The number one reason business owners name for holding off on blogging is fear...


...fear of a wildly out-of-control public waking up everyday with one thing in mind: to post filthy rotten lies on your blog about you, your company, your products and occasionally, your beloved pet retriever. I mean that's what a blog is all about right?
I could go on for a few paragraphs about how this sentiment developed, but I'll instead get to the point. If your business publishes a blog you are entirely in charge of the content on that blog. Most blogs do indeed have tools that allow for interaction, but you get to set the rules. You can determine who can comment, what they can say, when they can say it, and whether they can say it at all.
You get to write your own content or assign a trusted employee to write it. In some ways a blog is just a more powerful form of the communication vehicles you have used to date - it's just another marketing tool - proper use is a matter of common sense.
There is a well-worn riff in the blogging world that says for a blog to be real the conversation must be naked and authentic. For a business blog, I can buy authentic, but naked, no, this is your blog, your business. If you allow comments on your blog, you should moderate them. If someone says something down right ignorant (yes, some people have too much time on their hands) you have no obligation to publish that comment.
Does that mean you should delete anything that could be interpreted as negative? No way. Shut that kind of feedback off and you will never get better. One of the great things about blogs is that when your readers see that they can have a conversation with your organization they won't mind that you are fully clothed when you do it.