Should your company have a blogging policy?

I need to read Mike Moran more regularly. He’s more than brilliant; he’s useful. To me, we should all aspire to usefulness. As Garrison Keilor once said , “There are far too many decorative people in the world.”

In any case, Mike points out the risks to business from blogging and why “blogging policies” fail to miss the point (credit where due: the original concept comes from David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”).

I’m going to take Scott’s “if you allow your employees to send e-mail” meme one step further: The same holds true if you let your employees talk to customers, friends and neighbors, too.

Now, many companies have long restricted employees from speaking with the media, for the obvious reason that the media traditionally has had much broader reach than the person next door. But, is that still true? And which one has more credibility with your customer in the current, fragmented media landscape? Which one has the potential to do more damage in the long run? I’d argue they’re roughly equivalent. A disgruntled customer, speaking to their friends and acquaintances, and, increasingly, their blog audience or favorite review site about how you conduct business may have equal impact as a page B17 story in the New York Times. A really pissed off customer/employee/whomever likely has much, much more.

Smart companies – big and small – should enact policies making clear what employees may or may not share. With anyone. The same holds true for harassment and discrimination policies. Blogs are just another conversation. Treating them differently is like locking a window while the front door remains wide open.