Within hours, it was cranking out a sustained barrage across the broad spectrum of modern media — statements, reports, e-mails, tweets, photos and videos — all punctuated by a high-profile presidential visit to the Gulf followed by an incendiary speech at the White House and a video recap with exclusive behind-the-scenes views of Obama in “West Wing Week,” the White House’s new online program at www.whitehouse.gov.

I’d noticed the White House’s long timeline blog post earlier, “The Ongoing Administration-Wide Response to the Deepwater BP Oil Spill”.  It starts with Search and Rescue, goes on to The President is Alerted, and lists Assets Deployed To Date starting the night of April 20th and continuing every day since.  They’re continuing to update the timeline with every day’s five to ten actions, and its length at this point is awe-inspiring.

Most importantly, their publication schedule is reaching the media: the day after the timeline was first published, Politico had an item headlined Disaster in the print edition that started with Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), the House Republican Conference Chairman, saying the government didn’t react quickly enough to the oil leak.  But at the bottom, it mentioned the “6,300-word opus” posted by the White House.

McClatchy’s article ends with Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, saying “”We were successful at getting a pretty high percentage of the coverage accurately depicting the steps the administration had taken . . . . It was not clear that was going to happen (several) days ago.”

Impressive results for a crisis communication plan, in the wake of an environmental disaster that will continue to affect us for years.  Hopefully the management of the leak will have positive results soon as well….

A change in the guidelines may also affect lobbyists in Washington: companies will now have to dislcose[sic] their financial ties to studies by research institutes that they fund and cite to promote their positions.

If you blog, if you have a blogger relations program, or if you fund policy research, keep an eye on these guidelines as the FTC begins to enforce them.

Sally's list (visit her post for the excellent reasons):

• Frogloop, Care2's nonprofit online marketing blog
• Beaconfire Wire
• Mobile Commons
• Sea Change Strategies
• The Agitator

And mine:

Three smart consultants:

• Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media – Lots of great advice, plus additional projects like We Are Media.
• Katya's Nonprofit Marketing Blog – Using marketing techniques for social good – she's the author of Robin Hood Marketing.
• SocialFishing by Maddie Grant – How associations can use social media, along with the Nonprofit Technology Network Water Cooler weekly chats.

Two software companies Convio would (for very understandable reasons) not list:

• Wild Apricot Blog – Advice for nonprofits and associations, centered around technology but going beyond their own products.
• Blackbaud's NetWits Think Tank – Some ideas posts, some technology posts, with an aggregated list of jobs at their clients at the bottom – nice touch.

And one innovative foundation:

• Pro Bono Junkie's Blog – News of the volunteering world and how to integrate volunteering into your career.  The Taproot Foundation puts together teams of volunteers that provide strategy, marketing, and technology consulting to nonprofits (I've volunteered with them as a project manager).

Would love to hear anyone else's favorites as well.

1. Can you give me an example of social media work you’ve completed for a client recently?

Sure. We’re working with a religious organization to promote education about and understanding of other faiths, using Facebook and YouTube among other avenues.

2. How do you go about pitching bloggers?

We research an issue area, finding influential and interesting bloggers who would care about our topic (usually they’ve written about something related in the past). Often we already have relationships with some bloggers who fit those criteria. Whether we know a blogger or not, we write offering information and say we hope they’ll consider blogging about it.

3. How do you monitor what people are saying about you?

Google Alerts, Twitter search, comments from clients and friends at other organizations (offline conversations count too). We’re investigating several social media monitoring services but haven’t made choices yet.

4. Where can I find you online?

Our website, our other blog Disruptive Women in Health Care, Facebook. Our staff is on LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and lots of other places as well.

5. Can you write my blog for me?

We do blog training and work with our clients so they can easily keep something fresh on their blogs – create publication calendars, set up Delicious so they have a recent news feed, etc. Writing a blog is a valuable process as well as a way to promote your work (listen to Tom Peters and Seth Godin), and having someone else write it makes no sense.

6. How do you measure results?

Usually number of actions taken – advocacy lends itself better to hard numbers than marketing generally does.

7. How would you define social media?

People interacting online. I’m waiting for a better way to say “and I include mobile services in that too,” but no one’s invented a good word yet.

8. Can you just pretend to be me online?

No. See (5) for some of the reasons. We actually don’t have people ask us this, so either we’re just lucky or most advocates want to convey messages themselves.

All right, now go look at Dave’s post and see if I got the right answers!

• Introduction
• Preparation – Strategy
• Pre-Launch – Expectations
• Launch – Execution
• Post-Launch – Growth / Conclusion

Just as you planned and agreed with your bloggers how leaving the blog
would work, you now need a plan for how adding bloggers will work.
Maybe adding a blogger is entirely the decision of the sponsoring
organization, or maybe it requires the approval of some percentage of
the current bloggers. Think about whether adding bloggers means each
person posts less often or whether it means your posting frequency
grows.

Whether or not you add regular bloggers, you should consider having
guest bloggers. In fact, one of the best ways to recruit additional
regular bloggers is to have them guest post a couple of times first and
see how they fit into your blog’s community. Guest bloggers can be
recruited from regular commenters, bloggers on related blogs, and experts
on your topics.

You should inform all the bloggers regularly (probably monthly) about
how the blog is doing – how many hits, links, comments, etc. Make sure
the bloggers can see how the blog affects their own careers, not just
the benefits for the sponsoring organization – for instance, mention any
blogger’s media hits or speaking opportunities to the whole group.

Conclusion

Managing a group blog can be a great opportunity for an organization to
be seen as a leader in its field and for that organization to promote
like-minded voices in the blogosphere. If you invest the time to start
up your group blog with clear focus and expectations, it will be easier
to manage and more likely to take off. Your bloggers will enjoy writing
for you, and you’ll enjoy working with them. And you’ll have a great
blog.

Good luck, and have fun blogging!

Starting a Group Blog series:

• Introduction
• Preparation – Strategy
• Pre-Launch – Expectations
• Launch – Execution
• Post-Launch – Growth / Conclusion

Designing and building your group blog will be almost exactly like
creating an individual blog, so there’s no reason to discuss it at
length here. The only obvious addition (other than more user accounts)
is that you’ll need to set up a reminder system, so bloggers know when
they’re supposed to post.

The sponsoring organization will probably be responsible for the launch
strategy: contacting all those bloggers you found in the preparation
stage and recruiting them to link to you, as well as more traditional
public relations. You should be at least copied on any media requests
to the bloggers, and if one of your bloggers receives a request they
should make sure you hear about it immediately.

The sponsoring organization will probably have primary responsibility
for monitoring comments and responding as detailed in the comment
policy. Plan staffing for the blog accordingly, and realize that as
your audience grows comment management will take more time.

• Introduction
• Preparation – Strategy
• Pre-Launch – Expectations
• Launch – Execution
• Post-Launch – Growth / Conclusion

Once you’ve chosen your strategy and found your bloggers, you’ll need to
set expectations with them. Each blogger’s actions will affect the
reputation of the sponsoring organization, of the other bloggers, and of
the blog itself, so all parties will need to be comfortable with these
standards.

First come analogs of journalistic standards. Controversial statements
are fine (and will probably increase traffic), but libel (false and
damaging statements) is illegal in the US. Be sure bloggers understand
the difference. While no law requires the retraction and correction of
an error, it’s good practice for bloggers to strike through that text
and add a correction, either at that point or at the bottom of the post.
Let your bloggers know that you require them to do this. For a
particularly important error, they may want to also write a new post
explaining and correcting it. Writing a new post without altering the
original one shouldn’t be permitted, since visitors may come only to the
original post from a search engine and not see the correction.

Next, set up your posting/commenting standards. One common method is to
assign a person to each day you plan to post (for instance, one blogger
is responsible for posting every other Tuesday). Bloggers should be
expected to monitor and comment in the comment threads of their own
posts, and you’ll jumpstart commenting and increase the community feel
of your blog by also expecting them to comment on your other bloggers’
posts on a regular schedule. If your posting schedule has each blogger
posting every two weeks, it’s reasonable to expect them to also make a
comment on another post every two weeks.

Determine how you’ll allow content reuse. Can your bloggers cross-post
their writing on their own sites/blogs or elsewhere? Must they wait
before republishing? This is related to the copyright decision in the
preparation stage above.

Set expectations as well for leaving the blog. You should require
bloggers to give you some notice when they quit – for someone who writes
every two weeks, maybe they need to give you a month’s warning. On the
other hand, if a blogger isn’t meeting the expectations set above, have
a process for ending their participation. They might be removed if they
miss a certain number of posts, a certain number in a row, if they miss
without warning you a certain number of days in advance, etc. You
should also determine what will happen if you decide to stop sponsoring
the blog: will you take down the site, will you leave it up but static,
or will you sell it to the bloggers or another organization? That plan
might change over time, but you need an initial idea.

You’ll want a written agreement laying out the above expectations, and
your lawyer may want it to include a clause in which bloggers indemnify
you for any libel they might commit. It’s unclear whether this will
actually protect you (depends on how much you dictate the content,
whether the blogger has the resources to pay any judgement, etc.), but
do have your lawyer work with you on the agreement.

Finally, set expectations for readers: draft a privacy policy, a comment
policy, and needed disclaimers. The sponsoring organization will create
the privacy policy, which should mention how commenters’ information
will be used – for instance, if they will be subscribed to the
newsletter of the sponsoring organization. The sponsoring organization
will create and have final say over the comment policy, though the
bloggers must be comfortable with it. In particular, bloggers will need
to agree on how rude, insulting, or irrelevant comments should be dealt
with (look up disemvoweling for one option). You may be able to have
one overarching disclaimer, or you may need to have each blogger create
a personal disclaimer to be inserted at the bottom of her posts,
depending on her own legal counsel’s advice.

• Introduction
• Preparation – Strategy
• Pre-Launch – Expectations
• Launch – Execution
• Post-Launch – Growth / Conclusion

The first part of your strategy is the same as for starting an
individual blog: choose your focus/niche, determine your expected
audience, and choose the blog name / domain name (and trademark them if
you choose). Once you have those, start compiling a list of related
blogs, both as a resource for your writers (who can react to related
posts) and to use in your promotion efforts.

Then start recruiting your bloggers, and determine (probably with their
help) how you’re going to structure ownership and copyrights for this
blog.  Most likely the bloggers will want to retain copyright on the
posts they write, while the sponsoring organization will have the right
to publish those posts indefinitely.  If you’re interested in rights to
republish the content in other forms (ebooks, podcasts, white papers,
books), make sure to discuss that early!  See the content reuse and
leaving the blog sections (in later posts in this series) for additional considerations.  The
sponsoring organization will probably own the blog name, domain name,
and design.

You’ll want a variety of bloggers with different expertise and
viewpoints, so don’t rely on one person’s network to find them.
Consider teaming up with established bloggers, and consider recruiting
excellent writers who’ve never read a blog.  Note that in a group blog
you probably don’t want ghostwriting, because that additional layer of
coordination will be frustrating over time.

All your bloggers should have a full understanding of the focus/niche of
this group blog.  Unless it’s intended to be a blog about your
organization, don’t force bloggers to write only about the sponsoring
organization and its work: the blog will have far more credibility if
its authors provide interesting, wide-ranging voices on a topic rather
than sticking to the company line.  It’s actually good to be criticized
occasionally on the blog (but do offer your point of view politely in
the comments).  Controversy attracts readers and starts discussions!

Plan your categories early.  You’ll want a way to see all posts by one
author, but that shouldn’t be your only category scheme.  One of the
best things about group blogs is the way different bloggers’ posts play
off each other, so plan to categorize posts by subject area as well. If
you’re planning way ahead, a nonobvious piece of advice is to think
about categories as forming the basis of book chapters, so it will be
easier to repurpose your content in the future.

More prosaically, while starting an individual blog definitely requires less coordination than sponsoring a group blog, a group blog can multiply your efforts since others will be helping with writing and promotion. You’ll be able to spend more time on making the blog successful, rather than on creating all the content yourself.

There are four stages in starting a group blog. The first is preparation, in which you set your strategy by determining your topic, your audience, and your bloggers. The second is pre-launch, in which you get down to the nitty-gritty of expectations for bloggers, for the sponsoring organization, and for the public. The third is launch, in which you create and publicize the blog. Finally, the fourth is post-launch growth, in which you monitor the continuing effort of writing and promoting the blog.

This post starts a weekly series on what you need to do and the decisions you need to make to start an effective group blog. It’s written from our experience (lots of thought about legalities, for instance) so we’re hoping others will chime in with more advice! Why should (or shouldn’t) someone consider starting a group blog?

Starting a Group Blog series:

• Introduction
• Preparation – Strategy
• Pre-Launch – Expectations
• Launch – Execution
• Post-Launch – Growth / Conclusion

A week ago, John McCain’s campaign suspended staffer Soren Dayton for posting a link to an inflammatory video about Obama on his Twitter microblog. I first saw the story mentioned on Twitter itself and started paying attention when someone mentioned the name of the staffer in question, since I’ve met Soren but didn’t know he was working for the campaign. Then I read the Politico story and the NPR news blog story and started thinking about "private" spaces on the Internet and how closely organizations are associated with their employees or their members.

Soren’s Twitter account was private, meaning if you wanted to follow
him, you had to ask and have him approve. I’ve seen people say they
like that setup because they have more control over who can listen to
them. But how closely should you scrutinize the short request you get
from a potential follower? Many people with public Twitter accounts
follow back all the real people who wanted to follow them (just not the
spam link posters) – so how careful is someone with a private account
likely to be? Plus half the value of Twitter for me is following people
with totally different views from mine, so I hear an unfiltered picture
from that perspective. If I had a private account, I’d still let them
follow me in return. How private can you keep your account and still find Twitter useful?

Another interesting example: Facebook started as a fairly private
space, where only Harvard students could join. Then they opened up
gradually, first to other colleges and eventually to anyone. Some
people didn’t pay attention to that transition. I haven’t seen stories
about being fired for posting information on
Facebook, but there’s been plenty of commentary (example from the Wesleyan University student paper) about people not being
hired based on their profiles. In response, the company has just
released a major upgrade to its privacy capabilities. No one knows how many people will take advantage of the new controls. When your community is entered by others, is it your responsibility to renegotiate how public you make your history?

Organizations are made up of people, and their reputations
are affected by their people’s reputations. Since anything on the
Internet can spread rapidly, however privately it was originally shared, some organizations are
starting to train employees and members about online reputation. We
suggest to our clients that they have a blogging policy so everyone knows what subjects are off-limits (financials, for
instance) and what kind of disclaimers they need to make (e.g. I’m not
speaking for my employer, or I’m saying this for a client). With the
rise of social networks and microcontent, it’s smart to broaden the
focus beyond blogging – and to update the policy each year with new
technologies.