Our first company blogs were set up with the Blogger tool that allows you to create multiple blogs. Three initial blogs were set up for different topics. However, the same customized template was used with each blog so the blogs were linked together with a common sidebar. Thus, a person could view one of the blogs and, if interested, click on a sidebar link to view another blog. Two more blogs were later added.
After the initial customization, management of the blogs has been rather straight forward. The purpose of the business blogs is to provide information, not editorials, so the blog entries are not lengthy. Neither is there an attempt to add many, many daily entries to each blog. Rather, the daily posting might only be a single entry to each blog – not an overwhelming task.
When MSN Spaces was announced, we had to try it! So, another blog was created.
MSN Spaces provides a category feature for blog entries to be organized in up to 25 categories. This is a very handy feature, but it does mean that all the blog entries appear together on the main (index) page. Although Blogger does not have a category option, it does allow multiple blogs. And, the use of a common template with sidebar links to the other blogs basically categorizes the blogs, and allows each blog to have its own main (index) page. So, both MSN Spaces and Blogger provide positive features for weblog management.
This blog (MSN Spaces) has become the online web diary that is updated throughout the day. It is the Work-in-Progress (WIP) blog that may or may not contain brief entries. The other blogs (Blogger) are still updated together at the same time, usually each work day. Once done, any other blog entries will be added as draft entries for the next publication date.
All in all, managing multiple blogs has not been a complex and overwhelming task. Two key factors in managing the multiple business blogs have been planning and organization. An initial plan specified the organization of the blogs, the purpose of each blog, and the specific type of entries to be added to each blog. Whenever a new blog has been added, the plan has been reviewed and revised. For example, some blog entries will now appear on this blog (WIP) instead of another blog.
It helps to be organized in managing multiple blogs but it also helps to be flexible, else you will negate one of the primary benefits of blogging – ease of use!