blogging companies, however, fall into the top-down camp. They devise a blogging strategy with input from execs,
communicators, marketers, HR, etc. They deliberately determine who will
blog for the company on what subjects at what time and in what place.
Famous top-down blogging companies include most major media companies, GM and Cisco.
In the middle are the blogging equivalent of hybrid cars - companies
that take a top-down approach but yet also already have or plan to
encourage bottom-up blogging. The most notable example here is Yahoo!
They have a terrific corporate blog that clearly is a strategic communications tool developed with guidance from Voce Communications. At the same time, however, they have a well-known bottom-up blogger in Jeremy Zawodny.
This week I have been on the road quite a bit pitching several big
companies on blogging programs. As I think about what I am working on,
most of it is top-down blogging. Ideally, I would love to get to a
place where I am working on hybrid projects where we coach a select
group of individuals to blog as part of a strategy but also figure out
how to leverage individuals in the company who are already using the
blogosphere to express their voice.
Given that very few companies are blogging, there probably are not that
many firms who can be hybrids. Still, I do think hybrid
blogging has perhaps the greatest PR potential. However, there's an art
to it. Advisers need to carefully mix organic blogging with stimulated
blogging into a powerful communications cocktail without over mixing the
drink. Still, I think all of these strategies have a place. What's your view?
(Via Micro Persuasion)