|
|
 |
Are your executives ready to step up to the plate? Should they?
Ragan Communications
Media Relations Report
February 17, 2006
2005 is shaping up to be The Year Blogging Goes Big Time, and you may be wondering if the executives you work with are ready—or willing—to jump on the blog bandwagon. The executives who’ve developed a high profile for blogging—people like Jonathan Schwartz of Sun (http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan)—have the advantage, and are reaping media attention for their move into the blogosphere.
As part of a media relations strategy, getting a C-level executive to start a blog isn’t a bad idea—although not everyone in top management may be a good fit for the medium. However, there’s no doubt that an executive blog can do much to raise awareness of a company with the media, customers and the general public.
For instance, when the company is in the news because of an acquisition or a merger or any other deal, a blog can help clarify the news for all interested parties, including the media. Craig Newmark, the founder and chairman of Craigslist, writes a blog (http://www.cnewmark.com/) about the founding and ongoing adventures of the wildly successful group of community Web sites. The blog was a useful tool when Craigslist hit the news last summer in connection with eBay, explains Susan MacTavish Best, who does PR for the company.
When the news broke that eBay would become a part owner of the much-loved Web site, people wondered if Newmark had “sold out.” “It’s a very trusted brand,” says Best. “And [the eBay deal] was a confusing story—what had happened was that a former employee had decided to sell his shares.”
It made sense to have Newmark himself lead the discussion about Craiglist’s future. “Craig has had a blog for a long time, so we felt he needed to say something in his own words,” Best says. Newmark’s own blog posting about the company’s relationship with eBay helped clarify the story for the media, Best explains: “We got a lot of quotes taken from the blog, and the media linked to it.”
With executive blogs still uncommon, a CEO who jumps into these waters may get media attention simply for being one of the first, says Joanne Kisling, principal of Point Communications in Silicon Valley. She works with Palo Alto startup Five Across, whose CEO, Glenn Reid, pens his own blog (http://www.fiveacross.com/blog/index.shtml).
“We didn’t purposely decide to go out and promote the blog,” Kisling says, “but we’ve been opportunistic about it.” Both The Times of London and Les Echos, a French business publication, quote Reid in stories about corporate blogging. “We’ve also had reporters mention things during interviews that they read in Glenn’s blog, which tells us that the forum cultivates intimacy,” Kisling adds.
“It’s more about the fact that a CEO is doing the blogging, than about anything I have to say,” says Reid of the media attention paid to his blog.
With the growth of cross-linking among blogs, as well as widespread use of RSS (the technology that helps Internet users pull content of their choice from all sorts of online sources, including blogs), the musings of blogging executives will be more likely to turn up in the mainstream media.
“Blogs are finding a reach that I don’t think any of us have internalized yet,” says Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of software company Intelliseek. When he began blogging about his purchase of a hybrid vehicle and his tests to compare its fuel efficiency to that of gas-powered cars, Blackshaw found his musings picked up by media outlets as disparate as Wired magazine and The CBS Evening News.
Is every boss a blogger?
But not every executive—or company—should rush to blog, even though it’s become as trendy as carrying an iPod.
“The key is finding the correct subject matter and voice that a very well-defined audience will listen to,” says John Metzger, CEO of Boulder’s Metzger Associates, a technology communications firm. “The good news is that executive blogs are one more step in the evolution of self-publishing, where companies can bypass the media and reach their customers directly with their messages.”
Ross Mayfield, CEO of technology company Socialtext, agrees that an executive blog can provide another dimension to the company’s communications with the media. “You can talk without going through the media filter,” says Mayfield, who writes his own blog (http://ross.typepad.com/). “It can be a means to offer a defense during a crisis communications situation. And if someone misquotes you, you can run a correction on your blog. You end up having substantially more control over how your messages are used.”
While pundits are singing the praises of blogs as great business tools, Metzger says, it’s yet to be determined whether they’re really having a hard impact on a company’s image. In addition, the media relations value of a blog—indeed, its value in any sphere—depends on the type of executive who’s doing the blogging, says Steve Rubel, vice president of client services at CooperKatz in New York City (and the writer of a popular PR blog at http://steverubel.typepad.com/).
“If your CEO is trying to move industry issues or public policy issues, then definitely get that person blogging,” says Rubel, whose firm has helped launched a CEO blog for the Association of National Advertisers (http://ana.blogs.com/). In addition, the executive has to understand that blogging requires him or her to get personal, and in front of a big audience.
“Blogs are about human beings. They’re not the place for a corporate speech,” says Rubel. “They’re a place to show that you’re passionate about what you do.” Rubel points to Dallas Mavericks owner and high-tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s blog (http://www.blogmaverick.com/) as a great example of an executive who’ll mouth off about anything that strikes his fancy—and net lots of attention for it.
“The mavericks are going to be the ones who understand blogging,” Rubel says.
Mike Paul, president of MGP & Associates PR in New York (blog: www.reputationdoctor.com), has a clear idea of what type of executive is suited to blogging. “The CEO would have to be very tech savvy,” Paul says, “and interested in reaching new audiences, especially younger audiences, and also be willing to be positioned as a trend leader or futurist regarding ideas. He or she also has to be young enough to be familiar with the technology.”
Paul says there are way too many C-level executives (mostly outside of high-tech) who can barely turn on their computers, let alone figure out how to manage a blog. “If your CEO isn’t comfortable with technology and sweats when he or she tries to send an e-mail, don’t make them blog,” he advises.
If you’re advising an executive on starting a blog, you’ve also got to make it clear that blogging is a commitment. “It doesn’t have to be every day,” Rubel says. Once a week or even once a month is fine, as long as the blogs aren’t just fluff. “But generally, the more you blog, the higher your profile rises.”
It’s no surprise that today, the highest-profile blogs are coming from technology executives, who are early adopters of anything new on the Internet. It remains to be seen how many executives in non-tech industries—and in public companies, where fears of SEC disclosure rules run high—will become effective bloggers this year.
“There are very few companies in the Fortune 100 using executive blogs,” Metzger points out. “Small- and mid-size companies’ opportunity is more likely to be based on picking the right and relevant topics, voice and themes that spark their audience’s interests. After that, the return on investment will be determined by our ability to promote and publicize our own new media.”
|
|
