Does your company or organisation have it in it to blog?

Thinking of starting a blog? First ask yourself would your organisation or company benefit from having a blog? Yes?

OK. But do you have what it takes?

Do you really want to engage in a dialogue with your customers?

Most companies when they engage in PR forget that their customers are people. If you have a business blog your readers and want to engage with another person.

As Forrester Research’s Li and Bernoff (writers of the book The Groundswell ) says:

‘…blogging is personal and requires much effort.’

I surely can attest to that. The best bloggers are the ones with the biggest drive to want to say something.

Not only should you have somebody in your organisation that wants to blog. Your company should ask itself if you have somebody that knows enough about the your business, and that is senior enough to engage truthfully and give a voice to the blog?

Giving the job to a junior PR staffer often won’t do. Your readers will see through the inevitable shallow marketese they will produce. Jacob Nielsen’s research has shown that the web has spawned an environment which is intensely allergic to marketing speak.

Blogs are the pinnacle of this culture of straight talk. If your company blogger is a minnow chances are they won’t sound authoritative or believable.They will not feel confident to talk straight.

Some companies have CEO’s or senior executives that are quite opinionated about the area in which your company operates. Perfect.

Sometimes companies have several complex products. In these companies senior designers or product managers are well placed to blog about the product with passion and intimate knowledge.

Blogging is more than writing. You have to listen to whats out there on the net. Visit related blogs and social sites like YouTube and Flickr, and see what is the current conversation in the area that you operate. Good bloggers have to be a bit of a news junkie – at least in respect of your area of expertise.

Your blogs must have comments. It has to, otherwise its not part of the conversation people have come to expect. These comments need to be monitored and responded to.

Lastly, you have to be honest. People expect genuine opinions. Which is why having a junior person or a person far removed from the product in an organisation, be responsible for blogging, is setting yourself for failure. Without authority it’s very difficult to be honest.

Responding honestly, even about a failure, boosts your blog and companies’ credibility.