Lens on Atlanta is an online community where we can work together to create change. To do this, we need to connect, collaborate and communicate with each other. In today's online world, blogging is central to our personal and professional expression, yet for many people,  how to write and maintaing a blog is still an enigma.

Below are a few answers to some of the most commons questions.

Who Should be the Voice of the Corporate Blog?

Employees are the human side of every organization and hence, the voice of the corporate blog. Bloggers can and should come from anywhere in the organization, but only if they can:

• Converse with customers and other stakeholders, rather than sell!
• Post frequently on topics that are interesting and relevant to customers
• Write on issues they care deeply about and on which they have expertise
• Have a good knowledge of other relevant blogs relevant and be willing to share their opinions in these blogs too

Who shouldn’t blog?

1. A command-and-control freak
2. Someone with a history of avoiding transparency
3. Someone who prefers monologue to dialog
4. Someone not likely to respond well to the “tough love” provided by other bloggers’  comments and links
   

When to Respond, When to Let the Message Play Out?

When playing in the blogosphere, expect to receive pointed questions, observations and remarks from time to time. Not all of the people will love you all of the time. These are the basics of being prepared:

1.    Do not ignore or hide from a negative comment, regardless of whether it’s true or false!!!

2.    Participate in the conversation and present your side of the story.

3.    Take responsibility for the problem and do something to fix it. Then explain on your blog and anywhere else online where the negative remarks are echoed, exactly how your organization is working to solve the issue.

4.    Seek out your allies and solicit their comments on the issue. Advise them on what your organization has done to address the posted problem, and let them know you are open to receiving their emails about the matter. This latter suggestion works in your favor by helping to diminish online retorts.

5.    Issue an official statement

6.    Tempting as it may be, NEVER create fake identities online for the purpose of supporting your position. If you are ever discovered, the consequences will be ugly.

The blogosphere etiquette for responding effectively to negative but false online comments is as follows:

• Politely, very politely actually, ask the blogger or forum owner to remove the incorrect information. Back up your request by providing correct information and supporting data.
• If the offender refuses to retract the incorrect information, ask them to consider publishing your rebuttal.
• Offer to keep the blogger or forum leader in the loop on any future developments.
• If all of these attempts fail, post correct information in the comments section of the blog. If the comments are on a board, reply with correct information and/or create a new thread on that forum supporting your viewpoint. 

 How Do You Create Thriving Online Community?

1. Creating Compelling Content

1. Be yourself – Your bloggers have chosen you for your personality, knowledge, and interest.

2. Be conversational - Blogging is about starting or joining conversations. People tend to respond better to informative but brief and passionate posts.

3. Stay on topic - You are the hosts of this site. It is important that the conversations stay focused on what the site is here to provide.

4. Add multimedia - Adding pictures enhances the experience of each post. Set up corporate Flickr pool to simplfy the process of sharing pictures within your posts as well as on various other sites. Videos provide an additional level of entertainment and brings the story to life.

5. Link to other relevant conversations - In any good conversation, people speak, listen and respond. Blogging on the site is equivalent to speaking. Reading other relevant blogs is equivalent to listening. Linking to other relevant blog posts is equivalent to a virtual handshake and a response.

6. Tagging – Almost all social media sites have tags. Tags are a way to categorize the content.

Tags are very powerful within social networks because it provides the community with a way to link to others with shared interest. Use relevant tags and use many tags. The best practice is to start with the general category such as Dining or Sports and then add tags based on the details of the content such as location, event, date, notable people, and so forth.

7. Titles – Since people typically are scanning through content to see what captures their attention, it is very important that your content has relevant and enticing titles. Try to keep your audience in mind when writing a title. When they read the title of your post they are asking themselves “what’s in it for me? Why should I invest time in this post?” So the title must answer the “what’s in it for me?” question.

Some ideas include:

1. List Posts

2. How To Posts

3. What Do You Think?

8. Frequency of Post - It is important for your time management as well as for creating trusting relationships that you decide the frequency that best fits you. If you start off with several posts a week and develop a following, and then slack off for a couple of weeks, you will lose that following. It is OK if you can only post once a week. The key is to set expectations that your audience can depend on and stay consistent.

How Do You Proactively Guide the Message?

First, let’s acknowledge that guiding “the message” is important for a few of reasons. Carefully crafted and well-executed messaging (done in a non-obvious way!) provides important opportunities:

•  To develop its reputation as an industry thought leader, which can lead to other press mentions and interviews,
• To develop a strong base of blogging advocates who will help promote the brand and spread the word about exciting developments
•  To create brand fans who will jump into the fray and defend the company should a false story or unfair criticism make its way into the public domain. 

Some tips for success include;

• Create a content calendar that is coordinated with other communication efforts. 
  
• Retell the stories that are being told through other communication channels, such as FAQs that come through customer service.
• Let your extroverts shine and give them a place to show what is happening behind the scenes. 

What are some basic blogging policy guidelines?

• The official company blog must have a uniform writing style even if there are several contributors.
• Blogs must not violate any guidelines stated in the employee handbook.
• Blogs must not include content that violates company or individual privacy. 
• Blogs cannot personally attack fellow employees, customers, vendors, or shareholders.
• Blogs must not disclose any sensitive, proprietary, confidential, or financial information.
• Blogs must not include content that is obscene, defamatory, profane, or libelous.

Blogging is not only a great opportunity to express yourself and connect with others, it is also a great responsibility that should not be taken too lightly. Blogging can be more than a journal, more than a conversation, blogging can be a platform for inspiration and for positive change.