For those of you who ventured into corporate blogging early on, you might have already read this book. It is not really new – it was published in 2006 – but still has retained much of the edge that it had when it first came out.

Written by Debbie Weil, the book’s full title is The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right. Indeed, this book not only provides you with the knowledge you need about corporate blogging but also gives you practical tips on how to do things the right way.

I like how Debbie opens the book with 20 questions that any corporate executive would probably have with regard to blogging. With this kind of opening, the book is perfect for the business man who has heard tons about blogging and yet does not really understand the whole concept. In this manner, Debbie provides quick knowledge and quickly eases the fear of the unknown at the same time.

It does not end there, however. The book provides in depth analysis of the issues that a business might face if it, indeed, decides to join the corporate blogging bandwagon. In addition to that, readers would find tools and ideas on how to go about the business of blogging for the corporate setting.

Just because something is not fresh off the press does not mean that it is old and outdated. The Corporate Blogging Book is a good place to start if you are still vacillating on whether or not blogging is the way to go for your business.

Assumption is the mother of all mess ups, so they say. I’ll go out on a limb here and assume that you have an idea who John Chow is. After all, he has been making huge waves in the blogosphere in the past few months. Now, just to make sure I don’t make wrong assumptions here, let me tell you a little bit about John Chow. He established The Tech Zone, which provides information on hardware news and reviews. He also established TTZ Media Network, which offers shopping and price comparison services for web publishers focused on technology. His site, John Chow dot com, gets an astronomical number of views each day as he offers a myriad of advice on how to make money online. Get the picture?

Just the other day, he posted an entry on his blog business structure. Though it is specific to his case (he lives in Canada), it could very well be useful for other bloggers who need advise on the matter of income through blogs and taxes. His main point is this: if you earn money through your blog, then you have to pay taxes on it. There is no doubt about that. He goes on to point out that in the eyes of the law, the person behind the blog is separate from the blog as a corporation itself. This, according to him, is the key to making some savings on taxes.

His entry does make a lot of sense and bloggers all over the world are realizing this. Though not everyone is a John Chow fan, you might be able to make use of the points he is presenting.

Everyone recognizes this name brand – Marks and Spencer is a high street retailer that has been around even before the Internet changed the models of many businesses. They have made it big and they know it. Yet the people behind this successful business are not content in resting on their laurels. In fact, they are open to the realization that times change and that with it, they could also make some adjustments.

Take for example what they did early last year – they focused their energies and creativity into strengthening their web presence. They may be a big business entity but they still gave huge importance to the strengthening of their online presence. It is true that they did not really focus on using a blog to do this, but the idea is similar – they restructured their already existing web site in order to increase sales.

What prompted them do work on this project? According to their figures, their online sales increased more than four times above their shop sales! Now this sort of increase cannot be ignored, no matter how big your business is. They, therefore decided to put more effort into online presence as it would translate into more sales for them.

How is this relevant to you? Whatever the size of your business may be, the guiding principles are the same. You want to increase your sales and hopefully one day become like Marks and Spencer. It is always good to look into what the big businesses are doing and learn from them.

Some people involved in business or corporate blogging have long wanted some sort of standardization or organization when it came to this particular activity. Reasons vary, of course, depending on the individual or group. Earlier this month, there was some activity regarding an organization for corporate blogging. Reactions have been mixed – some welcomed it although some just didn’t seem to care.

For your information, here is some information on the newly formed Blog Council. It is up to you what to do about it. I have pasted the press release from their own site:

The Blog Council, a professional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices in corporate blogging, officially launched today. Founding members include the leading companies from a diverse range of business sectors: AccuQuote, Cisco Systems, The Coca-Cola Company, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, and Wells Fargo.

The Blog Council exists as a forum for executives to meet one another in a private, vendor-free environment and share tactics, offer advice based on past experience, and develop standards-based best practices as a model for other corporate blogs.

“Major corporations use blogs differently while abiding by the same rules and etiquette,” said Blog Council CEO Andy Sernovitz. “Individual and small-business bloggers don’t face the same issues. For example, we still need to deliver a responsible and effective corporate message, but we need to do it in the complicated environment of the blogosphere. We have to speak for a corporation, but never sound ‘corporate.’ And we have to learn to do it live, and in real-time.”
Representing thought leaders from corporate departments as diverse as corporate communications, global communities, marketing and customer service, the Blog Council’s advocacy role functions as a collective voice in support of responsible, ethics-based corporate blogs. Other issues the Council will address include:

• How do global brands manage blogs in more than one language?
• What do you do when 2000 employees have personal blogs?
• What is the role of the corporate brand in a media landscape increasingly geared toward consumer-generated media?
• What is the correct way to engage and respond to bloggers who write about your company?

“Every major corporation is struggling with the question of how to use blogs and engage the blogosphere the right way,” said Sean O’Driscoll, General Manager, Community Support Services for Microsoft. “The Blog Council brings together precisely the people who need to explore these issues together, in a productive and private networking environment. We can work together to develop model policies that set the standard for corporate blogging excellence.”

In the last post, we talked about how important it is to befriend other bloggers. We talked about the importance of building your own social network of bloggers. For this post, let’s look at some details on how you can achieve this.

Communication
This is important in most any undertaking, but most especially when it comes to building your own social network. Bloggers always welcome comments. When you do get comments, however, do not just sit there and enjoy them. Make sure that you reply to these comments. You can do this in two ways – either e-mail or reply to the comment through the blog. You can even go one step further by writing a post on the comment. The important thing is that you make your readers know that you appreciate and value their comments.

Link, link, link
I am sure you browse other blogs a lot. If you stumble upon a blog that catches your interest and is, at the same, relevant to your own business blog, link! This will encourage to link to your blog as well.

List ‘em down
Actively look for blogs that are relevant to your own business blog. Do this on purpose – aimlessly surfing the Net is not the way to do it. Search for specific topics and then list down the blogs that you want to link up with. Make sure you visit them regularly and be active as well. Post comments, interact with the bloggers, and build relationships.

Who do you think your main readers are? If you answer is your customers, you just might be right. After all, that is your target, is it not? You want to reach out to your customers – both potential and existing – in order for them to know more about your company, your services or your products.

Yet have you thought about reaching out to a specific group – not in terms of whether or not they are customers or not? I am talking about the countless other bloggers – business, corporate, or otherwise.

The fact is that bloggers are one of the biggest groups that patronize other blogs. They know how it is like to maintain and promote a blog. They know what blogs contain and what their general goals are. As such, you should not isolate yourself from other bloggers.

In fact, it would be to the benefit of your blog – and thus your company – to establish relationships with other bloggers out there. This is what is called networking. You may call it what you like but the fact remains that your aim is to connect with other people who have other connections and so on.

This is what blogging is all about – getting the word out on your blog and getting the juice on other people’s blogs as well. If you do not communicate with them, then the chances are that your blog will die out – either slowly or quickly, but the end result is the same.

How do you make – and keep - other bloggers interested? Let’s look at these things in the next post.

If there is anything that business and corporate bloggers should know, it is that we should learn from those who are doing it and doing well. Ever heard of Nuts About Southwest? It is the corporate blog of the renowned Southwest Airlines. Their description:

Nuts about Southwest is all about our Employees, Customers, airplanes, and airports. We really are Nuts about Southwest and we hope that our Readers will share that passion by posting their own comments.

That in itself is quite encouraging and stimulating for their readers, isn’t it? You should make your About Page substantial and relevant with your readers – you can start with something like this.

More importantly, though, the blogging policy of Southwest Airlines includes the reviewing of each and every entry before it is posted. How does it work? So they have different bloggers coming up with their own posts. Before these are uploaded and published, one of their two top people in PR and communications takes a look at the written work.

It is nothing new, really. Most successful corporate blogs follow this in practice. It helps keep the blog in focus and avoids potential problems with regard to content (and the reaction it may elicit) in the future. More so, it goes to show that there is indeed protocol and there are processes that are being followed in the world of corporate blogging. You just don’t do it by slapping and dashing posts as you like.

How about you, do you review your business blog entries before they go live? I should hope so.

I came across this article on The Daily Herald today which caught my interest as its title was “Blogging is good business – if you have something to say.” Indeed, I was thinking to myself, this is so true. There are so many blogs out there – business and otherwise – that do not really seem to have something to say. There is no central theme or idea to the whole blog and this somehow takes away from the essence of the blog. This topic is somehow related to the last post – being focused when it comes to the theme of your business blog.

The columnist, Jim Kendall points out that the blogging fervor has somewhat died down these days. I would beg to disagree as it seems that more and more people are getting into blogging. However, it might be more accurate to state that the focus seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way.

Business blogs are more specific in their nature and objectives than personal blogs. That is why it is important that you, as a business blogger, determine what you want to convey to your readers; readers who might be existing customers or potential customers. The obvious point here is that if you run a business, your blog will be about your products or services.

However, there are probably countless other business blogs out there who are dealing with the same topic. So why should readers choose your blog over their blogs? Here is where your innovativeness comes in. You should be able to offer more – in different aspects. Your products and services should be cutting edge. More than this, you have to share your own insights – this is what will truly set you apart from other similar business blogs. In the end, if you have something to say, there will always be people who will want to read it.

What is knowledge management? It is the control and dissemination of information relevant to an entity with regard to the people within the entity. So if you are running a business – no matter how big or small – knowledge management is making sure that the right people have the right information at the right time.

How important is this? Imagine a scenario wherein your customer service representatives have different information from the current SOP of the company. What is going to happen if a customer asks them for help? It is bound to be a disaster.

There are different ways by which a business entity can manage knowledge and information within the ranks. One easy and cost effective way is through blogging. Now I am talking about internal company blogs as opposed to the business blogs that we normally talk about, which are open to the public.

Take for example, a situation wherein a new query from a customer arises. No one has handled such a query before. The representative who takes care of the situation can resolve it and document the process in the blog, making it easily retrievable by other employees who may need the information in the future.

More so, internal blog posts can serve as an interactive tool for employees. They can exchange thoughts and ideas regarding various issues and concerns. It opens up a venue for problem solving wherein limitless ideas can be exchanged.

Of course, you would have to instill some sort of control regarding posts as things might get out of hand. Still, this is easily implemented and the advantages far outweigh the potential risk.

Image from: MITRE

Small businesses can learn a lot from the big players in the business world. If you need more proof of how a business blog can help your own enterprise, read on to find out how Cisco Systems did it – and is doing it – blog-wise.

Let’s go back to when it all started, in 2006, when Cisco was caught in the middle of a PR disaster. They were being accused of messing around with their routers in order to pacify the Chinese government. Instead of using the traditional means of getting out information, they turned to the blogosphere to get their side of the story out. It all started there and now, Cisco’s blog network has expanded to way beyond the original plan.

So what can we learn from Cisco’s experience?

Think long term.
In life, short cuts do not always work. Success in blogging takes time. You cannot expect changes to occur overnight. Neither can you expect the results you are looking for in a short amount of time. You have to be prepared to spend time and effort on building up your blog.

Get your people involved.
Do not severely limit your people from participating in your blog. In Cisco, most anyone can blog. They merely have to apply to write for the blog. There is a blog team which then looks through the applications. Having more than one person blogging provides more input and also prevents a single employee from burning out. Cisco bloggers also need to follow a policy set by the company regarding blogging.

Make the blog part of company communication.
Remember Cisco suing Apple? They discussed the issue strongly and actively in their blogs. By doing so, they were able to get their side of the story out in the mainstream. In fact, using the key phrase “Cisco sues Apple,” their blog came out as the second search result in Google during that time.

Image from: Tech Shout