Corporate blogging checklist

Thinking about launching a business Blog? Here are some questions to ask before you take the plunge:

• Can your organisation be totally transparent and open?
• Are you ready to respond openly to customer or employee dialogues, especially to negative entries?
• Have you identified and evaluated blogs in your market, and do you regularly monitor them?
• Have you agreed the objectives for a blog, the target audience, strategy and Content schedule?
• Have you understood the rules of blogging, set benchmarks and checked any legal liability or shareholder obligations?
• Do you need agreement from your IT department, CEO, MD or marketing director?
• Have you agreed target key words and a link strategy so you can maximise the search value of your blog?
• Have you developed a crisis management plan or created a rapid response team to deal with issues as they arise and before they snowball?
• Have you set corporate blogging guidelines agreeing tone and editorial policy, and selected and empowered your bloggers and allocated time for them to blog?
• Do your blog’s graphics, design, photos and copy reflect the brand?
• Does your blogging software make it easy for others to syndicate, link to, categorise and distribute your blog?
• Have you developed campaigns and integrated your blog into other marketing activities to attract visitors?
• Are you measuring the impact and monitory Links to and from your blog?
• Remember, if you aren’t ready to blog, think about alternatives such as RSS Feeds that can Reach out to people with news, job postings etc.