The Risks of Business Blogs

Embrace the Blogosphere is a nice Click Z article by Mark Kingdon for any business considering blogs as a part of their marketing mix.  The upside to corporate blogs seems obvious to me, but I appreciate the candid discussion of the downside and the internal issues that need to be addressed.

This raises a lot of questions for us, as it would for any company. Most postings, but not all, are insightful. A few are politically incorrect. Should we control who posts? Should all posts be public? If so, do we need an editorial board to review them? If we edit the postings, does the forum lose its credibility and honesty? Should people outside the company be allowed to post? Can people post anonymously? What if someone inside the company critically reviews a prospective client's online experience? Is there any liability?

While there is always the opportunity for negative reaction to your companies product or service to be exposed via a company blog (Your Company Sucks), the real challenge seem to be internal management of issues, ideas, innovations and intellectual property that become public domain in the blogosphere.  It is a competitive world and the thought that competitors can look into your house and see your strengths and weaknesses exposed is a scary prospect.  Even scarier is when those same vulnerabilities are exposed to the masses and you are not at the table.

Thanks to Diva Marketing for the pointer.