Some big corporations recently got together and formed a private blog club called Blog Council to share best blogging practices. Current members include AccuQuote, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and Wells Fargo. The Council will organise its own events with the next one coming up on January 22.

This is generating quite a buzz in the blogosphere curently. While some bloggers chose to report about the launch positively like Direct2Dell and BlogworldExpo, others slammed it outright. From the name to the press release and FAQs pasted on the main page, the brickbats keep flying in. They say Blog Council promotes worst blogging practices. Mashable says ‘Not a single corporation from the list of founding members is the maintainer of a blog or New Media presence that I’d consider to be “doing it right.” I think of Yahoo, Brightcove, Southwest Airlines and Google as examples of effective and proper usage of blogs. The blogs engage the readers and the pundits and they aren’t singular points of contact for the company.‘

One reason why many seem to have a bad taste about it may be because forming such a group can be seen as an attempt to corporatise the social media. Remember it was supposed to be about you and me, the common citizen. PR people have been talking about social media marketing and PR 2.0 like they are the undisputed experts in this field. Now the marketers are forming Councils and are going to decide what works best and what well they can take advantage of the new medium and the users. So one starts asking – ‘So you are going to discuss ways to benefit from my social networking/blogging? Let’s see.’ There should not be too much board room discussion on blogging I guess.

Blog Council from a corporate perspective is a good start though and will create a platform for corporates to get together and share some learnings, instead of trying to find success in the blogosphere individually through hit and trail.

What does this mean for the PR agency? If you are a budding social media expert, this is one platform that you might want to seen at. Secondly, your clients might benefit if they become a member of this Council. Getting any ideas?

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