Blogging started off as a fun way to share about yourself and showcase your personal passions. Now it is becoming more common to use blogs as tool in business to further your marketing or public relations strategy. There are ways to do this well and there are certainly pitfalls to avoid when using Blogs.

This article shares 8 Principles which will help to make sure your blog is helping your business rather than hindering it.

Principle 1: Blog Responsibly

Be careful that employees don't reveal sensitive company information on your blog. You don't want one of your employees blogging about an upcoming marketing strategy to one of your competitors. This could spell disaster for your business.

Principle 2: Know thyself and thy blogging

Once upon a time, blogs were like online diaries with notes, entries, comments and questions. These days there are some groundbreaking blogs out there using very innovative multi-media strategies. As well as knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, stay in tune with what other people are doing and incorporate some new ideas into your own blogging.

(See for example General Motors' excellent blog: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/).

Principle 3: Know thy enemy blogger

Knowing your own abilities, limitations and the available technology is good, but not good enough. You need to also know who you're competing with. You should therefore follow the advice of Cory Miller when he suggests that we "study the great blogs and learn what makes them great." By studying successful competitor blogs, we learn why they are successful, how we can adopt their strategy and how to improve upon it, thus drawing more attention to ourselves. It's dog eats dog out there, or rather, blog eat blog.

Principle 4: Blog effectively

One of the important things with blogs is to think consistently about what will be the best strategy for your company. For example, Thomas Nelson Publishing recommends that you have your employees host blogs separately to your company so as to distance personal opinions from company policy. However, a smaller company might do the opposite of that strategy and have all employees post their blogs on the company website to create more of a 'community feel'.

Principle 5: Blog with Vision

Take what you've already learned about blogging; put it into new perspectives, and attempt to predict directions in your particular niche, from the implementation of new strategies and technologies, to possible blogging avenues as yet unexplored.

Principle 6: Blog with Depth

When you blog, keep a careful eye on the strategy behind what you're doing and whether your blog is actually achieving what you want to achieve. Look at what is working, what is not working, and what could be working better to achieve your outcome. Blogging for businesses is not an end in itself - always keep your marketing/business strategy in mind and make sure your blog is helping to achieve it. Don't let blogging be an unexamined process as that is a recipe for failure.

Principle 7: Keep note of blogging details

The more attention you pay to what is happening on your blog, the more effective it will be. It's just like a pot plant - the more energy and attention you give it, the better it will grow.

Principle 8: Avoid blog overuse

Always remember that blogging is just one strategy that can serve your internet marketing efforts. There are plenty more internet marketing strategies that are just as effective and can also be used in conjunction with a blog strategy.

The main trick to successful blogging is to understand what is happening in the world of blogging, what you think is going to happen and also to use your blog carefully so as to avoid any negative outcomes. Following the 8 Principles will help to ensure your blogging is successful.

If you're thinking about starting an external blog for your company, you might want to lay down a few rules for employees regarding safe blogging, since it can be read by anyone. Examples range from avoiding slander to divulging sensitive company secrets and product information.

You can set up a blog with a free blogging service such as www.blogger.com, but I recommend you use your own domain to set up your blog using Wordpress or Moveable Type - that way you have much more control over the process.

http://www.wordpress.org http://www.movabletype.org/

Both of these services provide a lot of support and help materials to get started. You will be blogging successfully in no time!