What it takes to be a good CEO blogger

I had an interesting exchange yesterday about CEO bloggers. Someone said to me that the idea of a blogging CEO, like the idea of a blogging politician, was ludicrous. He told me his opinion that CEOs, like politicians, could never be expected to say anything genuine or unscripted by the PR department. My reply to him went something like this:

First of all, the PR department must take its hands off the blog in order for it to work properly - no fake blog entries written for the CEO, and no vetting posts before they go live. (If your CEO cannot be trusted, even after being trained in how to blog legally and sensibly, not to drop clangers in the posts he writes, then he should not be blogging.)

In order to blog well, they also have to be the right CEOs - straight-shooters, engaging and with interesting things to say. Sun Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz is a great one, as are Thomas Nelson Publishers' Michael Hyatt and Five Across CEO Glenn Reid.

I am happy to tell a CEO or any other business exec: You should not blog, and even if you begged me to help you do it, I would not. Bad bloggers can influence how the world perceives the blogosphere, and I and my colleagues have got very certain ideas about the right way to blog. Blogging is about using an authentic, credible voice. And let's face it: not every CEO is credible, and not every CEO knows how to communicate authentically or can even be trained to do so. In some cases, that authentic voice isn't something that the company necessarily wants the public to hear. Such companies should not have a blogging CEO.

The politician who blogs is a fad here in the UK, but it will only last until the first career suicide by blog - in no time flat, the spin doctors will have their hands all over the blogs, rendering them pointless at best, laughable and damaging at worst. Politicians are all coming from the same gutter, and it is not often that you hear someone praising something the government has done. But there actually are many companies out there that are fantastic organisations, doing interesting and worthwhile things in their industries, with satisfied customers who evangelise their products, services and brands freely and happily. Those are the kinds of places many people would love to work. And those are the companies whose CEOs and other employees make the best bloggers and impeccable representatives of their respective companies.

Comments

[Elizabeth Albrycht]

I thought I'd comment on the role of the PR department and the CEO blogger. I don't entirely agree with you that there isn't one, especially in the early stages of a CEO learning to blog. [Disclosure: I am a PR person who advises CEO bloggers.]

Caveat: the PR person involved with the CEO must absolutely understand blogging. If they come from the old command/control school, it will not work.

Some CEOs will be natural bloggers. A few minutes of instruction and off they go. Little intervention is needed. All a PR should ask is that if something major is going to be discussed in his or her blog, that they get a heads up so they aren't blindsided by a call from a journalist saying, "I read in [CEO's] blog that your company is being bought! Is that true?"

In many more cases, the CEO in question will not be a natural. While he or she is eloquent in person and passionate about the business and the problems its products solve, maybe they aren't very good at writing. In this case, I think that there is nothing wrong with the PR person vetting the piece ahead of posting. (Notice, I didn't say writing it ...the first draft should always come from the CEO.) A good PR person can edit a post so that it is understandable without changing the meaning or sense of the piece -- without even changing the CEO's "voice." This can also be valuable if the CEO is trying to blog in a language other than his or her native one.

The goal here is not to check the topics, but rather to ensure that someone reading it can follow the story. With time, in most cases, the CEO's writing will improve, and the PR person's role will decrease.

I've stated this belief in other places, and have been pilloried for it. It runs in the face of blog purity. But I ask you, if your readers cannot understand you, what is the point of your communications?

[Jackie Danicki]

Elizabeth, I agree that readers must be able to understand the blogger - I just do not think that training people to blog is something that most PR people are knowledgeable enough to do. Yes, there are some who completely understand blogging, but in my experience they are rare. I think that teaching people to blog is best left to experienced bloggers with a proven track record. If nothing else, why not let PR get on with its core competencies, instead of taking on additional duties as writing instructor and editor?

[Elizabeth Albrycht]

Thus my caveat above.

In any case, CEOs should require their PR/marketing department to become familiar with blogging and other new communications tools, as they provide increasingly important channels of information. If PRs stick to their old "core competencies" they will be rapidly non-competitive.

[Jackie Danicki]

Actually, Elizabeth, I am with you - PRs' core competencies must change to adapt to a shift for the better in how things are done. But I think that any employee, be it a CEO or mere peon, who is not knowledgeable or astute enough to be blogging without supervision should probably not be blogging in the first place. Getting the right people to blog is crucial. Of course I can see situations where editing may be appropriate - if you have a dyslexic blogger (not joking; one of the best, most celebrated writers I know must transcribe what he wants to say in an article, and his PA then types it up for him), or someone who is still getting to grips with linking/basic HTML. But for vetting of messages, I think the best blog results when the blogger is competent to begin with - even if it takes training from blog experts to get to the point of being able to express that in an engaging way.

One thing I would say, though, is that I think 'buy-in' (much as I loathe consultant-speak) is more easily attained when things like blogging are introduced to a company from the bottom up, rather than being imposed from the top down. And I think that any PR person worth his or her salt, who stays on top of where the industry is going, will not need to be introduced to blogs by the higher-ups.

[Adriana Cronin-Lukas]

Amen to that last sentence Jackie, as Steve Rubel http://steverubel.typepad.com/micropersuasion/ and BL Ochman prove http://www.whatsnextblog.com/. Interestingly enough they don't have many nice things to say about PR professionals. In fact that was the whole message of the Global PR blog week...http://www.globalprblogweek.com/

And I totally agree with Ronald Tanglao of the (in)famous heading for his contribution - PR is Dead. Here is his final thought for the conference: http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/traditional_pr_is_de.php

"Traditional PR is dead. Long live DIY PR!

DIY PR will be the authentic voice of corporations. And it will come from employees and C-level executives doing it for themselves and their organizations and not from the professionals.

We will still need PR people, just far fewer. PR pros that can give up control and teach organizations to communicate with their customers in a human voice will survive; many others will not. And in the long term, the formal boring PR voice, messages and spin will become extinct and replaced by people conducting conversations with their customers and clients."

This is what we mean when we say PR people should stay away from blogging - unless they turn to bloggers first, of course. :-)

[laurent bervas]

Very interesting discution :)

> This is what we mean when we say PR people should
> stay away from blogging - unless they turn to
> bloggers first, of course. :-)

I must admit i'm 100% with you adriana :))
I think Guillaume and Elizabeth are with you, because they have the same spirit ?

And I think it's the same things that will happen to politiciens.

For the old ones, their lies are stored in the archives of blog. It will be difficult to forget their promises.

Like the new economy (for the CEO), I think the new politic is comming ?

[Guillaume du Gardier]

"I guess I haven't seen too many examples of good PR lately. Could you please point some out to me?" wrote
Roland Tanglao in the comments section of this article you are refering to... When I read such an extreme position on such a wide subject, I am very careful in the interpretation of its author's thoughts and also very surprised to see one dares claiming such things so loud ...

2 others comments on the same article :

"A good PR could write the corporate blog as long they understand the medium, have sufficient knowledge of the company's internal 'news' and can write with the human voice required." This makes sens, doesn't it ?

"Bad PR practitioners get fired. Good PR practitioners evolve. Know the difference".

...

This last comment must probably have been part of the reason why Roland Tanglao change the title of his article and said finally that "traditional" PR was dead... and not the whole PR world...

By the way, who initiated GPBW ? ;o)
... a good PR Pro ;o)

[Adriana Cronin-Lukas]

Well, Cluetrain manifesto www.cluetrain.com authors were saying very nasty things indeed about PR (and still are) and I must say that they got an immensely powerful response. Positive I might add. (disclosure: I think Cluetrain rocks. Especially after five years confirming pretty much what they said).

I don't have a problem making such strong statements, they sort out those who understand the need for change from those who don't even see the need for it...

[Neville Hobson]

Interesting discussion. This point caught my attention in particular:

Jackie Danicki says: "The PR department must take its hands off the blog in order for it to work properly - no fake blog entries written for the CEO, and no vetting posts before they go live."

No fake blog entries, that's absolutely where a line is drawn. But I can't imagine any major company - especially a publicly-held company - where the CEO would just merrily blog away all on his own, like an isolated silo. (Disclosure: I work with companies on strategic communication including corporate blogging.)

From the organizational communication point of view, a blog is just another communication channel, a means unto an end. As a channel, it's not much different to other tools used by companies to develop relationships with particular audiences.

Keeping the PR folk out of the way simply doesn't make any sense. If you're saying that's because they just don't know what blogging is (it looks like that's what you're saying), that's simply not a valid reason. Would you really suggest that to one of the clients of your Big Blog Company? Really?

Here is one reality. Many PR folk are scared about blogs because blogs present a significant challenge to accepted ways of communicating because they represent change. PR departments in general feel threatened by such tools - not only blogs buts also RSS and wikis - because those departments are resistant to change in message control (where the control passes to the audience).

In recent months, I've had quite a few discussions with CEOs and senior PR and other communication professionals in large organizations where this is a real concern. So there is a need to help such communication professionals understand the nature of the medium and the role they have to play for the benefit of their organization no matter who is going to be blogging, whether it's the CEO or (as you put it) one of the mere peons.

Elizabeth Albrycht says: "In any case, CEOs should require their PR/marketing department to become familiar with blogging and other new communications tools, as they provide increasingly important channels of information. If PRs stick to their old "core competencies" they will be rapidly non-competitive."

Spot on, Elizabeth. Some PR folks will get it, some won't. That's true with any new method of organizational communication.

[Shel Holtz]

This seems to be another case of somebody taking many, many words to say "Bad PR is bad." Of course, bad PR gets all the attention -- what's the point of spotlighting good PR? Good PR is that which manages the relationships between an organization and its constituencies and audiences. CEOs who hire good PR people do so because it's the PR department's job to understand the nuances -- what might be said that could inflame one audience? What could affect the company's reputation?

True, most PR people are behind the curve on blogs. They were behind the curve on the Web, e-mail and even desktop publishing. But those who get it can provide excellent counsel to a CEO who opts to produce a blog. It doesn't mean the blog has to be written in lame PR-speak. Any PR counselor who does so is representative of bad PR.

So maybe the post should be revised to read: "Ineffective and unprofessional PR departments must keep their hands off the blog, but without solid PR counsel, it probably won't work properly - even if there are no fake blog entries written for the CEO, and no vetting posts before they go live."

[Jackie Danicki]

"From the organizational communication point of view, a blog is just another communication channel, a means unto an end. As a channel, it's not much different to other tools used by companies to develop relationships with particular audiences."

I could not disagree more - and this is exactly why I think that PR should leave blogging to the experts...Unless they become experts themselves.

"Keeping the PR folk out of the way simply doesn't make any sense. If you're saying that's because they just don't know what blogging is (it looks like that's what you're saying), that's simply not a valid reason."

No, that is not what I am saying: I am saying that blogging, the blogosphere, and how to properly and effectively engage is not as simple as many PRs seem to think, and that they should keep their hands off that which they do not understand but imagine that they do.

"Would you really suggest that to one of the clients of your Big Blog Company? Really?"

I do it all the time. Yes, really. Look, we deal with PR firms and tell them how blogging can be used, but the relationships would go no further if they refused to keep their hands off the blog posts and to refrain from imposing agenda-setting on the blogger(s). Corportate blogs do not need PRs.

"[T]here is a need to help such communication professionals understand the nature of the medium and the role they have to play for the benefit of their organization no matter who is going to be blogging, whether it's the CEO or (as you put it) one of the mere peons."

Yes, there is a need for them to understand as much as possible about the medium, but it goes beyond the channel - it's the network and what can be done within it that is where the real value lies. Failure to recognise this, and an insistence on concentrating on the blog (the node), is rife within PR. I think the question of "the role they have to play" when it comes to blogging is open - by no means has the conclusion been reached that PR must play a role. Look at it from the point of view of what is best for the company, not how PRs can keep their jobs. This is not about existence justification.

Shel wrote:

'So maybe the post should be revised to read: "Ineffective and unprofessional PR departments must keep their hands off the blog, but without solid PR counsel, it probably won't work properly - even if there are no fake blog entries written for the CEO, and no vetting posts before they go live."'

No, the post should not be revised to read that. I could not disagree more vigorously with this statement (in case you couldn't tell! Heh.), for reasons outlined above. I just don't buy the line that blogs won't work properly without PR, because I see every day that that is not the case - not just people like Jonathan Schwartz, who is circumventing PR with his blog, but with our own clients. How can one continue to claim that CEO/exec blogs won't work without PR when there are so many PR-free blogs working so fantastically well?

[Neville Hobson]

>> Look, we deal with PR firms and tell them how blogging can be used, but the relationships would go no further if they refused to keep their hands off the blog posts and to refrain from imposing agenda-setting on the blogger(s). Corportate blogs do not need PRs. <<

I'd like to know what you tell them. And what do they say in response?

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Recently involved with a corporate blog initiative for an enterprise software start-up. The blog was the CEO's idea and he'd read enough blogs to understand the conversational tone; it became a marketing department project, not PR's. It was my idea to bring the external PR agency into the fold.

I used their PR agency to help get the word out to the trade and business press about the corporate blog. I shared the entire "blog strategy" with them as we wanted to work closely together with them over time as some of the readers we wanted to subscribe to the blog were press and analysts. They did not dictate anything regarding the content of the posts itself; but were helpful in offering suggestions for themes, topics, etc.

I think depending on your objectives, you can educate almost any PR agency to work together with you to effectively partner and leverage both online and offline exposure/mentions.