There's a solid group of Twitter users that get together every so often to talk about various topics surrounding online media. The past few times it seems we've been migrating to the topics and questions surrounding Online Reputation Management.

It's a topic that's growing in everyone's minds as we become more and more visible online to a broader spectrum of people, we're trying to figure out how our personal brands (and even company brands) are being effected by our interactions online and offline. And as a person who does some reputation management for my company, the differentiation of the two is something that is extremely interesting (and sometimes perplexing to me.) Here's some of the discussions and ideas that we've come up with and are talking about.

Who Owns the Content?
If you're blogging for a company, who owns the blog? On one hand the company has to protect it's brand but if the person who was behind the building of that brand moves on? What then? Kayla Castille wrote a great summary of our discussions at one of our Tweetups where she offers two solutions - Don't let the blog or account die. Find another person who can help keep your community going but be honest with the audience that the person is no longer the voice behind the blog.

As someone who writes for a company blog, I never have had ideas that somehow I would take that blog with me. My name is on all my content and if I were to ever leave, search engines will link my content to my name. So I don't feel like I will lose my thoughts and ideas. So that really was never an issue. If your content is published on company space - especially their domain name - it is their server space, their content. (At least in my eyes.)

But more than logistics - there is more to the blog than just words on a screen or server space somewhere in the Internet that are being used. There is a voice. Unfortunately for companies, sometimes the voice is the blog. If that person moves on, sometimes that social media space won't work the same. Our voices are what make our blogs and tweets and everything unique.

How Does Personal vs. Corporate Brand Mesh, or Does It?
Where does my personal brand end and my company's begin? How much does my brand reflect on my company and vise versa? I have a personal brand. I also help manage my company's brand. This is something that I've gone back and forth with a lot. I think a lot of people are questioning it and will because there are so many things that could arise when you're meshing your personal life with your work life. Twitter is a good example of this: many people use it as a means to find professional contacts, to connect. But we also use it to broadcast little personal snippets of ourselves. How much of it can the company control? If I'm off the clock, can my company get upset about my Tweets after 5pm? CNN has a set of ridiculously extensive blogging guidelines. On one hand, it's nice to know what the company expects but goodness!

I don't have all the answers to my questions posed above but they're really interesting to think about. The truth is that companies will never become living, breathing human beings. Sometimes I wonder if companies can even play the social games like poker or mah jong. Maybe they're only capable of solitaire. Because people are what do the communicating, not an inanimate object like a company. My voice is what makes this space what it is. (For better or worse.) My voice is what makes the company blog that I write for what it is. After all, they are my ideas and thoughts. They just happen to be published on the company's space.

I don't know what do you think? Am I completely off here?