Setting Up a Corporate Blog: Easy as 1,2,3

By Ryan Turner | 0 Comments | Posted in in Marketing , User Experience | Permalink

Like anything worth doing, setting up a corporate blog is difficult. There are numerous issues to work through, from technological to legal—not to mention selling blogging through the gauntlet of marketing, PR, and executive circles in the first place, no small feat in many corporate contexts.

Without a doubt, the biggest challenge in creating a corporate blog is to secure active participation and engagement from authors who can contribute great content.

Still, there are some steps you can take to increase the likelihood of a your blogging program succeeding. Here it is, the three-step breakdown! (Is there anything that can't be turned into an "easy as 1,2,3" blog post?)

Step 1: Cultivate Content Authors

Identify a core group of blog contributors, and get them engaged. To the extent possible, formalize their blogging efforts as part of their jobs. Give them public recognition.

Remember, the best people to blog aren't the people with the words "Director of" in their job titles. This is a common mistake--but directors, managers, VPs and the like are busy, and they often aren't as engaged with the work practice as they are with leading and managing. They're probably the people least likely to blog consistently. However, they're probably the people who are best qualified to help you identify the real contributors.

What you're looking for are people with two key qualities: Passion for the work, and comfort expressing themselves in writing.

Stay in constant touch with your core group. Send them links. Ask them for their opinions. Give them ownership.

But don't let the core group become an exclusive group. Extend the invitation to contribute as broadly as you can. Actively solicit contributions from new authors--you never know who might catch fire and become a consistent contributor.

Step 2: Create an Editorial Calendar

What we're talking about here is not a proscriptive list of posts you'd like to have written, but an "inspiration list" of topic ideas to help contributors think of stuff to write about.

Get your core group together, and brainstorm a list. This early conversation will help get everybody on the same page about what kinds of things will be included in the blog. You should emphasize the opportunity to address a breadth of topics and stress the freedom of individual authors to take their writing in any direction they feel is appropriate.

Show your core group a couple sample posts from blogs you like, including both short and long posts. Emphasize that a wide range of posts is desirable--folks should be think about their effort as more akin to writing an email than writing a white paper, but a few white-paper level posts won't hurt a thing.

Step 3: Develop Guidelines, Policies, and Processes

Editorial guidelines are about communicating your requirements as clearly as possible to authors. It's about helping them understand the legal and ethical requirements, and it's the place to communicate the line between appropriate and inappropriate content.

Your policy, on the other hand, is a legal document. Have a lawyer help you with it. Publish it on your blog. There are some specific requirements about copyright, privacy, and so forth that you need to address.

In terms of process, you need to figure out what level of editorial support you'll provide authors. At a minimum, it's a good idea to approve posts before publishing them, so at least two sets of eyes confirm every post's compliance with your policies. At the other end of the spectrum, highly-engaged editorial support can make it easier for authors to crank out content while ensuring high quality--and don't worry, a good editor won't dampen the individuality of your authors' voices.

Lastly, create an explicit policy for moderation. You need clearly-communicated rules about what comments can be published, and you need to enforce the rules consistently and transparently. I encourage you to think very liberally about publishing critical comments.

That's it. A very boiled-down step-by-step to get started. For more, I recommend you pick up The Corporate Blogging Book. I've just started reading it, but it's good and very thorough.