Blogs are one of the keystones in the Warm Website Initiative and Web 2.0.
Since we launched the Labs site and started blogging, I have learned a lot of things that were kind of fuzzy for me in the beginning. First, that the challenges with a blog is not technical (since EPiServer will take care of this with some blog code add-ons :-) but rather tied to the political side of things:
To start with, there is a big difference between a corporate/technology blog and a traditional personal blog.
· The personal blogs have been the most common, focusing on the writer and his/her adventures, interests, etc.
· The corporate blogs are a new breed, focusing on technologies or special areas of interest rather than a person.
In our case, the blogs started off as a way of informing other fellow EPiServer developers in a non-formal way. Also, by writing about tech stuff rather than personal stuff, more colleagues became involved as bloggers.
Then we invited people blogging about EPiServer to be a part of Labs, making Labs a cross department/company/country virtual organization.
This has been very successful, in fact way beyond our own expectations. The main reason for this success is our friends outside the company, who have been providing a very large portion of the content!
However, there are some lessons I have learned that might be of use for others that are planning similar corporate blogs:
- Start with just a few, good writers!
In order to create the local blog culture, you will need to make sure the first postings are written according to the level of quality that you would like the rest of the blogs to have over time.
- Set the rules early!
By establishing the blog rules early, you will avoid problems later on. (Bloggers might not be that glad if their carefully written postings are removed due to non-conformity to new the blog rules).
- Use different blogs!
After a while you will probably get inquiries from other parts of your company or organization from those who would like to start to blog about things that differ from the first scope of the blog site.
As an example, the labs blogs started off as technical blogs, but soon the sales and marketing teams joined the blogging, then the staff focusing on our editors, etc. However interesting these posts might be, I strongly recommend you to divide the blog into different blogs or blog sites. I rather recommend you to have something tailored to the target group, compared to mix everything in one, big, blog area (with a tag cloud tree pages long...).
Give the developers code in their faces as soon as they enter the site and create another site or blog area for the sales staff, etc.
- Use Microsoft Live Writer! (or an equally good blog tool).
As the "blog master", you do not wish to train your writers or take any responsibility for how to produce their content. In our case, allowing external bloggers into the Edit mode of EPiServer CMS would have been a very bad idea...
On the other hand, limiting them to plain on-page editing (Web interface with a built-in editor) would make things like screen shots too cumbersome (ending up in just boring text blogs, leading to fewer readers, leading to less attention from the bloggers, leading to less content, leading to less visitors, leading to a slow death of the blog site..)
Using Microsoft Live Writer, you just have to create their blog space and give them the URL together with their username and password!
- Use syndication!
In the blog world, you will have no or limited control of where creative people prefer to write their blogs... The solution is adapting to this and spells RSS Syndication. That way you can mix internal bloggers (blogging at your blog site) with external bloggers seamlessly.
- Allow the bloggers to expand the tag cloud!
You cannot know what will be written in the future, therefore you cannot control the tag clouds (the key words you can click on to get other postings in the same subjects). Allow the bloggers to create the tags themselves, but keep an eye on it and remove and consolidate as needed.
- Use workflow approval!
Many of my workmates were afraid to start blogging, because they were uncertain of what subjects they could blog about. A good example is our own developers, normally working with upcoming releases of the EPiServer CMS: Could they talk about upcoming technology, or ???. The solution to this is to create a workflow that puts the Developer Team Manager in charge of approving blog posts. That lifts the decision away from the blogger, who can concentrate on writing a good blog post without worries about politics.
- Skip approval!
Why should you be the judge and the approver of content? Removing unsuitable blog posts might be the best way for the majority of the blog sites, because any manual approval process takes away the sexy feeling of seeing your blog post going live when you press the publish button...
- Use team blogs!
Most bloggers do not think they have enough content to motivate having a blog. Therefore, mix team blogs with personal blogs. Let bloggers that are uncertain start as a writer in the team blog.
- Avoid empty blogs!
In the early days, we created blogs for everyone that wanted to. Some got started with their writing. Some never started blogging, causing our blog site to contain empty blogs. The solution is to make the blogs hidden, and then making them visible when the content has been added.
- Consider mixing "secret blog areas" into your blog site!
It might be a good idea to mix the plain, public, blogs with some internal "gossip" blogs in order to drive internal traffic to the site. Be aware that there is a very thin line between having this working in a good manner and a security disaster due to someone setting the wrong security on one of the internal blogs...
Use these "extranet blogs" to get your partners involved and closer to your company, but avoid putting really secret stuff there
- Prevent personal blog posts!
To have traditional personal blog posts giving insight into someone's life and interests risks polluting your public corporate blog and message. You must avoid getting your blog site into a Facebook look-alike!
Enforce rules such as "the subject of a blog post cannot be the blogger himself" or "It is not about you, it is about something else!"
(Example of a good post is the "Compare and keep language files in sync" article by Steve Celius. The post is about how languages are handled in EPiServer CMS, not about Steve himself.)
- Promote personal blogs!
Opposite to the previous rule, the reverse is true when it comes to internal, intranet blog sites. The more you know about your colleagues the better!
- Provide daily content!
In order to get readers visiting your site, you will need a lot of content. At least one new article per day. Prepare to do some writing yourself!
Recipe for Your Corporate Blog
· One EPiServer CMS 4 (with our soon-to-be-released blog package) or EPiServer CMS 5 SP1 with the new demo templates.
· One spoonful of Microsoft Live Writer.
· One handful of creative writers.
· One Blog Master (to be the one who nurses the site thought its early stages).
· One bit of understanding from your management about the importance of building a "Virtual organization". (You might want to buy some basic books about Web 2.0 to give to the boss as weekend literature).
· One cup of underground culture.
· At least one interesting subject to start with.
· Cook for a couple of weeks at high temperature, add a spoonful of content every day!
· Done! Enjoy the taste of a delicious Web 2.0 dish!
Hopefully these experiences might help you build your own corporate blog.
After all, it is not about the Web, it's all about the content ;-)
/Mike