A cautionary tale stuck out this week – one that warned against posting negative comments on social networks that even tangentially relate to your job.  James Andrews, a VP at a PR agency visited a client in Memphis and posted a derogatory Tweet about the town. The client found out and all hell broke lose.

As new technologies continue to redefine the role of corporate communications, PR specialists may find themselves becoming important educators for others around the organization. Whether it be conversing on corporate blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or any one of the growing legion of social networks, employees can have a significant effect on the value of the brand they represent and need to understand how to ensure their communication is beneficial.

Twitter is growing in prominence this year, and we’re seeing more and more advice on how to make the most of this medium.

News highlights

To what degree has traditional media embraced blogging?
Looking primarily at sports journalism, Benkoo offers a potted history of blogging and the wary eye traditional media has cast on this new upstart medium. Seems odd looking back on this now given the great many journalist blogs that exist out there.

This week I want to highlight a report from eMarketer that reports small businesses intending to spend 25% more on social networking in 2009 than they did in 2008.

Perhaps more of this segment’s audience now uses these tools (another report this week states 35% of adults are members of a social network). Perhaps small businesses now understand more about this area. Either way, a glimmer of hope in the currently gloomy economic environment.

News highlights

HP’s Tac Anderson talks about social media tactics including corporate blogging
Some good tips from HPs social media evangelist, such as think about your target audience and build content appropriately.
“If your customers are CXO’s (CEO, CIO, CFO, CMO) then the reason you have a blog is because the two most influential factors to a CXO’s decision making process are the Two G’s: Google and Gartner. Google is speaking to the importance of all search and Gartner is speaking to the importance that analysts play. Blogs are great for reaching both. There’s no lower bang for your buck tactic to reach the two G’s than having a high quality blog.”

Google uses corporate blogs to announce cutbacks
The medium is the messsage here, rather than the story. Google has for some time been using its blogs to release information about the company that would normally have come from a press release. Will more companies start doing following suit?

Tools for monitoring blogs and other sites: Social Media Explorer
SEO Toolbar for Firefox gives you a good indication of how a blog (or any website) is ranked by Google in particular and the web in general. Go ahead, check yourself out.

Most influential advertising, marketing and media blogs – Advertising Age
The Power 150 list of the top blogs. You’ll find some choice reading on these sites. Trend data on the blogs also available here.

Adult participation in social networks now at 35 percent
This number has raised more than 300% over the last 3 years, according to research by Pew Research.

Corporate blogging: think about presentation as well as content
Design being such a subjective thing, I’m not sure I agree with all the changes recommended in this blog makeover, however there are some good points such as including a photo to make the blog more personable and organizing posts by categories.

HP study shows humans will pursue status over wealth
A report by social computing scientists at HP labs looks into what degree we will go to to obtain social status. Their findings? We will go as far as to give up monetary rewards, if we think we can gain status. Is this what powers participation in social networks?

GSK and Centocor Abandon Their Pioneering Corporate Drug Blogs
Citing the fact that these were personality-led blogs where the personalities concerned left the company, GSK has stopped updating its AlliConnect blog and the Johnson & Johnson-owned Centocor has let its CNTO411 blog wane. Both companies continue blogging in other parts of the organization.

Tips on blogging content from Your PR Guy
Focus on the stories that are most useful to your client base: success stories, problem solution stories and testimonials. These tips are aimed primarily at small businesses but should be considered by any corporate bloggers.

Social networking budgets on the increase according to eMarketer
Small businesses are expecting to spend more on social networking than on any other form of digital marketing over the coming year. Significantly, most of this group does not blog and apparently isn’t about to start.

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Welcome to the first installment in the series of weekly email digests covering the latest happenings in the world of corporate blogging. Feel free to subscribe via RSS or use the email signup in the sidebar. If you want more regular updates, then follow me on Twitter or Del.icio.us.

The biggest story right now has to be the issue of trust in corporate blogs. Forrester research by Josh Bernoff suggests that corporate blogging is the least trusted form of corporate communications – even falling below direct mail. There has, however, been research by eMarketer that claims corporate blogs do create more trust amongst customers. I’m sure this debate will continue to play out throughout the year.

News highlights

Corporate blogs, trustworthy or not? Conversational Media Marketing stirs the pot
This post pulls together latest research looking into trust issues around corporate blogging. The only lesson could be that you send out five market researchers and they all come back with strong evidence pointing in different directions.

Live Blogging from the Activity Streams Meetup
John McCrea’s highlights of a meeting on producing activity stream standards between the Web 2.0 big-hitters. Facebook, Yahoo, Google and Plaxo were at the Six Apart-organised discussion. Maybe now we’ll finally be able to update our streams simultaneously. Although where were Twitter in this discussion? Surely there is massive crossover between microblogging and activity feeds.

Problems generating comments on your blogs?
A few pointers on how to make your blog a conversation rather than a monologue.

In-depth article on how to successfully carry out customer relationship blogging
Business Standard goes into detail on how you can use a blog to reach out to customers. Particularly interesting points on how you need to communicate with networks of customers, rather than individuals.

Why some corporate blogs don’t work: companies are boring!
ZD Net’s Rick Burnes poo-poos the fact that the oft-held view that corporate blogs can serve a useful purpose by exposing the inner workings of a company. Do you care what’s going on inside the companies whose products you use?

Jon Burg’s ten rules for effective corporate blogging
Interesting take on top blogging tips. ‘Your blog is your dinner table, not your podium’ and ‘check your ego at the door’ are my personal faves.

Best blogging posts according to He Blogs, She Blogs
A roundup of articles on why you should blog, designing your blog and how to plan and launch a blog.

Best Twitter Posts of 2008 according to He Blogs, She Blogs (including a discussion of the relative merits of Twittering vs blogging)
If you’re new to the microblogging revolution that is Twitter, find some great posts on how to get the most out of the microblogging network.

Corporate blogging: slowly crawling out of the sand box
Gearheads think that this year will see corporate blogs grow up and become more effective (read professional).

Corporate blogging predictions for 2009 and beyond: hire a journalist!
Bloggers for Hire predicts that more and more organizations will require journalists as marketing moves in the direction of content. I’m assuming they anticipate the content will be more news/information rather than product information. I’m sure the contrversy around this issue will continue well into ’09.

The Air Force’s Rules of Engagement for Blogging: remarkably detailed process and diagram
It’s not known for being one of the most cutting edge organizations, but the US Airforce has put together a pretty robust set of corporate blogging guidelines. What next? Twitter guidelines from the CIA?