This article is the fifth in a series that deals with Business Blogging and Corporate Blogging. The idea was given to me by the participants at the JCI World Congress in Antalya.
A while ago Cristi Manafu (ro) (an influential Romanian blogger) asked me this question: “Who should be the lead actor of the company blog?”
The lead actor of a company blog should be, extending the definition a bit, the company or its product. Who writes about these in the blog is a different matter.
Usually, the best and most up-to-date bloggers for a company are exactly the people with the less time to write: the management. And indeed managers do not write in company blogs, with a few exceptions (Bob Lutz, Vice President for General Motors, is one such exception – he writes frequently on the company blog).
Anyway, how can this problem be solved?
1. There is the possibility of “semi-ghost blogging“: someone (in the management) writes a first draft (with links, general information on the subject etc.), which he gives to the ghost blogger, who edits it, adds extra info if necessary and publishes the post. This way, instead of 20-30 minutes or even more, writing a post only takes 10 minutes.
2. A solution for writing a corporate blog is creating a team of bloggers, who can be part of the management, of the employees or even of the users of the company’s products (the so-called “evangelists”). Team members can have set days for writing on the blog. This way, by writing, for example, once a week, the time frame for writing a post increases and it stops creating pressure.
3. Another version of a team blog is having one blogger who interviews people in the industry and the company, people who have access to interesting and less-known information, but no time to write it down.
A few essential characteristics of the company blogger (or bloggers).
– Staying calm in the online environment, which is often very acid and violent (verbally violent, of course);
– Are genuinely interested in the industry the company deals in and in the company’s products;
– Aren’t ordinary employees who are giving the daily task of writing the blog among several other daily tasks.
I’m sure I’ve missed a few details but this is mainly the answer to “WHO should write in a corporate blog?”
Here are the first four articles in the series:
1. What is a blog?
2. What is a business/corporate blog?
3. External Business Blog
4. Internal Business/Corporate Blogs
