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Revision as of 04:36, 27 March 2006

Blogging's Six Pillars

1. Publishable.
2. Findable.
3. Social.
4. Viral.
5. Syndicatable.
6. Linkable.

From Naked Conversations

Corporate Weblog Manifesto

1. Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If your competitor has a product that's better than yours, link to it. You might as well. We’ll find it anyway.

1. Post fast on good news or bad. If someone says something bad about your product, link to it—-before the second or third site does — and answer its claims as best you can. Same if something good comes out about you. It's all about building long-term trust. The trick to building trust is to show up. If you don't answer what people say, if you don’t show up, then you build distrust.

1. Use a human voice. Don't get corporate lawyers and PR professionals to modify your speech. We can tell, believe me. Plus, you'll be too slow. If you're the last one to post, the joke is on you. Don’t worry about having a messy blog from time-to-time. If we don’t see an occasional typo, we’ll start to wonder if you’re really human.

1. Make sure you support the latest software/web/human standards. If you don't know what they are, find out. If you don't know what RSS feeds are, find out. If you don't know what tagging is, find out. If you don't know how Google, Technorati, Feedster or Flickr works, find out.

1. Have a thick skin. Even if you have Bill Gates’ favorite product, people will say bad things about it. That's part of the process. Don't try to write a corporate weblog unless you can answer all questions -- good and bad -- professionally, quickly and nicely.

1. Seek out as many grassroots news resources as possible. In the technology world, that’s Slashdot. In politics, it might be Wonkette or Instapundit.

1. Talk to the grassroots first. Why? Because the mainstream press cruises weblogs looking for stories and looking for people to quote. If a mainstream reporter can't find anyone who knows about a story, that reporter’s organization cannot publish something trustworthy. People trust stories that have quotes from multiple sources. They don't trust press releases.

1. If you screw up, acknowledge it. Fast. And give us a plan for how you'll unscrew it. Then deliver.

1. Under-promise. Over-deliver. If you expect to ship on March 1, say you won't ship until March 15. Folks will start to trust you if you behave this way. Look at Disneyland. When you're standing in line, you trust their signs. Why? Because the line usually goes faster than its says it will (their signs are engineered to say that a line will take about 15 percent longer than it really will).

1. Know your gatekeepers. Know the mavens, salesmen and connectors of your marketplace. If you don't realize that Sue Mosher reaches more Outlook users than nearly everyone else, you shouldn't be on the Outlook PR team. If you don't know all of her phone numbers and IM addresses, you should be fired. If you can't connect to the gatekeepers during a crisis, you shouldn't try to keep a corporate weblog (And, they better know how to get hold of you since they often know when you're under attack before you do -- for instance, why hasn't anyone from the Hotmail team called me yet to tell me what's going on with Hotmail and why it's unreachable as I write this?).

1. Never change your weblog’s URL. I've done it once and I lost much of my readership and it took several months to build up the same reader patterns and trust.

1. If your life is in turmoil and/or you're unhappy, don't write. When I was going through my divorce, it affected my writing in subtle ways. Lately I've been feeling a lot better, and I notice my writing and readership quality has been going up too.

1. If you don't have the answers, say so. Not having the answers is human. But, get them and exceed expectations. If you say you'll know by tomorrow afternoon, make sure you know in the morning.

1. Never lie. You'll get caught and you'll lose credibility that you won’t get back.

1. Never hide information. Just like the space shuttle engineers, your information will get out and then you'll lose credibility.

1. If you have information that might get you in a lawsuit, see a lawyer before posting, but do it fast. Speed is key. If it takes you two weeks to answer what's going on in the marketplace because you're scared of what your legal hit will be, then you're screwed anyway. Your competitors will figure it out and outmaneuver you.

1. Link to your competitors and say nice things about them. Remember, you're part of an industry and if the entire industry gets bigger, you'll probably win more than your fair share of business and you'll get bigger too. Be better than your competitors -- people remember. I remember sending lots of customers over to the camera shop that competed with mine and many of those folks came back, saying, "I'd rather buy it from you, can you get me that?" Do you remember how Bill Gates got DOS? He sent IBM to get it from DRI Research. They weren't all that helpful, so IBM said, "hey, why don't you get us an OS?"

1. Be nice to everyone. When a big fish comes your way (like IBM, or Bill Gates) you do whatever you have to do to keep him happy. Personally, I believe in being nice to EVERYONE, not just the big fish. You never know when the janitor will go to school, get an MBA, and start a company. I've seen it happen. You never know who'll get promoted. I've learned this lesson the hard way.

1. Be the authority on your product/company. You should know more about your product than anyone, if you're writing a weblog about it. If there's someone who knows more, you damned well better link to them (and you should send some goodies to them to thank them for being such great advocates).

1. Know who is talking about you. Using services like Technorati, Feedster, or Pubsub it’s easy to see who is talking about you.

1. Be transparent. Show you have nothing to hide. Blogging is a great way to build strong relationships with other people, and nothing builds trust and confidence like someone who demonstrates they aren’t hiding anything.

1. Build relationships offline too. Online relationships are loosely coupled. Put strain on them and they disappear. But, if people get to know you face-to-face then they’ll stick by your side more often than not. It’s why we spend so much time at blogger meetups and conferences.

1. Disclose all conflicts and biases. Is someone paying you? Tell your readers, even if you don’t think it affects your writing. Being transparent with your readers about your conflicts and/or your biases will help you remain credible. Own stock in a company you write about? Disclose that! Got a free product to try out? Tell us! Get taken to dinner by a company or a person because of your blog? Write about it.

1. Don’t blog on demand. Is your marketing department demanding you write about something? Push back. Your blog is your own. Tell them to get their own blog if they think they have something people need to know. Always make sure it’s you saying something, not someone else. You are responsible for the content that goes on your blog.

1. Keep confidences. If someone says, “this is not for your blog” before telling you something don’t write about it. Word gets around if you aren’t trustworthy. On the other hand, set the ground rules up front for any conversation. It’s not fair for people to give you a demo and afterward say, “you’re not going to put this on your blog, are you?”

1. Be clear when you’re speaking for your company. If you’re writing a personal blog, there are times when the company might want you to write something on it. If that happens, be very clear about when roles change. Also, when you’re writing about company stuff, but it’s your own opinion, it’s a good idea to say “this is my opinion” or some other similar qualifier to make sure your readers understand the information isn’t vetted or approved.

1. Be careful with legal issues. Commenting on legal issues is very risky. Things like discrimination, ongoing lawsuits, employee actions, patents, are potentially career threatening issues. Be equally careful with culturally sensitive issues and politics. We’re not saying don’t write about them, just be very careful. Remember that blogs are read worldwide by people who might not see things the way you see them.

1. Demonstrate passion. Post frequently.

1. Respond to your readers. Read your comments, and check your referrer log frequently and link back to those who are talking to you. Link to others, they will return the gesture.

1. Be ethical. Read and follow Charlene Li’s, , and Allan Jenkins, ethics policies. They are quite good and will help you avoid ethical dilemmas.

1. Realize that you don’t have free speech. If you are identified as a member of a corporation, what you write reflects on the entire corporation. Your writing probably will be judged under different legal standards for corporate speech. Especially if you’re a company executive of. You must be extra careful to be accurate in product claims.

1. Talk to your managers about blogging before you start. Have a conversation with your manager about blogging before you start and find out what kinds of blogging he or she will defend.

1. It is always risky to attack the boss. Do it sparingly. We’re not saying don’t do it (we have, and have lived to see the next day, so we know it can be done and sometimes to great effect) but do it with your eyes open and expect backlash.

1. If you want to change the world want to change something about the world, ask yourself “how will I best get the change I want?” Realize that it’s easier to change your company from inside than outside.

From Naked Conversations Blog