Blogging Behind Closed Doors

By Michelle V. Rafter

They are hidden behind company firewalls and more plentiful than you know. They are in-house blogs, and companies are using them instead of e-mail for everything from communications to job listings.

Paul Gillin calls it the hidden blogosphere.

“It” is in-house blogs, and while they haven’t garnered the same hype as companies’ public blogs, they could be just as big, says Gillin, a new media consultant, blogger and author of The New Influencers, a book on social media. “Most companies don’t publicize what they’re doing, but by some estimates, the amount of blogging going on behind corporate firewalls is maybe even greater than the amount we see in public,” he says.

The reasons are simple. Blogging tools are widely available, cheap, and easy to use. The way a blog disseminates information -- from one to many -- gives it an edge over e-mail, says Gillin and other business and technology analysts. And unlike e-mail, people can opt to subscribe only to information that interests them, or look at information when it’s convenient, “but they don’t have to have it pushed to them in a way that’s disrupts their work,” Gillin says.

For companies contemplating starting an internal blog, the first step is deciding what purpose it will serve. For that, small businesses can take a page from their larger counterparts. Microsoft, for example, started a jobs blog that lists openings and lets employees who hold those positions post comments about what the job is like. Casio uses a blog to have departments quickly change content on the company’s intranet. HP has an internal blog platform employees can use to blog on their choice of topics, although 90 percent are about what they’re working on, says Tac Anderson, Web 2.0 strategic lead at HP’s LaserJet business group in Boise, Idaho.

Next steps to blogging in-house

With a direction in mind, companies can take these next steps:

• Choose who’ll write it. Some blogs are one-person affairs. Others are a team effort. Whatever the arrangement, someone needs to be the go-to person for choosing the software, making sure things stay up and running, and handling problems.
• What’s the topic? Blogs can cover a lot of ground, so limiting what’s discussed might be counter productive. A better approach might be deciding what not to write about. Trade secrets and other proprietary information shouldn’t be discussed in an open forum where content could easily be copied into an e-mail message and circulated for all to see, Gillin says.
• Get people to use it. HP’s Anderson suggests that an internal blog-meister enlist the aid of a few well-placed company cheerleaders who’ll help promote it by posting comments and talking it up in meetings.

Tools of the trade

When it comes to blog software, there’s something for everyone, no matter how minor the undertaking. With such a range of choices, it follows that costs are all over the map too. Companies that want to host their own blogs can download open source software like WordPress, b2evolution, orRoller, or proprietary programs like Moveable Type. Or they can sign up for a hosted service like Blogger, TypePad, or LiveJournal. Some vendors of enterprise social networks are starting to build blogging into their platforms, including Blogtronix and Awareness Networks. If companies choose to use a third party to host their internal blog, they should double check vendor agreements to make sure they retain rights to any information stored on someone else’s servers, says Lee Huang, a Web 2.0 consultant and former director of digital strategy and technology at Nielsen Business Media, the print and Web publisher.

SIDEBAR: Blogs about In-House Blogs

Now that everyone and their brother is blogging, there is plenty of information about tools, tips and protocol available in -- where else -- blogs. Several that discuss the mechanics and nuances of enterprise blogs are:

• NewCommBiz.com, Tac Anderson’s blog on Web 2.0 technologies
• Paul Gillin’s blog, Social Media and the Open Enterprise
• 56 Resourceful Blogging Tips and Tools For The Young & Old, from self-proclaimed “Wordpress Rock Star” Etienne Teo, which includes links to software platforms and vendors