Mar-com and PR guru Steve Rubel on why business blogs matter.

Rubel notes that when the Dept. of Justice and Microsoft reached a 2001 settlement in the high-profile anti-trust case brought by the department, the company's image was "beaten and battered."

Three years after the case was settled, however, Microsoft has completed a sweeping organizational and image overhaul. It now is perceived as friendlier, more open and trustworthy. What’s also notable is that this transformation - led by CEO Steve Ballmer – took place while the company continued to face an increasing barrage of daily attacks from hackers, spyware, and viruses.

Look beneath the surface, however, and you will find that Microsoft’s softening image was actually molded from the bottom up, by ordinary employees like Joshua Allen. In 2001 Allen, a program manager, signed on as the company’s first unofficial corporate employee weblogger. His personal site, called “Better Living Through Software,” chronicles life inside the Redmond, Washington software giant – warts and all.

Today, Microsoft has more than 1200 corporate bloggers – more than 10 times the number it had just last year. They have the company’s blessing to write about whatever they want, provided they adhere to some basic guidelines. As a result, virtually overnight the bloggers have become one of the company’s greatest marketing assets, generating incredible online and offline word of mouth. In fact, Microsoft has even began to embrace them as a company. The software giant now links to all its bloggers right on its corporate web site...and even launched a special sanctioned blog-like community for developers and partners called Channel 9....

Most Microsoft bloggers write passionately and candidly about the company’s technology, hiring practices, marketing, culture, and more. They even discuss company and product strengths and weaknesses in vivid detail.

...Microsoft’s corporate blogging army has in a short time opened a transparent window onto the most financially successful company that ever existed. They have accomplished the impossible by putting a human face on a gigantic monolithic company – a giant with a bad rap. At the same time, they strengthened the company’s position as a thought leader and generated incalculable online word-of-mouth. Blogging can do the same for you – no matter your target audience or your goal. The key is to listen, learn, and then get started.

If you're considering a company blog, begin your research by going to Google and look up "corporate blogs;" then do a search for "(your industry)" AND "blogs."

When you launch, you want to be able to demonstrate comfort with, and understanding of the open-source, collaborative nature of the blogosphere. It's not just for the sake of appearances. The benefits flow back to your company, that way.

Perhaps in response to some advice from a friendly critic, Boeing Commercial Aircraft's marketing VP Randy Baseler has changed the name of Randy's Blog to Randy's Journal. More accurate for the time being, tho he's promising more blog-like interactivity. Good. I'll be watching, Randy!

A final thought, for now. Boeing ought to take a page from Microsoft's book and create a public portal to Boeing bloggers. There are doubtless some in the ranks, and more would emerge with clear encouragement. Maybe Randy can discuss the company's policy (or lack thereof) on employee blogs in an upcoming post. There'd have to apprehension at Boeing about letting that genie out of the bottle. Probably Airbus'll beat 'em to it.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at February 1, 2005 12:12 AM

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