Inc.com-Article: Blogging for Business

An article on Inc.com gives a good introduction into Business blogs:

Unlike corporate websites, b-blogs are cheap to launch and easy to maintain, thanks to powerful, easy-to-use tools. Unlike spam, or junk e-mail, b-blogs aren't intrusive; users must click to them. Done well, b-blogs provide a fast, informal way to share information -- project updates, research or test results, product-release news, industry headlines -- inside and outside your company. (...)

"Like any other initiative, successful b-blogging requires a strategy, which consultant Lawlor sums up in five words: Who, what, when, where, why. More specifically

• Who should blog? Who is our target reader?
  
• What are we blogging about? What benefits do we expect? What needs to be restricted?
  
• Where will blogging appear -- on individual blogs, an internal site, or a public website?
  
• When will bloggers do the work, and when will the company see results?
  
• Why are we doing this?

Answering the last question is key to determining exactly what you want your b-blog to accomplish. Do you want to demonstrate the company's expertise -- or perhaps your own? Promote products or services? Provide customers with news, announcements, updates? Build a community?" (...)

What makes a good b-blog? The best are lively, relevant, straightforward, and, though informal, relatively well-written. They showcase their owners' distinctive voices, interests, and expertise without crossing into mind-numbing narcissism. (...) Finally, great online journals never get stale. As Jupiter's Gartenberg notes, nobody will ever complain that you update your blog too often.

(The article also lists a couple of links to weblog resources and interesting business blogs.)

Well, I think the question "Why are we doing this?" is better be asked first ! If you can't come up with a good answer, you probably should forget about the rest...

BTW: How did I find this article, although I am not a regular reader of Inc.com ? Through their new RSS feed (via Scripting News), which I am now subscripted to. Getting new readers can be really easy these days... ;-)