I continue to be amazed by stories of employees of large companies trying to conceal their identity to influence issues via social media. Burger King is the latest to be in the news on this topic, although from what I’ve read (and admittedly I know very little about this particular case) it seems as though the company handled the situation well and was transparent in how they disclosed it.

I spoke with a reporter from the Miami Herald last week (the story is available online) and she asked some great questions around how companies should figure out when to participate, and when they decide to do so, how they should go about doing it. The initial answer is easy - if you participate you need to say who you are and be transparent about stating your reason for participating. Transparency is often used to indicate you have to disclose everything. That isn’t the case, and is usually too much information. You do need to be transparent about the topic you are discussing, and need to be unassailable in your truthfulness. People who try to participate under fake names need to just stop it. Go away! You will be caught, but more importantly, you are ruining it for others who are doing the right thing.

It is a hard enough decision to figure out how to participate. Note use of “how to participate” and not “whether or not to participate.” Companies who want any chance to influence their reputation and brand online have no choice but to be involved in online conversations. If you aren’t part of the conversation then your point of view is not represented. But when companies see others on the front pages and online news sites for improper behavior it elevates the overall feeling of confusion and concern about being involved online. It makes the blogosphere seem dark and scary (insert Halloween music here) and minimizes the true opportunity for companies to engage with their stakeholders.

I am not suggesting that companies need to respond to every every story, topic, and blog post. I am recommending that companies:

• Put social media guidelines in place so that employees and partners know what is allowed, and the implications for violating behavior (I wrote some about this in February.) The Word of Mouth Marketing Association is a good place to start for guidance.
• Monitor online conversations to understand what is being said. This is a great opportunity to get real-time feedback, almost a focus group of thousands. It will also give you a way to understand the topics that may be relevant for you to participate in, both proactively to contribute to a story, but reactively to correct misinformation.
• Determine how you will decide which posts to respond to. There will be some blogs that you want to avoid for whatever reason - the blogger is not open to differing points of view, the community has a set opinion and will use your participation to flame an issue, or the blog has a significant amount of offensive material that you don’t want to be exposed to. These are a few ideas, but think it through because there are others.
• Contribute to the community. Organizations that find a way to contribute to the conversation as opposed to only participating from a selfish perspective have a great opportunity to build relationships. H&R Block did this with tax tips, Southwest does it with open conversation and an integrated social media approach, and selfishly, our founding chairman Harold Burson occasionally does it by sharing his wisdom and insight.
• Think broadly. This isn’t only about blogs. It is about social media, twitter, discussion forums, and more.
• Participate. Monitor. And stick with it. It won’t always be easy, and the results won’t come quickly, but if you truly want to influence your brand position then you need to have a voice. And that voice needs to live online and off.

Yesterday was a good day at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s WOMM-U conference. The main session speakers were interesting, and the conference organizers featured a round robin style approach to breakouts, giving participants a choice of two learning tracks. I led breakouts on the topic of “Building a Complete Blog Program.” Essentially the idea was to facilitate a conversation about best practices pertaining to developing a complete blog program.

The groups I had were a nice blend of agency and corporate communications or marketing professionals. Participants tended to focus on corporate blogging, but when probed started to open up about other elements that comprise a “complete” blog program. Our final list included:

• Blog monitoring for immediate consumer feedback but also longer term trend identification, etc.
• Corporate blogging on company sponsored/developed blogs
• Blog responding both reactively to correct misinformation and proactively to participate in conversations
• Blogger outreach to generate conversations, where appropriate
• Microblogging to have a more consistent presence with interested stakeholders

We then started speaking about what best practices should be deployed for corporate blogging programs. Each group had different thoughts, and the combined list is certainly a good start for anyone considering a blogging program. Some of the best practices discussed were:

• Determine a clear strategy and objectives - the first question I always ask when someone tells me that they want to start blogging is “why?” Organizations need to have a clear marketing strategy and business strategy before moving ahead with a blogging program. The strategy and objectives will drive numerous elements including who blogs, topics discussed, levels of governance, etc.
• Conduct a risk assessment - organizations need to consider the risks associated with conducting a blogging program, including the risk of not participating. What regulatory concerns need to be addressed? Who from the company can participate? How will comments be moderated and handled. How will you respond to negative comments about executives and the company? And so on.
• Implement a social media policy and governance strategy - having a clearly defined social media policy is critical to ensuring that employees know what is within the realm of acceptable participation and visitors know how comments will be handled.
• Define the commitment required - participating in blogging activities is not for the faint of heart. It takes a deep commitment on many different levels — time is an obvious commitment, but a willingness to speak in an authentic voice is another that has to be considered. Bloggers also have to consider the fact that their content may live online forever, and be comfortable knowing that they can’t necessarily retract or remove comments from everywhere they get posted.
• Consider the implications of being translucent - everyone talks about being completely transparent online, but I think that is too much information for people to absorb. I think translucency is a better concept to consider. You need to be truthful and authentic in everything you say and must be unassailable in terms of being able to defend yourself, but you don’t have to discuss every single topic under the sun.
• Select the right spokespeople - that’s right, spokespeople. Bloggers are company spokespeople, whether they intend to be or not. Just as you wouldn’t let an inappropriate person conduct media interviews, you need to ensure that people involved in blogging activity are appropriate for the type of activity and level of visibility that they may achieve.
• Put a scalability plan in place - as your blogging program grows so will your needs. This includes things like resources to manage the program, time to develop content, the effort required to moderate and respond to blogs / comments, and the potential need to scale the technical infrastructure.
• Be realistic about results - it is important for organizations to have goals tied to their blogging programs that are realistic given the space they are in and the amount of effort put into the program. Results should be measured, but organizations must be patience as you generally need to participate and contribute to the community for some time before you are truly invited to the party.

Obviously there are a lot of other elements to consider, but the best practices above are certainly a step in the right direction for companies considering a blogging program. I believe the risk is in NOT participating, and that companies who do engage truly do have an unparalleled opportunity to build relationships with stakeholders as opposed to simply driving a transaction. The rewards outweigh the risks, but only if you enter the space with a well-thought out plan and realistic expectations.

Felix, David and I are off to a good start at WOMM-U. We listened in on Joseph Jaffe’s keynote this morning. He is always an engaging presenter and used good real-world cases to make his points. Sitting in the audience it felt like we (digital strategy community) are all saying the same things though - Jaffe talked about commitment versus campaigns where I always talk about relationships instead of transcations. He talked about not ceding complete control to consumers whereas I talk about influencing dialogue through participation instead of control. In some ways it is nice to hear the social media strategy-types talking about the same ideas, but it also makes me realize I need to push my thinking some.

Our table is all about having an experience with us - thus the Guitar Hero set up. We are also giving away stress balls and one guy quipped, “having a ball while playing Guitar Hero.” I wish I was smart enough to have planned it that way! We’ve met some great people so far this morning, but things are quieting down now as people go into their sessions. I’m leading a session with someone from Quicken Loans on “Building a Complete Blog Program.” Should be fun.

So we are in Miami, FL at the WOMM-U getting ready for an exciting two days. This year Erin will be leading various blog workshops. Throughout the day David and I will be posting photos to Flickr, videos to YouTube, and updates to this blog and Twitter.

If you are in Miami, drop by our booth and lay down a sick riff on Guitar Hero.