There are lots of organizations out there who are starting corporate blogs — and many of those blogs get a less-than-stellar reception from their potential audiences.

Why does this happen? Why don’t people want to read a particular blog? Well, I’d suggest there are certain things people want to see in a corporate blog. They want a blog that is:

1. Authentic. Many corporate blogs start off on the wrong foot right away by forfeiting their readers’ trust. Instead of a blog written by an interesting, charismatic person in the organization, the job gets unloaded on some poor writer or administrative assistant who has to try to come up with content.

If the voice of the blog feels out of sync with the person who’s writing it, readers will catch on. If the blogger doesn’t have time to write their own blog, they shouldn’t be blogging. Period.

If there’s someone in the organization who is very interesting and charismatic, but just doesn’t have time to blog, consider creating a blog for someone on their team. Chances are, someone who has access to someone interesting and charismatic will usually have some juicy stuff to write about.

Also be wary of what your bloggers write about. A blog that only touts how great the company is is just a waste of time — deal with real issues (including the tough ones).

2. Accessible. Users need multiple ways to access a blog. Throwing a blog onto your corporate intranet may seem like the simplest thing to do, but then again, who’s going to bookmark and religiously visit that page?

If you haven’t already explored an in-house RSS reader, you should. Chances are there are many people in the organization who are already using RSS — find out what they’re using and how it works for them.

Consider blogs and feeds as interdependent. While one can exist without the other, it certainly makes things easier if you have both — otherwise you have a delivery mechanism with no content (that has been created internally), or content with no delivery mechanism.

And whatever you do, don’t punish the people who have been innovative enough to try out RSS on their own. If the organization is committed to knowledge management, punishing the innovators definitely sends the wrong message.

3. Interactive. Much like the authenticity of a blog, you need to have a blogger who’s willing to interact in discussions with people leaving comments.

Comments don’t have to be paragraphs long, but at least take the time to acknowledge people’s comments. This is especially important if the blog is written by a ‘higher-up’ in the organization. You don’t want everyone else to feel ignored when they’ve taken the time to comment on an issue.

Again, if the blogger doesn’t have time to respond to comments, then they shouldn’t be writing a blog in the first place.

Not to pick on anyone, but Matt Heaton’s (CEO of BlueHost, my web hosting company) blog is a great example of someone who doesn’t respond to comments — and I sometimes wonder if his blog does the company more harm than good.

It’s not that Matt’s blog is a bad thing: it’s just that not responding to your customers’ comments could be perceived as showing a lack of interest in those customers’ opinions.

To end on a positive note, corporate blogging opens up all kinds of new opportunities and challenges. Try sticking to these three guidelines, and things should go a bit smoother for you.

And remember, these guidelines don’t get you around the fact that you need great, frequently-updated content in order to attract a crowd. But I’ll leave that up to you.