How to keep blogs from scaring the hell out of people
Anil Dash at Six Apart (sellers of Moveable Type, and other blolgging software) suggests, in a post entitled, "How to keep blogs from scaring the hell out of people," that many blogging experts are scaring "the hell out of normal business people" with negative talk about blogs. Maybe my recent post, Top 10 Reasons Your Company Shouldn't Blog inspired him. Maybe not.
We're not anti-corporate blogging, we just think blogs are not the end all and the be all for every company. Most companies need to save the corporate speak and marketing crap for the annual report.
But for those who have the wherewithall for daily blogging, and something to say, here are some of our more positive posts about corporate blogging:
Actually, I wasn't directly inspired by either your negative or positive posts, but I would say that you're right about the challenges in doing daily content updates. For a lot of companies, though, daily updates aren't what's called for; A project blog on an intranet only needs to be updated when a new milestone has been reached. Many of the more intimidating points you raise in your Top 10 list only apply to public-facing blogs, or blogs that are designed as dailiy communication channels.
I think there's a role that blogs can play in complementing (for example) email newsletters, which gets a bit underpromoted in most current discussions.
About BL Ochman
Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations