As ghostwriting and blog marketing experts, we know how a corporate blog can introduce people to your brand, increase traffic to your website and help grow your following on social media sites. Blogging for business is a digital marketing trick used by everybody from the bakery down the street to the mega-technology companies in Silicon Valley. But what about internal blogs? Is there a benefit to writing a blog just for your employees’ eyes? PC World’s Brad Chacos says yes.

Internal blogs are quickly becoming a secure and relatively-painless-to-set-up way for business owners and their employees to communicate. Published in his blog yesterday, Chacos writes, “Given their nature, internal blogs aren’t a great tool for managing the finer details of a project. Yet an internal blog, safe and sound on your company Intranet or behind password protection on a third-party service, lets employees bounce ideas around and disseminate their experiences rapidly and informally.” Brainstorming sessions about new products, blogging image ideas for logos or branding and using a blog to bounce off ideas for HR procedures are just a few ways we think internal blogging could help out around the office.

But why stop there? Chacos says internal blogs are great for broadcasting employees’ knowledge and expertise as well as creating a searchable, permanent archive of expertise.

“All the knowledge published on an internal blog stays there, and long after former employees have left the building,” he adds. “And (it helps with) creating accountability: Once you’ve blogged about something, it can’t be denied later. Goodbye, email trails.”

But can internal blogs work alongside external blogs? You betcha! How about using the employee blog as a portal to drop off ideas for the company blog? What’s just for employees-eyes-only can be a test blog of sorts for the kind of articles you want to publish for your customers. Internal blogs are also a telling test-ground to find out which of your coworkers have a knack for writing and could be potential contributors for your business’ blog.

Successful blogging, external or internal, takes dedication, new content and creativity. Trying out blogging on an internal basis could really help you see whether your company is cut out for it or not. In the end, your blog is a calling card for your business, so it’s important to make sure you have guidelines about posting and protocol totally clear before your blog goes live.

“Most importantly, an internal blog should be not only an open forum, but also an effective resource — and a reflection of your company,” Chacos adds.