The Corporate Blog Manifesto Update

This is a guest post from one of the great Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketers on my team, Don Nelson. He often has insightful emails and this time I asked if I can post it on my blog.

Quick background - this email was actually a response to someone who sent a link out to Robert Scoble's post from 2003, "The Corporate Weblog Manifesto" and I thought it was worth sharing so here you go:

Just in case you jump right into the content and not see the date of this posting.....Scoble wrote this in 2003 which pretty much makes it a dinosaur in Internet time. However, there are still good points to be made here in 2009.

My take is this....

1. Tell the truth: always always always. If you're not sure, best to leave it out of your writing all together.
2. Post fast on good news or bad: it is after all about communicating with our customers and the influencers in the many markets and industries we now play in.
3. Use a human voice: we're all on the honor system of sticking to corporate and ethics, so hopefully you know which lines not to cross.
   
4. Make sure you support the latest sw/web/human standards: technically, not so much these days with our Blog platform. we already have RSS and try to instill the proper use of keywords for search engine optimization.
5. Have a thick skin: opinions and elbows - everyone has them and they will use them so be prepared for all manner of responses to your writing
6. Don't ignore Slashdot: there is much more beyond just Slashdot these days. we do keep social media monitoring in our pockets and try to do as much as we can with what we've got to help guide you in the conversations out there.
7. Talk to the grassroots first: base your writings on established concepts and leadership and you should be fine. It doesn't hurt to know or build relations with a broad range of sources that you can read and interact with via your blog but know that PR is also handling relation building here too.
8. If you screw up, acknowledge it: as clear as it can be word for word
9. Underpromise and over deliver: excellent strategy and should be used at every opportunity
10. If Doc Searls says it or writes it, believe it: I had to look him up so I'm thinking so did you there are many "experts" so I'd extend this to those you know based on level of influence you think they have in any particular market.
11. Know the information gatekeepers:
12. Never change the URL of your weblog
    
13. If your life is in turmoil and/or you're unhappy, don't write: true. unless you can turn the turmoil/unhappy experience into something that relates to your company fixing it for you!
14. If you don't have the answers, say so: same as #1 and #8, true to the last word
15. Never lie: see #1, #8 and #14
16. Never hide information: disclose disclose disclose where appropriate or just don't write about it
17. If you have information that might get you in a lawsuit, see a lawyer before posting, but do it fast: similar to #1, #8, #14 and #15, when in doubt leave it out of your writing or pursue our legal contacts if unavoidable.
18. Link to your competitors and say nice things about them: true to an extent. now partners and ecosystem partners, they should be acknowledged/credited when it directly impacts your writing.
19. BOGU (Bend Over and Grease Up): true also to an extent. more simply stated, if someone comments on your writing, treat them all as if they are VIPs
20. Be the authority on your product/company: you are all experts, but do pay proper respects to whom you know and/or reference in your writing.
    

Building an Online Personality

When it comes to building an online personality we can all learn from the success of Amanda Congdon. This 'badass white girl' has her own daily 3-minute web-based newscast with an audience of more than 300K visitors per day (that's more viewers than some cable TV shows)!

How does she do it? I think the secret is a little bit of humor, a willingness to be edgy but most importantly, a candor that is more Daily Show than 20/20. This takes me back to the bible of social marketing where you can find validation here, “learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about 'listening to customers.' They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf."

This is where the younger generation trumps the older - they haven't been brainwashed with corporate talk and forced to go through an 'approval' process before anything leaves the corporate walls. Up until now we have all been trained to keep a zipped lip when it comes to any flaw or inaccuracy in our messaging but in a transparent world that simply doesn't work. The truth is coming out whether we want it to or not – better to be in that conversation than outside of it.


Adjusting to this new culture won't happen overnight but it will is happening. Denise Caruso, author of Intervention and speaker at Supernova says it best - 'social media is risky but it's riskier not to try.'

Who let the engineers out?

Going back to the Sun / Java FX example shared at Supernova where the product wasn't all that it was promised to be in the eyes of the developer community, Sun handled it right by letting the engineers join these conversations. They were able to admit that they agreed the product wasn't where it needed to be and were able to also share their roadmap and explain positioning. It soon went from a conversation between angry customers and a shifty vendor to a conversation between two people and miraculously the conversation became civil again - wow this stuff really works.

Do you think the rest of the corporate world can learn from that example and let loose like Sun did? I am still hopeful...