If you want your organization to be taken seriously, quit blogging. Quit tweeting out things and Facebooking. Or, more accurately, quit calling what you do blogging. You are not a blogger, you do not follow people nor do you have followers. Friends are people you go out with after work or have coffee with on a Sunday morning.
But whatever you do, continue to engage your customers, interact with them, write industry smarts and publish observations and analysis about your company, industry and your community on your company Web site. But, do not blog.
Blogging used to be considered cutting edge. Now, a blog is a bad four-letter word to media people. Blogs are where ugly rumors start and fester, like the one going on right now about Chris Brown and Rihanna. Blogs are where insane, bored and vicious mommies take down well-meaning and powerful brands like Motrin. Blogs are where kids in pajamas never leave their parents basement and spread lies about honest, upstanding, qualified candidates for Vice-president. Blogs are evil, run by people who are seeking cheap thrills at the expense of others. Bad, bad, bad.
Blogs are cheap to set up, offer anonymity for their publishers and writers, don’t have the same standards for honesty and integrity as other sources for news and opinion. The truth doesn’t matter, only about being first. Bloggers will throw every conspiracy theory out there — no matter how far-fetched — in order to be right on at least one assertion. And they never have to apologize or run a correction. It worked for Drudge on the Lewinsky scandal, right?
Quit blogging. You don’t want to associate with that sorry lot. You are a serious business-person who has a brand to protect and a message to manage. You can update your Web site with industry insight, post resources for people to easily research and comment on your service or products, you can reply back to a concern, support your customers and potential customers using some on-line tools.
But do not blog.