Pittsburgh blog practices

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports on a blog & podcasting forum hosted by The Pittsburgh Technology Council, TEQ Magazine and The IndUS Entrepreneurs. They were most proud of having ‘Rob Scoble from Microsoft’s Redmond, Calif. (emphasis added), headquarters’ among others to share their blog wisdom.

Best blog practices from Pittsburgh included:

• Blogging is an informal medium, usually made up of informal phrases. If you blog, don’t use corporate-speak.
• Don’t try to get one over on the audience. This might go without saying, but is worth saying anyway because it is particularly important in the blogosphere, which tends to penalize marketing spin.
• It’s important to monitor blogs, even if you don’t participate in discussions. They’ll give you feedback about your product or service. You’ll also learn about your competitors and how their customers view them.
• The kid in Australia with five readers could be just as important as the larger blogs, because the media scours blogs to learn about subjects when researching articles and broadcast pieces. I can vouch for that.
• Even if you don’t publish a blog, have a blog policy. If you don’t blog officially, somebody in your organization probably will do it informally.

May have goofed on where Microsoft is located but the reporter did a nice job summarizing some sound blogging principals.