Tips for New Bloggers

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Howard Greenstein

I’ve been teaching and speaking a lot, and the subject of Tips for New bloggers comes up all the time.

Here is what I share with many of my classes.

Blogging is meant to be personal. A blog with a ‘corporate’ or ‘PR-speak’ tone does not become popular or well read. People associate blogs with authenticity and conversational tone.

Your blog is a conversation. You say something, and people have the ability to say something back, either in the comments, or by referencing your post on their blog and responding. By allowing this back-and-forth you learn new things, and keep your audience engaged.

Blogs are great places to conduct interviews. Is there someone you want to meet and talk to, but never knew how before? Call and ask for an interview. Everyone likes to talk about him or herself!

: Image via Wikipedia

Add pictures, they’re worth a thousand words. But make sure you’re using your own pictures, or pictures you have a right to use. Don’t take the copyrighted works of others. Review Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/ licensing, where you can use people’s work if they allow it, as long as you attribute it to them. Photo sharing sites such as Flickr.com allow people to tag their photos for sharing.

Finally, don’t blog angry. If you’re upset or believe that you’ve been misrepresented, write your copy and show it to someone, or wait one hour and re-read it before you post it. You’re a publisher with a world-wide audience. You may not only damage your own reputation and the reputation of anyone you write about you may also commit libel (and search engines are able to keep original versions of remarks around.) The legal definition of libel is “a written statement unjustly damaging someone’s reputation.” (source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/libel ) Can you be sued for blogging? Sure. This is America – they can sue you for anything!

Seriously worth looking at is the Legal Guide for Bloggers. I am not a lawyer but the guide has useful ideas.

Be careful when republishing ANY information from another site or source, (copyrighted or not) and always provide a citation to where you found the information.
Watch for guidelines about the usage of logos, trademarks, and other protected and valuable items of intellectual property.
Learn the differences between being a publisher and being an editor.

And of course, if you have questions, ask an attorney!

How do you start a blog? Check this article I wrote about 8 Options to quickly build a web presence.

Employees, like the Internet, Route Around Blockages

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Howard Greenstein

I appreciated Laurel Kaufman’s post this morning on the Girls In Tech blogs about “Big Brother Is Watching You on Facebook” and Employment Law. I think she does a good job in explaining how employees should consider privacy settings on their personal social profiles to avoid those profiles being used against them in employment settings. Of course, not putting up compromising photos or tweeting racist or obscene things will help too. But the other point is about employers restricting access to social networks at work.

I remember in the early 90s, I had to have an “Internet Permission Form” signed before I could use the net at JPMorgan. They knew which workstation was mine, and could monitor traffic. I’m sure there is less of this kind of thing at work these days (though I understand it for environments where compliance rules are in effect.)

Its my feeling that, as we move from the “Information Age” to the Network Age, employers who don’t allow employees to check their external social media sites (except in secure facilities such as military, hospital or banking) are going to have problems with both morale and productivity. Banning soc nets is much less wise than allowing the occasional peak – with recognition that employees who abuse the privilege are going to get a talking t0.

What will happen when employers block Facebook, MySpace, and other networks? Blackberry and iPhone will happen. Employees will show up with their own mobile devices, and take *longer* to access their social networks. The devices take longer to type on, longer to access the social networks, and the phone networks are slower. So instead of taking 5 minutes to read status messages, they’ll take 10. Perhaps they’ll sneak away to do this – so they won’t be at their desks to answer the phone. This is bad for your company.

Employees, like the Internet, will “route around” the obstruction.

It is more advisable to put up policies defining what is acceptable, just like the occasional personal call where we look the other way. Even better – don’t be embarrassed if your employees have personal lives, and also have a link to their job. Find ways to encourage the employees to be out promoting the company on social networks. Why have 3 “corporate communications specialists” when you could have thousands of ambassadors that love your company because you treat them with respect?

Of course, this calls for good social media policies to be in place, and some employee training. Teach your employees to talk with your customers, and solve problems. Is it worth it? Well, it was worth about $1B to Zappos.

Not sure how to set this up for your company? The Harbrooke Group, or any number of other good social media consultancies, can help you.