Behind Glass Walls

Company blogs seem to fall within one of two broad categories.

1. The companies who have an online or tech product as their main focus.

I’m thinking the big, well known companies, like Google, Twitter or Flickr. They tend to be all about what the company is doing with their product(s). There are also some smaller, more local companies with blogs -

• Kogan, a Melbourne-based tech goods company
• Techdirt, a technology and business analysis company
• Digital Pacific, an australian web host
• even the Australian Government has a number of blogs (the Government 2.0 blog is worth a visit).
• here’s a pretty good list of Aussie companies on Twitter

2. Companies that have a web presence because it is required.

These companies tend to be in a completely non-Internet-related area, and do not have much knowledge about maintaining a web presence. A Web Manager or “new media”specific roles are more likely in these companies.

Increasingly, it is being noticed that blogs are not the only method of interacting with customers. More and more, if you want to go where the people are, it is most useful to be active on a number of social platforms. Some businesses taking this path include:

• Bleeding Heart, which runs public benefit projects
• Good Old Games, offering cheap older games for download
• QPAC, Qld Performing Arts Centre
• Translink uses Twitter for broadcast (but replies occasionally)

This path can be more straight-forward and practical when regular large chunks of information are not really applicable.

No matter where a company falls, there are some common pointers for company blogs, in addition to ideas for personal blogs. The most important thing to remember is that on the Internet, nothing is done in a vacuum. If you want to have some influence on customer sentiment, you need to interact and converse.

It used to be that you found jobs ads in the newspaper, and set in you hard-copy resume, and waited for a phone call (that might not come). These days, while there are still jobs advertised in newspapers, it just seems so much easier to use the online services. The top players in online position advertisement in Australia are:

• seek
• careerone
• mycareer
• jobsearch

There are also some job sites dedicated to government jobs:

• SmartJobs – QLD Govt jobs
• JobSearch – Aust Govt jobs

A new option has emerged now, in the form of more interactive online tools for networking and building a personal brand. A personal brand, to me, is simply the identity you have for yourself online. In many ways, the best personal brand to have is to just be yourself, and be careful of your behaviour.

One useful resource for using new services to find jobs is rockthejob.com. As they say, it is best to be honest about who you are (to an extent, don’t reveal everything), rather than trying to create  separate identities. The site creates videos featuring interviews with various people knowledgeable in the area of online promotion and job hunting. It certainly is easier to convey a information in a video, but it can be quite superficial information, and requires a suitable environment to view the video (headphones, Flash).

Managing the information about you available online can be very tricky – from people who have the same name, to what others post about you, often you might have little or no control over potentially damaging web sites. One way to overcome this could be to make sure your network includes many different area, so that if something does find it’s way into Google that you don’t like, you have someone you can talk to that has some control over the content.

The key issue is that offline and online identities naturally blur, and it is best to manage your overall appearance, than segment different aspects.