Reasons you should and reasons you shouldn't -- depending on your marketing communications strategy (first of two parts).

For those under rocks, or too busy working to read anything else, Web logs -- "blogs" -- are electronic streams of consciousness, time sequential e-books. They are essentially online captures of one's own thoughts and words. They can also include others' works (with permission and appropriately cited).

Blogs differ from other forms of communication by virtue of their chronological format. In other words, blogs offer the reader a means to follow the leading thinking backwards from the most current entry to its inception. The advantage is that the reader can follow a logic stream and better intuit why and how discussions evolved to their present state. A disadvantage may be that there is a fork in the road and the author either inadvertently or deliberately overlooks it and goes left.

Without thinking very hard, I can think of three good reasons to blog -- and a host of really good reasons not to blog.

First the good:

1. The blog owner is a thought leader working to capture a following that returns frequently to see what she thinks. This eliminates the need to push email as information changes, instead, providing a pull mechanism that's on-demand for readers who follow her thinking. In a spam-laden world, this is a benefit and can be perceived as reader-considerate.
2. People read the blog to keep up with technical data regarding a specific area of interest. Again, the pull mechanism replaces the intrusive spamming necessary to keep people up to date. Those who only need to keep up on a monthly basis can log in, catch up, and disconnect again until 30 days later. Those with a need to know on a daily basis can clip in and out as time in their days warrants. It's an extremely flexible means to inform audiences with the same content needs but disparate cycle-time needs. As an example, this might make an excellent solution for user manuals and updates on version bugs.
3. The blog itself is an internal document -- a means for team members to know what's going on with a high priority account, for example. Rather than reading a series of account reports, team members can pop in as needed to see what's happened since the last time they checked. This can be a tremendous advantage in having team members -- no matter how minimally involved -- completely informed before talking to your clients. In effect, this can replace extremely difficult to schedule team update meetings. And because the information is Extranet accessible by any number of interactive devices, it can be retrieved from anywhere in the world. We've all had the experience of calling an 1-800 number and having the person on the other side of the phone actually not only know who we are, but knowing everything that's been going on with our problem. That's powerful customer service -- still a surprise when it happens, and if you're looking for a way to differentiate your service -- this is a good idea.

Now some top-of-mind reasons why you should shudder with fear:

1. You have an incredibly ego-centric cowboy author who actually thinks everyone in the world wants to know, to the nth degree, how a highly technical product evolved to its present state. Perhaps this is interesting for the other mega geeks, but it is a huge waste of time and something that would generate continual stress for your author, who would literally not sleep unless the blog were 100percent empirically accurate all the time. Once you give someone this media outlet, it's going to be difficult to take it away. This is the brother issue to No. 2.
2. You're cleverly giving your product and service strategy away to competitors because there are no controls regarding the information that's to be released on-line, and/or because there is no one with the authority and the time to prescreen information before it is published. This is akin to those brochures you find with morphed quasi-logos that appear to have been made in someone's garage. This is completely impossible to control and ultimately might do more to deposition your company than anyone ever intended.
3. Someone else captures your blog inside their blog and uses it as a running critique of how they feel your product/company/expert is inept. Think "I hate X.com." Running anything in sequence offers more ammo than individual blocks of information over time that someone has to work to sequentially construct. The running blog format itself implies that to be thorough, one should consider a quick scan -- or quick keyword search throughout the entire document.

There are certainly more reasons to blog and not to blog, but it all comes back to your strategy.

Blogs are simply another collateral tool in your marketing arsenal. Whether intended for internal or external use, blogging should be considered as part of your integrated marketing, sales and communications program, just like any other form of deliverable.

As to format, content and quick tips, take a look at the first three blog listings I found just by rooting around using Google this morning. I searched for "Fortune 100 Blog."

1. About.com: "Best Retailers on the Fortune 100 List" links to a human resources portal with individual blogs, including everything from conservative politics to vegetarian cuisine. I guess if I'm researching a specific topic I might find this interesting, or if I found a writer I like and wanted to follow him/her -- like a stream of the late Mike Royco -- I might find this interesting.
2. Sitepoint.com: On this site, the "blogmaster" has eight or so individual blogs that appear to be a running chat rooms for technical issues. This seems like it makes sense for IT tech people, which only indicates that the same idea probably makes sense for other tech people and topics. One caution would be the legal ramifications of identifying problems that aren't resolved -- I'd think one could make a good case for remedy. That's your legal department's issue. I'm not an attorney.
3. Manyworlds.com: This is very interesting. Manyworlds is a free site where subject matter experts can register and become regular contributors. The topics are nearly unlimited, the content is moderated and edited by professional staff, and the top 100 or so most influential (the people who are followed by the most readers) become regular contributors. The service is free, so anyone who wants to read the information is welcome to it. Manyworlds earns revenues from selling the software so that others can build their own applications, and also for compiling private versions that include only those SMEs that the client wishes to receive.

Read part two.

A former senior marketing executive for a division of GE Capital, Cheryl Gidley is an independent consultant and author who creates and delivers custom training on management, marketing and business development topics. She welcomes your email comments.