Best Practices for Employees who Blog

When an employee posts online, responds to comments or writes blogs, the fine line between business and personal information has to be kept in mind. Online posting should ensure that the post does not tarnish the name of the company, its policies, result in loss of intellectual property, reputation, competitive business information or make it liable for legal action. Employees have a written or unwritten responsibility to follow corporate protocol on what can or cannot be written online either in personal or business capacity. A  few of the best practices which employees who blog could follow are:

1. Add disclaimers on personal blogs to state that this represent your personal opinion and not that of your company
2. Do not blog about events in your company or use the company’s logo or name
3. Do not blog about a competitor or use their logos or name
4. Respect copyright laws
5. Ensure your blogs do not divulge information of value to your company. This may include intellectual property, research or methods
6. Do not blog on topics that contravenes the reputation or is against the ethical policy of the company you work for
7. Do not make defamatory statements on the business, employees, customers, competitors or take work issues online
8. Carefully review what information is being published on your blog and remember that your reputation affects the company
9. Do not protest against your companies policies online.