You're So Vain...You Probably Think This Blog Is About You

The title for this post comes from my wife Franki, who heard me singing that awful song after we watched How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days while she had the flu.

It got me thinking about a piece of advice I give all business blogging clients.  Be careful what you write.

I'm sorry to disappoint those of you who were looking for a juicy story, but this is the advice column, and I never, never give veiled statements online.  The risk of talking about clients and having them read your blog is too great, and you can ruin your business if you get the reputation for yakking about your partners and clients.  Save that for your MySpace page (just kidding!).

But not writing about current clients is not enough.  You have to avoid writing about current clients, past clients, and even mythical clients when you blog.  Did I lose anyone?

Mythical clients, or future clients, are people too.  If you create a story out of thin air, or write a how-to that has never happened to you on your blog, you still run the risk of alienating a future client.  Lemme explain.  No, is too much.  Lemme Sum Up.

Blogs have date and time stamps that should, theoretically convince whoever is reading your blog of the time and date you first posted.  A story written three years ago, theoretically, shouldn't be used by a client to show how you were talking about something that happened today.

but time and date stamps can be changed, and when the red tide descends over the eyes of your biggest client when they think you are talking about them obscures their search for a date/time stamp, do you really think pointing out how wrong they are is going to help your case?

To a new reader hitting your blog on Google - everything is fresh.  A link e-mailed to a client may or may not be perused for time before you get the nasty call.  And the call from a lawyer asking why you're discussing sensitive information, even if it is veiled, is no way to start your day.

So when blogging about actual events, or fictional ones - be cautious.   You don't know how careful your reader is on the details.  (and with that said - I'll break my own rules by going to another blog and leaving a juicy story about a client many years ago).