Corporate Guidelines for Using Blogs and Forums

Blog Posting

Blogging is an open and transparent process between a blogger and their audience; the process of blogging is really all about interacting with an audience, and entering into a conversation.

Selecting a blogging policy and guidelines to set the level of interaction between a company blog and its readers will help you to avoid bad publicity and diminished credibility. The new world of consumer-generated media requires an understanding of both how to react to customer comments and blog posts, and how to research and write your own blog posts. Taking the time to think about every post before you publish will save you embarrassment and public criticism. It's important that an employee consider his obligations to his employer and colleagues when an employee writes on a blog, even if the blog posting is on the employee's corporate blog or his own personal blog.

Listed below are some issues that will help a company in the process of developing their corporate blogging policy. Use these issues as a starting point to develop your own corporate blogging guidelines.

The blogger's or company's opinion? - Even if a blog is clearly branded as being associated with a company, it's important to come to a decision as to whether the views expressed on the corporate blogs are the personal opinion of the bloggers rather than representing the views the company. Though in some ways it actually may be safer to not include the personal opinion statement and have a discussion with bloggers that they are representing the company's views. If blogs were ever closely associated with a company brand, then readers will assume that what ever is published by an employee is the opinion of the company. Where the corporate blogs are strongly associated with a company's brand, the only way to distinguish personal blogger opinions from company viewpoints is to make such a statement on every post.

Respecting copyright, fair use, and financial disclosure laws - If quoting material from other sources, don't quote more than short exerts from copyright material, and link to quoted web material. Be aware of your own company's or another company's confidential or other proprietary information and do not disclose such information. Don't cite or reference clients, partners, or suppliers without their prior agreement and approval. If you are ever unsure about the accuracy of the information on your blog, check on the accuracy of your information with your manager, other department, or even an external blogger before the post is published.

Respect your audience - Don't use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc., and show proper consideration for their privacy and for topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory.

Correcting mistakes - Be the first to correct your own mistakes, and don't alter previous posts without indicating that you have done so.

Identify your role and position in your company - Especially if you or your company has an interest in what you are writing about on the blog, express your company's interest or your own in the subject by citing the interest in a post. If you have worked with public companies and their requirements for public disclosure to all parties, the policy is very similar.

Disclosing private information - Be careful in disclosing your own private information. What you reveal may remain on the web for a very long time. You are welcome to disclose your personal information on the blog to build a better relationship with your audience, but it's important to be aware of the dangers of revealing too much private information. Ask someone else's permission if you are disclosing another person's private information.

Consider the level of interaction - Will you allow comments and trackbacks onto your blog? Backbone Media, Inc. recommends comments and trackbacks even if they are critical of your ideas or company. You don't have to accept obscene statements but if someone writes a thoughtful critical statement, it is good to allow the comment or trackback and respond to any critical statements quickly. Do not delete comments unless they are spam or off the topic of the original post. Comments on a corporate blog can be moderated to cut down on spam comments. If you do moderate posts it's important to quickly post comments within one business day of operation, as a quick response is one of the most important aspects of blogging culture. If you are on vacation assign another employee to post your audience's comments. If that person is unsure about posting a moderated comment and they don't post a comment, have them get back to the commentator with an explanation that you will be back in a few days.

Disagreeing with your company? - Are your employees allowed to disagree with the company, provided their tone is respectful and not a personal attack? There are some advantages to having a company that is open about constructive criticism. Robert Scoble at Microsoft has personally changed the perception of the company in the years he has blogged by both he and Microsoft daring to let him criticize the company and practices.

Will you talk about the competition? - Will your corporate bloggers comment on the company's competitors? There are many circumstances where a company would mention and discuss competitors within the context of a discussion about industry issues, but be aware of your industry's restrictions on collusion with competition. Also make sure your discussion about the competition is respectful.

Conforming to company communications policy - Does your company have a company handbook with guidelines about communications outside of the company? If there are current external communications practices in place, all bloggers should agree to conform to the existing procedures.

Forum Posting Guidelines

With the web and the rise of customer generated media, there's a new way to communicate with your audience -- through social media. Companies are familiar with the concept of traditional media as a channel of communication between companies and their audiences. The way to communicate effectively through those channels is by using advertising and public relations. Companies face new challenges with this new media. Now that consumer generated media is becoming so important, companies have to find new ways to communicate with their audience through this new social media. Forums are like blogs in that forum members have the ability to generate their own content, and there maybe few if any restrictions on what can be posted in a forum. Here are a few guidelines to working in a forum environment:

Transparency is everywhere - Internet users have such easy access and the skills to create content online today. It's better to assume that information will be revealed if discussed widely within your company. It's now so easy for employees to reveal information anonymously and the issue becomes less about controlling the flow of information and more about how a company is seen to react to rumors, and private company information. That's why it is important to have a process in place to be able to react to crisis as they arise, but also to understand the new realities of customer and employee generated media.

Crisis Communication process - The process for determining if a forum or bulletin board post should be considered serious enough to require a response is a three step process:

Identify a potential crisis communication forum posting and pull together an assessment team.
Assess whether the consequences for your company are sufficiently damaging that the forum posting requires a response.
Develop a response to the incident.

Responses to forum posts might take the form of emails to the forum members involved, writing a follow up posting to the forum post, emails to the forum moderator, or further escalation such as connections with members of the press. Your assessment and response team will have to determine the level of response required.

If you do respond to a post, it's very important that you continue to monitor the forum for other forum postings. If you don't respond to a forum posting, it's important to decide whether or not you will monitor the forum posting in future.

The Company Handbook - It's important for any company to have a clear communication crisis in place and also to have a consistent message. As an employee, when you say something in public about your company you are representing the company's position, but do you know what your company's position really is, and how it should be presented?

Companies might have communications policies in place, but that in the world of consumer generated media, it's important to educate your employees on how to react to developing news. Companies need to set clear policies for their employees on how to act in crisis communications incidents.

Further, while it may avoid some damage and comments, merely setting a policy is not enough. A company has to seriously think about educating its workforce about their policy on communicating in today's new world of consumer generated media. Seminars and workshops will work better than emails or dusty employee handbooks.

Dealing With Complaints - Successful companies want their customers to complain about their services. If a customer does not tell you what they think of your services and just walks away, not only have you lost the customer, but also the chance to learn why you lost that customer. That's why customer complaints should be looked as an opportunity to improve company services and products. The fastest way to retaining your customers and making them happy is by responding to any complaints quickly.

Consumer criticism in forums or on bulletin boards reveals customer dissatisfaction to the entire online community. If a company does not answer or resolve the complaint, the assumption by the customer and community is that maybe the complainant is correct in what they state. That's why it's important to address customer's complaints and give your side of the story. In the process you may resolve the issue and satisfy the customer. And you demonstrate to the community that you are prepared to listen to your customers. The community is watching how you react to a customer. And that response in how you handle customer relationships online will affect how customers perceive your brand and products.

Dealing with Anonymous Posts & Comments - One of the great things about the web is that it allows people to publish content. However, blogs also allow people to post content anonymously. As we don't know the identity of such sources, this means the reader cannot put the anonymous poster's thoughts in context. What if the poster is a competitor, a disgruntled employee, or even an ex-spouse? Without that identity any information should always be looked at with a jaundiced eye.

Blogs, forums, and other websites that allow anonymous comments play a valuable role in giving people the opportunity to express their views openly without fear of reprisal, however, there is also the danger that views expressed or facts stated might not actually be true. Yet, if you are the object of such criticism if you don't follow up with a comment your company runs the danger of letting a lot of the mud stick.

A strategy to combat anonymous criticism would be to raise the issue of a lack of credibility when someone posts or sends in a rumor on a blog anonymously. You would repeat the same message on a consistent basis, as it's difficult for the reader to really understand if criticism is accurate or fair when the reader doesn't know the identity of the person who commented. You'd combat the criticism by commenting on the blog and cite your company's side of the story every time an anonymous comment is made. Consistency and discipline would gain you credibility in this case.

Your company tells its story.
Your company gains credibility by being prepared to be open. You might ask why the commenter isn't open. What does the anonymous commenter have to hide?

However, you might then enter into a debate with other people who comment anonymously. Ways to combat and stop that difficult situation would be to start off by saying your company will not have a debate with someone when the company does not know the identity of the person who comments. By setting a reasonable expectation the reader will be more supportive of your company.

Obeying the rules of the road - Each forum has its own rules and etiquette. Not obeying those rules will get you banned, and ostracized from the community. Read and pay attention to each forum's rules of use and policies.

Author Note: Special thanks to Charlene Li, LsU Office of Public Affairs and the US Government Performance Review whose publications were used as reference for this document.

Blogging policy examples - Charlene Li
http://forrester.typepad.com/charleneli/2004/11/blogging_policy.html

LSU Office of Public Affairs
http://www.lsu.edu/pa/crisis.html

Serving the American People: Best Practices in Resolving Customer Complaints - National Performance Review
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/papers/benchmrk/bstprac.html

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