Corporate tool blogging
Recruiting.com makes an excellent point today about what happens when corporations go nuts on the filtering and start blocking out huge swaths of blogs- employees feel more free to mouth off, and the company becomes unable to see what’s being said about them.
Scoble scoffs at employee blogging policies that are more specific than “Be Smart,” but frankly, Scoble has the luxury of working at Microsoft, most of whose employees by definition are internet-savvy folk who are well aware of the risks of blogging about one’s employer.
The problem, of course, is that the idea of employees having the ability to share their opinions in front of a worldwide audience is scary to corporate PR departments. It’s not that PR departments are venal or clueless, it’s that branding and PR have always been about controlling your message, and suddenly every one of your employees potentially worldwide exposure for whatever they want to say about your company. Yikes!
Microsoft has actually handled it in a pretty good way- they’ve gone so far as to build blogging tools into their developer network sites and encourage their employees to blog. They’ve taken the Transparency tack, and it’s serving them well, brand-wise. GM is another company that is trying to use blogging for its benefit.
The challenge for companies is to get over the fear that accompanies lack of control. The reward is that saying, “We are confident in the quality of what we do and in the way we treat our employees,” is a powerful message in itself. Concerned that a few disgruntled employees (and no matter how good you are, there will always be a few) can torpedo the whole thing? How about a CEO blog? How about a blog from your internal recruiting department? How better to have your company recognized as a leader in its field than by sharing information about industry trends and predictions on a corporate blog?