by aussiegall
Building Your Blogging Corps:
[Via A Journey In Social Media]

Most of these posts have been around how we’re rolling out the platform, getting communities to form, justifying, and so on.

And, as I was thinking about things the other day, I realized I hadn’t exposed all of you to another major theme of what we’ve been working on — building a corps of proficient, outside-the-firewall bloggers doing so on behalf of the corporation.

And, once again, I think we’ve hit upon a pretty good approach — one that I don’t see being employed too much by other companies.

So — let me share.
[More]

And what he shares is very valuable. One of the key points is that good bloggers are not picked by the organization. They pick themselves. The key to having a group of excellent bloggers is to find those people who are excited by the approach and getting them onboard.

He also makes the point that the fear of bad things happening is overblown in his experience, particularly when compared to the good things that happen. The best approach may be to set a few guidelines and let the group work it out.

Most people are self-regulating here because it is open and people can see what they write. A light touch by the corporation seems to work best.

Another novel idea is to use in-house blogging as a sandbox to allow people to learn how to become better bloggers before giving them the opportunity to blog externally. They can learn without having the pressure of millions of people possibly reading them. They can get useful and focussed feedback this way.

Then there is this point, something I have also heard and makes absolute sense:

The other view is at the individual level: everyone who’s blogging for the company will say — unequivocally — that it’s helped them dramatically in their careers.

Everyone knows who they are. Their points of view are widely known and acknowledged. They find that the practice of blogging not only makes them better communicators, but they have far more to say than before.

It’s that Big Career Promotion you do for yourself …

Many people do things to help that are invisible. Answering someone’s question or pointing someone in the right direction may have a huge impact but is often not recognized by the organization. But a blog is pretty public and the help provided by it is much easier to document. It really can be a Win-Win for everyone involved.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0