Blogging and podcasting have become serious communications tools in the Fortune 500, and smart companies are using these new vehicles to get their messages out to the marketplace.

Blogging and podcasting can and should be part of your communications and marketing mix, in moderation, and integrated in harmony with your corporate communications, web messaging, advertising, corporate strategy and culture. And as with any communications medium, getting the message right, and using all of the tools at your disposal to tell a single, clear, compelling story in the marketplace, is not a trivial undertaking.

When considering a move into the realm of corporate blogging and podcasting, there are five things you may not know:

1. The blogosphere is unforgiving
The blogosphere (a silly sounding name, I know) has its own highly developed set of rules and etiquette. Those who do not understand the rules of the road can be subject to merciless and unabated criticism, often tainting or altogether ending their blogging effort. In one incident, a negative comment was inadvertently deleted from the corporate blog of a Fortune 500 company. Bloggers attacked the company nearly instantaneously for what they saw as dishonesty and unwillingness to deal with tough issues.

2. The blogoshpere is connected
The blogosphere uses tools like tags, RSS feeds, syndication and aggregation that can make hundreds of thousands of people instantly aware when a particular blog is updated or a new podcast is published. This system is vastly more sophisticated than the one that underlies the worldwide web in general, which means communications can be more impactful, but also increases the risk that a communications blunder will be quickly, widely and irretrievably propagated. The only way to mitigate this risk is with a well thought-out blogging/podcasting strategy, clearly defined editorial and publication processes and an understanding among your company’s bloggers of the potential implications of the medium.

3. Blogging is not a fad
Like any major shift in technology or communications, blogging has brought with it its share of detractors. It’s easy, particularly for the uninformed, to say that blogging is a fad. The news and the numbers do not support this.

Technorati, an organization that, among other things, tracks blogging trends, reports that:

“As of the end of July 2005, Technorati was tracking over 14.2 million weblogs, and over 1.3 billion links. Interestingly, this is just about double the number of blogs that we were tracking 5 months ago. In March 2005 we were tracking 7.8 million blogs, which means the blogosphere has just about doubled again in the past 5 months, and that the blogosphere continues to double about every 5.5 months.”

It is hard to call anything with this kind of growth, a “fad.”

4. Corporate blogging is different
Companies like Boeing, Sun Microsystems, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and hundreds of others have embraced blogging and podcasting. And while most companies are using blogs and podcasts as communications channels for executive thought leadership, others are being more creative. Virgin Atlantic posts travel guides in podcast form and Budget Rent A Car launched a 16-city, blog-based treasure hunt.

The point is, a corporate blog or podcast needs to reflect your corporate culture, your message, and your objectives. As long as you’re honest with your audience about the intent of your blogging effort, within certain guidelines, your corporate blog can have whatever content and look and feel best meets your needs. All corporate communications should be directed at generating revenue, growing shareholder value and improving marketplace perception. You make the rules for your corporate communications, and blogging and podcasting, while having their own nuances and intricacies, do not create exceptions to these rules.

(For a list of corporate blogs, check out The New PR Wiki)

5. The blogosphere is indifferent to those who do not participate
Your company doesn’t have to get into blogging or podcasting. Like any other form of communications, it is up to you to decide whether either of these fits your objectives and corporate culture.

But blogging is unique in corporate communications in that it is a conversation of sorts – a conversation that you can choose to ignore or that you can engage in intelligently, and effectively. Because whether you participate or not, your competitors are probably talking about you, and the longer you are absent from the discussion the longer they can spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about your company, its products and its viability in the marketplace.

Seek professional help
If you’re serious about getting your company started in blogging or podcasting, don’t hire a technologist, a geek or an opportunist to help you. You need professional corporate communications counsel from a company that has developed communications strategy and content for leading high tech companies, and has real world experience with these emerging media.

Hyde Park Associates can help. We are working corporate communications professionals who have been directly responsible for some of the most innovative and impactful corporate blogging and podcasting work in the industry. If you want to get up to speed fast, avoiding the pitfalls and skipping the learning curve other companies have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars struggling through, we can get your company and your executives into the conversation.