Breaking IT News
December 7 2007
I was having a conversation with a colleague the other day about corporate blogging best practices. Since so many marketing types these days think "oh, we're going to do a blog!", it's always a good idea to think about how not to do it.
Here's exhibit "A", from my own organization, on how not to do corporate blogging:
This just did everything wrong. It was totally a checkbox exercise..."Did we do a blog on this? Yep!"
- Did they customize the look and feel of this blog? No.
- They left the test posting visible.
- They did a hit-and-run ... one posting and then it was over. "Breaking IT News" indeed.
- The post subject: "Biggest IBM News of 2005". Yeah, that's clearly going to ring as credible with readers.
- The link: pointing to a generic page, not a specific page of content related to the blog posting. The reader would have had to then search to find the linked information.
- How about those comments? 17 spammer splog comments. Nice.
- What can we learn from the "About" page? Absolutely nothing. It's not there.
We've come a long way to today, where thousands of IBMers are successfully blogging, internally and externally, every single day. I think we have plenty of "best case" examples now, so let's not dwell too much on the bad one.
Post a Comment
- 2
Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 12/8/2007 6:24:23 AM
That one fits the bill just as nicely: { Link }
- 3
Stuart Bogom | 12/8/2007 2:23:23 PM
Here's another: { Link }
- 4
Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 12/8/2007 2:57:19 PM
Eight hours? That took a little bit longer than expected.
- 5
Steven | 12/8/2007 4:29:43 PM
@3: I REALLY had high hopes when I heard Ray was blogging but after a few of his gaps and each post started with "It's been a few months...." I guess his best work is behind him.
- 6
Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/8/2007 4:37:51 PM
@vowe @2 that only took 12 hours. @3 at least he is still running domino { Link }
- 7
Sean Cull http://www.focul.net | 12/8/2007 6:13:24 PM
@6: That made my day ! LOL :)
- 8
David Mackey http://www.informednetworker.com/ | 12/8/2007 6:57:49 PM
Good article! Posted over at Informed Networker. Seen way too many of these.
- 9
Stuart McIntyre http://collaborationmatters.com | 12/9/2007 2:35:43 AM
@2 Told you it was coming, Ed ;-)
- 10
Bill Brown | 12/11/2007 8:05:45 AM
Ray Ozzie's must be using some really F'ed up software. It lists December 2007 in the archives, but if you click on it, there's nothing there. WHy list it if empty?
Should we read anything into the fact that the last posting was April Fools Day 2006?
It's okay Ed, it was your first attempt. You've gotten a lot better at it! ;-)