Get your staff blogging!
Google's blog is written by staff throughout the company. Could your company do the same? Could your product manager or brand manager be the best source for articulating the products they work with?
Public Relations companies are having to race to catch up with the ways in which Web 2.0 makes social media likeblogs, collective wikis, and network like MySpace and Facebook. The reality is that hundreds of people already out there, writing what they like – and don’t like – about products and the companies that make them.
But the voices that are missing from that mix are often those of the employees who have the authentic experience to bring to bear. Many companies have either official or unofficial evangelists who bring a level of enthusiasm and expertise to their job that makes them the go-to person. Allowing these staff members the freedom to express themselves on company blogs can sometimes be an incredibly powerful public relations tool.
The UK Product Manager for Microsoft Office, Darren Strange, has built a popular company blog called Office Rocker. He is under no corporate restrictions, and writes passionately about the products he supports. In his viral blog piece Death By Powerpoint, he makes the case for having people connected to a topic be the ones who can sell it best: "If I really truly am interested in something, feel cross about something or just think something is really cool or just amusing, I can deliver it to other people."
