Often technology moves very fast and companies cannot stand idle, they must advance with these technologies and changes or be left in the dust.
Unfortunately, this can cause problems and even open up liability that the company may not have intended.
The blogosphere is just one such major disruption and a major opportunity for companies.
On one hand it allows the company to get closer and personally interact with its customers and biggest brand lovers, on another hand it opens Pandora's Box.
Let me explain.
First, if a company has a blog they must have someone on their team work it, and stay up to date with it.
This means they must post regularly and answer the comments, and questions coming in.
And they must do this without giving away company secrets, future plans, or strategies.
They must also make sure that whatever is written is truthful (not too forward looking) and the right image the company wishes to portray.
Further, there cannot be any misspellings or blatant grammatical errors.
If a company cannot maintain their blogging staff to operate at that level of scrutiny, it might be wise to not engage in blogging at all.
The entire blogging issue has been a contention and a bit of a problem for human resource professionals, as no one really has a "blogging manual" available, although now a company can send their bloggers to educational or online seminars to learn the ropes, the do's and the don'ts.
Recently, Human Resource Executive Online had an article about this with a link to an advertiser that had blog manuals.
If you are a human resources professional it might be wise to get a copy and incorporate this into your Blogger Job Description and mandatory reading.
Please consider this to keep your company out of a PR firestorm online.