How Google blogs may be a model for conservative law firm blogging

Despite Google’s free wheeling perception, the company is pretty conservative when it comes to management of Google’s 46 ‘official blogs.’ One aspect of their blog protocol could even be used by law firms looking to ‘oversee’ their blogging lawyers.

Every product team at Google has a blog but their focus is strictly PR, not to give rise to a conversation on the blogs, none of which allow comments.

And as Karen Wickre, ‘mother of Google’s blogs’, on her work as editor & ‘gatekeeper’ of the official Google blogs told Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land in an interview, all blog posts are reviewed before published live to the net.

While it’s important to have a review, I never want to overwrite what a Googler is saying about their topic or product. All posts are reviewed by a few relevant people on the immediate team, plus a PR person for approval. As a rule, this isn’t labor-intensive or overbearing. We try to encourage original perspectives and stories insofar as company blogs can feature those. We share drafts in Google Docs and do edits there. Again, I try hard not to overwrite or have the team wordsmith to death. That’s not going to get us interesting reads.

Google’s blogging does work. Even though comments may not be allowed on the blogs themselves, blog posts from Google often generate vibrant discussion on the blogosphere. Who wouldn’t want to know what to know what Google is up to? And for many of us, who wouldn’t to spread the fact on their own blog that they follow what Google is doing?

Law firms may also want to follow Google’s lead on the use of blogs in place of press releases. As Karen told Danny, ‘Much more often than a press release … we’ll issue a blog post.’ Because of the tens of thousands of bloggers and reporters who subscribe to Google’s blogs, a blog post is more widely disseminated than a press release.

Source on post: Google Blogoscoped