Optimistic Rebel, the newest addition to the Optiem blogging family, just sent an intraoffice email reminding our group about The Blog Council's guidelines for blogging. I particularly think reviewing the section on Blogger Relations is a good gut check (no belly problems here), on the transparency of your outreach program.
Focus: Best practices for how businesses interact with external blogs and bloggers.
When communicating with blogs or bloggers on behalf of my company, I will:
- Disclose who I am, who I work for and any other relevant affiliations from the very first encounter.
- Proactively ask bloggers to be transparent about their relationship and communications with me.
- Always be truthful.
- Never ask someone else to deceive bloggers for me.
- Never ask bloggers to write a fake endorsement or something they do not believe.
- Never use off-topic comment for self-promotional intent.
- Never take action contrary to the specific boundaries, terms and conditions, and community guidelines set by each blog.
- Not use services or technologies for mass-posting comments.
- Use extreme care when communicating with minors or blogs intended to be read by minors.
- Comply with all laws and regulations regarding disclosure of identity.
- Make it clear to our employees and agencies that these rules apply to them.
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