I had a fascinating breakfast with two corporate PR types - let's call them Frank and Gordon - about how well blogs are being monitored, and what kind of techniques are used to address posts/comments that may be inflammatory, controversial, provocative or inaccurate. Truth be told, this kind of PR activity is still in its infancy. While blogs fall under the media monitoring mandate, definitive strategies don't seem to be in place to be pro-active or even reactive to blogs. With the blogosphere just starting to emerge into the mainstream, many companies are still trying to get a handle on what's happening and whether resources need to be deployed. In the short-term, I'll give the corporate sector the benefit of the doubt but they've got to start thinking about putting together PR strategies for the blogosphere. They need to start answering questions such as: do we monitor blogs and how do we go about doing it? How do we determine which bloggers are the most influential and/or important? How do we engage bloggers? Do we treat them as journalists and provide them with access to executives? Do we invite them to press conferences? Companies also need to think about whether they should have their own blogs or have executives write blogs. The Kryptonite controversy, which saw bloggers attack a new lock as easy to open with a ballpoint pen, showed companies should have blogs to ensure they're part of the conversation - instead of being on the outside looking in. I think 2006 needs be the year when many companies start to think about blogosphere PR strategies. If they decide to ignore what's happening or decide it's not worth the trouble, they will probably be surprised by how quickly they'll fall behind from a communications perspective.
Update: Here's a story about corporate blogging in BusinessWeek that suggests only 22 of the Fortune 500 companies have executive blogs.