When Bob Lutz of GM or Jonathan Schwartz of Sun set up their blogs, they probably didn’t worry too much about the review with Legal. After all, they “outrank” the senior legal counsel.
But how does, say, a mid-level corporate marketer or product manager set out to create an “official” blog with the blessing and sanction of Legal? It turns out, despite the prevalence of corporate blogging today, that there is still a fair amount of trepidation over the legal review process.
Bloggers need to recognize that “sanctioned corporate” blogging is different from publishing a brochure or issuing a press release. Those documents go through a review process before being set in stone, and sometimes do undergo legal review. Blogs should never go though a “sanitization” step (or they aren’t really blogs and you shouldn’t bother doing them) and a successful blog will usually include largely unmoderated or semi-moderated comments from the public.
We recently worked with Pete Steege to set up Seagate’s first official corporate blog at storageeffect.com. Pete’s blog is a terrific example of corporate blogging done well, and he fairly sailed through the Legal review process. You can too!
Here are some steps to allay your own fears of Inquisition 2.0 and help your Legal team through their own fear and loathing of Enterprise 2.0 social networking:
- It’s NOT easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
Legal is too often perceived as a roadblock and left out of the process until they discover it post-launch, and then they are obliged to sail down from on high with the wrath of an avenging angel. Understand that Legal’s job is to mitigate risk, not to stand in the way of progress or profit. They know that, and all they usually want is a well-articulated business reason for your blog, and a chance to offer advice on the safest way to conduct it. - Don’t gird for battle—just be prepared
Don’t take an adversarial stance—you will lose. Just make sure you are armed with the business justification. Make sure you can articulate the purpose, topics, and tone of the blog. If you don’t know these, you aren’t ready to blog. Every corporate blog should have a business purpose and a “marketing plan.” That doesn’t mean it needs to be overly “corporate” (or else who would read it?). A corporate blog is the least formal means of corporate communication, and it’s intended to be very human–it should reflect who you are. While the best blogs are “edgy” and compelling, just check in to make sure you’re no more edgy than your company can tolerate. - Bring along the boss
Set up a legal review and bring along your boss (actually, the highest corporate champion of the blog you can collar). Treat Legal as problem-solvers and advisors, not as adversaries. As knowledge workers, chances are they read blogs themselves and they’ve actually been waiting for someone to show up at their doorstep with this very issue. - As T.S. Eliot said, “No verse is libre”
Make it clear that you understand what can and cannot be said in a blog, and if you don’t know this, ask your legal folks for advice. Public companies have very strict SEC guidelines about what can be articulated by a company spokesperson. Private companies can also get into trouble for what their employees publish through a corporate medium. Always protect your employer’s interests! Legal is much more likely to get past the blogging medium if they know you are someone responsible they can trust.
This advice, of course, assumes that your Legal folks are reasonable and knowledgeable and somewhat attuned to the issues of corporate blogging. I work in Silicon Valley and Research Triangle, where the attorneys are pretty savvy in this regard. To be honest, I’d love to hear some juicy or entertaining stories from those of you who have tangled with ignorant, fascist JDs!
Good post Rich. You bring up some good points about corporate blogging.
I have not seen any good corporate blogs yet. And I think it’s because ‘they’ (corporate blogs, I mean) are not really blogs. I consider them adjuncts to corporate marketing. True, there could be some corporate leaders with itchy fingers who’d want to blog their heart out, but they will have to tangle with Legal no matter what. It’d be a terrible blow to shareholders if someone in the C-suite loose their job for saying the wrong things in a blog in addition to the threat of law suits. I guess that’s where Legal come’s in to apply the brakes.
Further, I don’t think C-level corporate blogs really help from a business perspective. The guys in the C-suite are anyways presenting at conferences and their views are well heard by their industry and customers. I think it is more useful to have blogs from the chief’s of SBU’s, product design and/or product marketing. These are folks who do not command an industry presence and can effectively serve to augment the corporate marketing messaging by providing their view’s in their area’s of expertise.
And finally, I agree with you that good blogs are typically edgy, thought provoking and provide a valuable data point.
What do you think of internal corporate blogging? I worked a large semi giant for many years and found C/SVP-level blogs very useful. The only downside was the ‘cut & paste’ risk – as some of the blogs found their way into EETimes and such ..:)
Regards,
-Laxman
Great post! Not to nitpick, but it was T.S. Eliot who said that, not Frost.
Rich:
“Blogs should never go though a “sanitization” step or they aren’t really blogs…”
The term “never” covers a lot of ground. I just had to disagree on two points:
1 – The definition of a “successful” blog is ambiguous especially given the vast number of ways they can be pursed for business benefit. Should a support blog about safety advice concerning a company’s fire suppresent systems be “sanitized” in some way to prevent injury or death or lawsuit? I suspect it should.
2 – A debate concerning the definition of a “blog” is a waste of time. Instead, business should build their advertorial marketing solutions based on business requirements. Lots of marketing solutions are successful and are not considered “blogs”. As such, it’s likely there are lots of blog-like marketing endeavors that are far more successful than blogs based on legacy-driven ideals.
With specific regar to legal risks in blogging, your advice is good. But it’s also importantto realize that businesses have far different requirements than “bloggers”. Any attempt to fit a corporation into a “bloggers” role will produce problems. In addition to legal risk, corporations are likely to care about platform security, message quality, technical quality, productivity, reporting, analytics, etc. These are requirements that are rarely considered by those building blog tools designed for individuals.
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The whole area of blogging to help build one’s business is extremely new to me. Since I am a coach and can work via phone with anyone in the country, it is a given that blogging and internet presence should be part of my marketing strategy. I appreciated your comments about making sure everything I say in my blog does track back to my purpose for the blog and my marketing plan. It is sometimes hard to remember that when I am out there just writing stuff. Thanks for the words of wisdom.
Rich,
You’re right on about needing to get in front of the corporate legal process. It’s especially important (and challenging) when your company culture is new to blogging.
New bloggers need to invest the time to gain agreements and build trust so that you’re editorially free.