Should Executives Blog?
Many executives should considering blogging. It helps publicize
company news as well as executive viewpoints and opinions, adds
to a company's personality, and is superb for receiving customer
feedback. Executives can blog extremely effectively as their
thoughts are usually well regarded and trusted, and their blogs
tend to get an instant large readership. Executives who blog
include Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of General Motors, Randy
Baseler, VP of Marketing, Boeing, and many others.
Not everyone is suited to blogging. Some executives may not be
comfortable publicly expressing their views on a regular basis.
Blogs also need to be in a written in a personal and
conversational style in order to be seen as authentic, and many
executives have difficulty writing in such an informal style.
Executives often have time constraints and an executive blog
that is rarely updated will quickly lose its popularity and
readers. A "group blog" with several authors and an occasional
insightful blog post by an executive can successfully retain
interested readers and popularity. This allows an executive to
contribute as time permits.
Some executives default to having their blogs ghostwritten or
"produced" by PR. "Light" ghostwriting and editing can be useful
but a blog entirely produced and scripted is not going to be
effective; the thoughts and opinions in the blog must be
authentic.
Blogging may be difficult or impossible to do effectively in
some organizations. If company policy requires statements to be
approved before being made public, perhaps by several layers of
bureaucracy, the immediacy and relevance of a blog and its
chances of success can be severely compromised. In any industry
where running afoul of regulations may be an issue, confer with
legal counsel for guidelines.