If you've read the recent Forbes.com article Attack of the Blogs (subscription required), then you believe that the blogosphere is a giant attack squad just waiting to destroy your brand credibility online.

I don't want to downplay that part of the blogosphere because there are definitely those bloggers out there without scruples and who have an axe to grind--and they can destroy you if they want to; just ask Dan Rather and Trent Lott. But the article is a little over the edge on the fear factor. At one point, they actually state that bloggers differ from mainstream journalists because mainstream journalists put their credibility on the line with every article.

I think this distinction is totally unfair because there are plenty of bloggers who put their credibility on the line with every post (many times a day compared to once a week for most journalists). And keep in mind that most bloggers post without an editor snipping and shaping their posts to conform with an overall corporate vision.

In other words, just like in mainstream journalism, there are good bloggers and bad bloggers and it's up to the reader to figure out which is which and who is whom. So, the burden of proof falls far heavier on the individual Internet surfer's shoulders in the blogosphere than the page-turning Sunday Times reader who is reading what has been neatly packaged for him under the corporate vision of whichever major corporate conglomerate happens to own their local paper.

Now, when I think of credible bloggers who are serving the community they have built, I think of Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger.net who teaches bloggers how to shape their blogs into a community-building and money-making machine and how to do it ethically without stepping all over people.

I think of Major Nelson whose blog and blog casts are building up a sidebar community to the X-Box Live community (Major Nelson is a Director at Microsoft working with the X-Box Live team).

I think of Antimedia, who has dedicated his site to exposing the lies and obfuscations that take place daily in mainstream media.

Each of these bloggers operate their sites with integrity and they have been my mentors and teachers whom I have deliberately shaped my own blog and blogging behavior after.

And like many of these great bloggers, I have created my own Blog Disclaimer Policy which discloses my own ethics to the Internet surfer who I hope continues to come back to my site daily for the insightful social commentary and creative writing that I work very hard to put out day after day.

For example, I do not name companies that I have worked for or that I presently work for in my blog posts. I don't name people or discuss proprietary information simply because doing so woudl be inherently against my ethics. I don't want to build my success upon the backs and failures of others.

I have summed up my views on this with the following statement:

I do not want to reach the end of my career and look back down the ladder of my success and realize that the steps I used to ascend were actually the bodies of those who got in my way or provided easy targets to take advantage of. I like to be more creative in my solutions and build upon the synergy created through solid relationships with others.

But not every blogger shares my ethics and many have built reputations based on destroying those in power and setting themselves up as some kind of champion of the people (think virtual Bill O'Reilly); therefore corporations would be wise to consistently monitor the blogosphere for brand-slams that need to be dealt with immediately (and I'm not talking about threat of legislation because that won't work).

If you are the victim of a blog swarm attack, you need to get out there and confront it immediately. If there is incorrect or slighted information being posted about your company then someone in your organization must contact the webmaster of the blog either through e-mail, directly in the offending blog comment section, through trackbacks to your own blog post or, better yet, through all three methods.

Despite what the Forbes article says, reputation is everything online and when someone targets you, there isn't even time to call and consult a lawyer on the phone. The opportunity cost spent waiting on hold for your lawyer is enough to destroy your brand credibility online and would leave you with a mountain of litigation fees which amount to nothing more than swatting a fat hand at a mosquito swarm who regroups and attacks after every swing. And like the camper without Skin-So-Soft, you'll end up bloody, scratching, and broken.

But most companies are totally ignorant when it comes to operating online; they are fighting this online war like the British fought the Americans in the Revolution and how the government fights the War on Drugs--like mindless cogs lined up in bright clothes shooting at phantoms while rebels in the trees with high power rifles pick them off one by one.

Paying a company to monitor your brand online is only the first step of protecting your company brand image online. You must develop your own online personality in the form of a corporate spokesperson who has a legitimate blogging presence in the blogosphere as well as inside your own corporate Intranet community.

According to a recent post by Rich Ottum over at e-StrategyOne Buzz:

In a survey of corporate marketing and communications professionals conducted by Guidewire and iUpload, 55 percent of corporations are blogging. 91.4 percent of these use blogs for internal communications and 96.6 percent for external outreach as well.

Now my question is, "Where the hell are the rest of the corporate bloggers?" None of the managers, directors, vice presidents, or CEOs of any of the companies I have worked for during the past two years have ever used the term blog or podcast in any conversation, private or public.

I once even gave a presentation to high level managers and directors at one company about the benefits of offering access to and encouraging associates from every level of the organization, from CEO down to the frontline people, to establish and build their own blogs and communicate their personal viewpoints on what is going on around them in their company. I further encouraged them to adopt and encourage the use of RSS feeds to distribute blog posts, podcasts, and videoblogs throughout their organization.

When the presentation was over, most of the people in the room looked like Malcolm Dowell in A Clockwork Orange after his "rehabilitation treatment."

Sure, there are risks involved in such a bold release of responsibility but just imagine the organization that has the guts and foresight to adopt this vision. Imagine a company where the CEO subscribes to the blog of a frontline employee and discovers a customer service issuewith a major client before that associate can even address it with their supervisor and calls the other company's contact to let them know that the matter has been settled before the contact has even been made aware there was an issue at all. Now that is customer service!

Imagine this same CEO following another frontline employee who is having serious harrasment problems with their manager. The CEO puts their own feelers out into the situation, finds it to be a volatile and collects enough informational proof to fire the offending manager before they can do any more internal damage.

Imagine being able to record a CEO's quarterly corporate speech to the board of investors, edit it with a software program, and put it out as a podcast or video blog cast on the CEO's blog (whose RSS feed all associates are obligated to subscribe to) that same afternoon. This same CEO can set up a three hour block of time the next day to entertain questions or concerns from employees all over the organization through blog comments, instant message, or a conference call depending on the size of the company.

The possibiliites are endless for removing traditional barriers within the organization which prevented the unleashing of human potential across the organization.

The power to destory online is far overshadowed by the power to create and it's a shame that more companies aren't rushing to hire a blogger or team of bloggers to become their virtual face online and protect the interests of the company online.

Companies in the future must be willing to apologize and explain when valid business mistakes happen (as they inevitably will). I just hope that fear of the blogosphere doesn't keep companies away from using the enormous potential for much longer because those that come to the well first are going to get the freshest water and the biggest share of the information market gold rush that is occuring online before our eyes every single day around the world.

TAGS: Blogs, Podcasts, Video Blogs, Business, Corporate Blog, Corporate