NIRI: Blogging Q&A

On Tuesday, I wrote an entry about the session: Is Your Company or IR Dept Ready for a Blog? Innovative Communication Methods for the 21st Century. Today, I am going through my notes from the Q&A portion of the session, which was moderated by Robert Williams, the Director of Investor Relations at Dell.

Marilyn Mora, the Director of Investor Relations from Cisco Systems, Brock Romanek, who is a lawyer and expert blogger from thecorporatecounsel.net, and Monika Maeckle, Vice President of New Media, Business Wire rounded out the panel.

Here we go!

How do you monitor who is writing about you? There are two good free services that search blogs: Google and Technorati. Both allow you to create RSS feeds from your blog search, so you will be notified soon after someone blogs about you. There are also firms that monitor blogs for you for a fee.

How do you fix misinformation? You can use your own blogs to fix misinformation. When doing so, do not make the conversation into an argument, but rather try to help people understand. If the misinformation is about a specific issue or article, simply write about that issue or article, thank the person who wrote it and then point out the error and the actual facts.

Does anyone use their blogs to start the conversation? Cisco uses blogs to drive their communication so they are not joining conversations. By creating their own blog and allowing people to comment on their entries, Cisco has better control of the conversation because blog users will go to the Cisco site which should have the right facts.

How do you measure an employee’s productivity with blogs? Cisco uses blogs to create, listen and hear ideas. They have internal and external blogs. Blogs have made their company more collaborative because more people can voice their opinions. Blogs also allow Cisco to get things to market faster which gives them a competitive edge.

How much time do you need to set-up a blog and keep it up to date? First, you can use other departments such as marketing and communications to help out, so you will not be doing all of the work. You need to be able to commit to updating the blog a few times a week so that you start to earn the trust of people and so you don’t look stale.

How do you promote your blog? Dell uses their email database to promote their DellShares blog when there are new updates. More than 100% of people on the mail list visit the blog, so the people who receive the email are forwarding it to colleagues.

How do blogs relate to your brand? Blogs can be an extension of your brand and they can improve your brand because you will be seen as more approachable.