How Do You Advertise a Blog Inside Your Company?
Your company might be using an expensive piece of software to manage all its documents, which can index everything it is fed up with. But if you’re working for a small company, this kind of solution is not affordable.
For example, imagine a midsize company having several hundred employees spread all around Europe. One of its subsidiaries, or even one employee, decides to create a blog to manage a project, such as describing the different sports the employees are practicing.
This person might start by writing about his love for horseback riding or for rollerblading, but how will he tell other employees about the existence of his blog?
The answer is simple: it will be tough.
As this blog is located on the company’s intranet, traditional search engines will not find it — in most cases.
The employee, or the team, might be tempted to install a desktop search engine, such as the ones provided — for free — by the likes of Google, Yahoo! and others. These tools are indexing everything that resides on your hard drive — but also on your local network.
This kind of tool will find your blog, but also your last expense report or an old joke you sent two years ago to a friend outside your company. And your boss will also find these gems, which is not exactly what you wanted in the first place, right?
So, how is it possible to create some buzz around a blog behind your company’s firewall?
As Dan Gillmor, the former columnist about technology at the San Jose Mercury News, often said, I’m sure that collectively my readers know many more things than I do.
So, if you’re writing a blog inside your company, what kind of strategy do you use to be sure your blog is known? You can either send me your suggestions directly — and they’ll stay anonymous — even if they become part of a future note aggregating them. Or you can post your comments below — but they’ll immediately become public. In both cases, thank you for your help.
