Blog rules : a business guide to managing policy, public relations, and legal issues / Nancy Flynn.

ISBN:

9780814429501

9780814473559

Title:

Blog rules : a business guide to managing policy, public relations, and legal issues / Nancy Flynn.

Author:

Flynn, Nancy, 1956-

Personal Author:

Flynn, Nancy, 1956-

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 226 pages)

Contents:

The case for strategic blog management -- Why blog rules? -- Blogs pose unprecedented risks to business -- Start with a clear objective: why blog? -- Proceed with caution: self-assessment for would-be business bloggers -- Legal risks and regulatory rules in the blogosphere: why every employer must establish blog policies and procedures -- Treat blog posts as business records -- Blogs create million-dollar (sometimes billion-dollar) legal headaches for employers -- Shhh! Blogs put trade secrets and confidential information at risk -- Blog best practices for public companies and regulated firms -- Designing and implementing effective blog rules and policies -- Use written blog rules and policy to control content, maximize compliance, and reduce liabilities -- Communication is key to compliance: train, train, and train some more -- The blog is all about content -- Content can make-or break-your blog and your business -- Managing and editing writers' posts and readers' comments -- Blog etiquette, or netiquette : twelve tips for help maximize civil discourse -- Battling comment spam and splog -- Blog backlash: employers fight back with lawsuits and pink slips -- Employee-bloggers beware 1: Blogging can get you fired! -- Employee-bloggers beware 2: Blogging can get you sued! -- How to blog without getting fired: eight tips for bloggers who want to keep their jobs and stay out of court -- Public relations in the blogosphere : telling your story, recruiting customer evangelists, positioning CEO bloggers -- The rules of engagement have changed : blogs make it harder to control your message and your brand -- Spreading the word and selling the brand through customer evangelists and brand bloggers -- Positioning the CEO-blogger as opinion leader -- Managing your reputation in the blogosphere -- You've been blogged: how to prepare for-and respond to-an attack in the blogosphere -- Best practices help keep blog storms at bay -- Putting business blogs to work: IBM and Edelman share blog secrets, strategies, and success stories -- Q & A with IBM : blog central keeps IBM employees at the forefront of technology -- IBM's blogging policy and guidelines -- Q & A with Edelman -- Edelman's principles and code of conduct : maintaining a weblog -- Appendix A: thirty-six blog rules: best practices to keep you out of court with your corporate reputation intact -- Appendix B: Sample blog policies.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Business communication -- Blogs.

Customer relations -- Technological innovations.

Blogs.

Corporate culture.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2006

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
659.2 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

From the millions of people with a conviction or cause they're eager to share with like-minded readers, to the thousands of corporations looking for a more effective and reliable way to build trust-based relationships with their customers, it's no wonder that an astonishing 80,000 new web logs - or "blogs" - are appearing daily. Unfortunately, this includes employees who might reveal confidential company information, and even official corporate blogs that could potentially misrepresent company finances. Everyone, it seems, is blogging, and any organization that fails to take advantage of this exciting new platform, while also protecting itself from legal liabilities as well as critical or defamatory remarks, is sure to suffer the consequences. Blog Rules is a best-practices guide to establishing the blog-related policies and procedures your business needs. You'll learn how to: * Legally and ethically regulate employees' personal blogs that mention the company * Protect trade secrets and other proprietary information * Manage the legal and business exposure associated with corporate blogs * Respond swiftly and effectively to blog assaults against the company - and much more. The book helps you control your message and your brand, showing you how to train and familiarize your people with the rules you've established, and how to protect your reputation from both internal and external sources. Featuring secrets, strategies, and success stories from real-life companies, including IBM and Stonyfield Farms, Blog Rules is the one guide you need to ensure that your organization is helped and not hindered by this revolutionary tool.

Reviews (3)

Booklist Review

Businesses can't afford to ignore this latest publishing phenomenon. Yet, as Flynn points out in Blog Rule 4, It's the casual, conversational, anything-goes nature of the blog that makes it both so appealing to blog writers and readers--and so potentially dangerous to business. In neatly ordered chapters, with plenty of recaps and action plans (perfect for busy businesspeople to skim), Flynn helps readers decide first of all if blogging can benefit their business and, if so, how to do it in a way that's safe for business. Although her suggestions--creating a blog management team, writing blog rules, and training relentlessly--will undoubtedly minimize businesses' exposure to information leaks and litigation, they also run the risk of quashing the spontaneity essential to blogs' success. Such a balancing act is probably inevitable, although businesses that weigh the risks too long risk getting left behind. Includes Q&As, sample blog policies, and plenty of best practices. Bloggers will squawk, but suits will study. --Keir Graff Copyright 2006 Booklist

Choice Review

Lacking awareness of the powerfully constructive and destructive potential of blogs is no excuse for any organizational manager to ignore them. The number of blogs created for promotion and public relations, as well as personal opinions, is growing exponentially and being enabled by reduced costs of storage and Web hosting. Flynn (professional consultant and trainer) succeeds in laying out the critical business and legal issues associated with creating and managing blogs as well as the associated security and evidentiary ramifications of intended and unintended use of a blog tool. Everyone planning to create a blog should be cognizant of the benefits, limitations, and liabilities of doing so, and this book provides a valuable introduction to this topic. Flynn provides suggested blog policy content and wording tips along with ideas for disseminating the policy to employees as part of their job training. This book is a must read for any manager of blogs who wants an overview of important policy and legal issues. Aimed at a general readership, this work is also useful for students and general readers interested in the use of blogs in business and organizational settings. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All collections. N. J. Johnson Metropolitan State University

Library Journal Review

Blogging has become not just fashionable but mandatory in today's business world, but some managers have taken to it more readily than others. Here are two approaches to the subject. Weil, publisher of the e-newsletter WordBiz Report, conducts readers on a fun and freewheeling excursion into the world of blogs for managers and for employees who want their managers to allow blogging. Written informally, much like blogs themselves, the narrative interweaves stories about corporate executives who blog with tips on both the value of blogging and on how to start doing so. She discusses the problems and pitfalls of corporate blogging and even has practical advice for the most dreaded fear that CEOs have about blogging, loss of control: "Get over it." She includes discussions of wikis and podcasting, as well as legal resources, and has some sample policies and guidelines. For those not up on the language of blogs, she includes a glossary and a list of recommended readings. Her bottom line? "The essence of blogging is being real, and real isn't necessarily perfect." Flynn's book, on the other hand, is more strictly for CEOs fearful of blogging. True to her title, Flynn (founder & executive director, ePolicy Institute) includes "36 blog rules to keep you out of court." She takes a fairly defensive stance, considering rules, risks, and attacks. The impression one gets is that if your company must have a blog, let the lawyers and PR people have considerable control of the process. In the end, says Flynn, "Don't let the Blogosphere bully you." Larger business collections should purchase both books; smaller collections should purchase Weil's.-Robert Harbison, Western Kentucky Univ. Lib., Bowling Green (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.