Who is Corporate Blogging?
October 1, 2009
What Does Your CEO Look Like?
In big corporations, sometimes you never get to see the CEO maybe but a few times a year. A lot of CEOs are adopting a blog to provide more communication between all hierarchies of jobs within the business. It’s difficult because CEO’s do not have the time on their hands, to work consistently on a blog. With the recession and businesses hitting hard, CEOs are the ones carrying the burden. The need for transparency even within a company is surfacing. But not every CEO is cut out for a blog. In all reality a blog is virtually personal with a business edge. A CEO simply would be wasting his or her time making a blog if they didn’t want to or thought it was necessary because their competitors have one. However, the ones that are adopting it are allowing a source of connection for employees and its publics to absorb into a new wave conversation.
According to Joel Postman’s, Social Corp: Social Media Goes Corporate, to have a CEO blogging is well respected in the blogosphere mainly because their willingness to address their public. Postman also elaborates on the idea that anyone in the company can be a blogger on behalf of the company but the most successful ones make up a roundtable of different fields of expertise: marketing, customer service, technical, a visionary. The rule of thumb that most social media websites claim as important in updating blogs consistently can be eliminated with CEO’s keeping a blog. Most CEO’s will post a blog here and there due to time constraint but it is almost the most valuable piece of writing people look for. In CEO Blog Watch, a post written titled, Is a CEO Blog Right for Your Company?, notes that blogging has easy publishing benefits including the ability to allow other executives and managers to add to the blog topic. However, ghostwriting is highly not recommend especially with the deteriorating amount of trust for businesses as it is.
In David Henderson’s blog titled CEO Blogs: Pros and Con, he alludes to the notion that a CEO blog is humanized to reflect the tone of his/her personality. The whole idea is for the CEO to listen., become a part of the conversation and then respond in a professional comfort manner.
Henderson show’s that Tony Hsieh of Zappos has a great blog to read as a foundation. Hsieh really shows his personality in the blog listing things from what he learns, what inspires him, what he wishes to work on with the company, etc. Going back to my first blog post, Social Media Purgatory, I mentioned how Wholefoods was a great example of a blog utilizing great social media tools for trust. I mention it again because there is also a CEO Blog section that is timely, informative, has a unique voice and organic quality to it.
I’ve heard a lot of really cool things about the CEO of Zappos. He’s really young and he’s doing a lot with his company to make it more user friendly. I watched a video on YouTube about how the people that are coming into the company go through a training period and if they don’t want to work there after that he gives them a certain amount to not waste him time, essentially. He is very into the idea of having happy workers, which is great! It only makes sense that he would embrace social media to try and communicate better with his team. I’m sure this also helped the company with their move to their new owner, Amazon.
That makes me feel better about what the future and getting a job. I think that’s a great idea. Train. Do you like? Don’t waste my time. I think you really have to be into the idea of social media changing the world and be passionate about it for it to excel. Thanks for your comment Kate.
I think one of the main points who hit; The rule of thumb that most social media websites claim as important in updating blogs consistently can be eliminated with CEO’s keeping a blog, is very important. Without the constant posting why would reader come back or believe you are serious about keeping them informed. There is such a vast amount of information on the web about every topic that you really have to do everything you can to keep your audience coming back or else they’ll just move on to the next source of information.
I agree with you Michelle, and its something people have to just “make the time” for it as if it were another mandatory meeting. Thanks!