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Should you comment to the right weblogs it is possible to go a variety of destinations concerning marketing and advertising, visitors and backlinks. The world wide web has an incredible number of blogs that get current all the time and all you've got to perform is discover a properly linked web site and begin your commenting engines.From our experience it is far better to start small and start slowly if blogging is new within your business.
Before embarking on a mass evangelical implementation of weblog software to all users in the company, it might be better to gain a little experience, improve understanding, and become comfortable with the process.
So where do you start?
Some operational rules that we have found useful:
1. Use this first entrée into the blogosphere as a trial. Now is not the time to test weblogs for the hokey kokey 2004 launch of a strategically critical new product.
2. Keep the trial focussed on something simple, say a relatively straightforward project. Perhaps it could be no more than building up a central repository for all information on a key customer.
3. It’s important that the trial encompasses several departmental functions. You don’t want this to be seen as something that is the preserve of the chosen few. It will also assist the spreading of news, kind of internal PR for the weblog project.
4. Make sure whoever is heading up the project has prior experience of blogging. This is important on two counts; firstly you want to minimise glitches in the early days and that will help if someone has at least some rudimentary knowledge of blogging, and secondly this will help to demonstrate that this is not an IT department imposed project.
5. Let the blogging flow. In the early days let people blog as much as they want to, do not censor, and do not restrict the content. The natural law of “correctness” within the organisation will decide “what’s right”.
And some technical rules:
1. KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. Avoid at all costs any attempt to start to complicate the software, the look and feel of the weblog, and the blogging process itself.
2. Ensure that whatever package is used to blog that it is as non-disruptive as possible, e.g. don’t send folks away for a months training, you won’t get buy in.
3. Make sure the software can be integrated into the users browsers. This is important. No this is vital. The blogging process needs to be as seamless as possible. As you don’t think about saving a file, nor should you think about posting to the blog.
The benefits of this approach?
1. A project approach is time defined by a start and an end date - so it won’t drag on without someone making a decision.
2. By starting with a trial project, will by it’s very nature, force measurement of something, whatever the kpi’s maybe.
3. A cross-functional approach helps adoption, and ensures that blogging
moves horizontally across the organisation rather than just vertically.
By keeping it simple to start with will enable quicker and more
diverse adoption throughout an organisation. Individuals will find
applications if left to their own devices. But you need that positive
experience early on for mass adoption across the organisation.
Posted by Wayne at April 27, 2004 10:03 PM | TrackBack | Category => Blogs
We run a marketing & technology consulting business that helps smaller companies in the UK.
A lot of our work is now centring on using social software technology to
reduce information problems in business. So this blog is designed to
share our knowledge and first hand experience.
If you are interested in developing an enterprise social software
strategy and setting up an easy-to-maintain weblog for your business,
Infosential is the company who can help.
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