Reading a recent Unspun post, I started thinking about something we are often asked in our line of work – “Should CEO’s blog”? It’s both easy and difficult to answer.
As my own experience (and the paucity of posts in recent weeks) shows, it’s easier to start a blog than to maintain it, especially if you are not, by nature, a diarist. I don’t want to turn my blog into a collection of clippings, but when work gets hectic it can be difficult to justify taking time out to write. Yes, you can write at home but I like to keep my time at home for my family and even writing a blog post is dangerously close to bringing my work home with me.
So should CEOs blog? Mine does, and so do many more. Others start off, as do I, with the best intentions but find that other things get in the way and the site goes silent. And it must be acknowledged that the average CEO has probably more pressing time constraints than do I.
Five questions I would ask a CEO who was thinking about starting a blog:
1: Do you already keep a journal or diary that you would be comfortable putting online?
2: Is there a non-business topic that you feel sufficiently passionate about to write on two or three times a week?
3: Are you absolutely certain that you can schedule an hour a week to write and stick to that schedule?
4: Do you currently read and comment on blogs relating to your business or interests?
5: Do you see the blog as an important component in your personal and professional career development?
If you can’t answer “Yes” to at least three of those questions, then blogging may not be for you.
Now I just have to answer them myself.
Steve, what about the question: Do you have an engaging point of view?
Anyway, good to see you blogging again.
Steve, what about the question: Do you have an engaging point of view?
Anyway, good to see you posting again.
Engaging points of view are overrated – as is engagement generally
I’m kind of with Brett on this one – at least the first part. Ask the average person whether they have an engaging point of view and they will probably say yes. Ask an archetypal A-Type personality whether their point of view is engaging and they’ll look at you like you’ve fallen out of a tree! We all think our points of view are interesting to other people – that doesn’t mean they are. To me, it’s more important to have the incentive and the passion to blog – that’s what keeps it going.
To the point on engagement being over-rated I’m not so sure. I would oppose people going through the motions – having the PR office write the blog post and the director of communications approve it, for example – but leaders who blog and blog well open new channels of dialogue with their customers and partners and I think that, if driven by a genuine effort to communicate at that level of intensity, it should be encouraged.
Brett: As are denunciations with no substiantiation.
Steve: Your first paragraph argues that people convince or deceive themselves that they are engaging. Then you go to say that incentive and passion are what is needed to blog. Don’t quite follow the argument here. You can be incentivized to the nth degree and be absolutely passionate and it would help but if you do not have a distinct point of view where would you be in the Long Tail?
Not sure also what the point is on engagement. My definition has to do with being engaging. One does these by being likeable, projecting authority and arguing in a compelling yet not off putting manner. These are skills, not personality traits so there is some room for the PR hack to coach their clients into blogging, if that is what they wish.
That said, if its a CEO with zero personality – which s usually marked with an absence of a point of view – then all the passion in the world would not help you.
Ong: Good points all. What I was saying (obviously not very clearly!) is that I wouldn’t ask a would-be CEO blogger whether they had an engaging point of view because I know what the answer would be – indeed, I rather assume that their insight into their business in itself would constitute an engaging point of view. I would ask instead if there was something outside work that they felt sufficiently passionate about to write regular posts. The original question was not “What makes a good blogger” but “Should a CEO blog?” If I start a blog and then quit it’s no big deal. If a CEO starts a blog then he or she creates a set of expectations which need to be maintained. If the blog stops then those expectations have not been met and the net result is negative.
On engagement I read (and disagreed with) Brett’s comment as criticizing the process of a CEO engaging through a blog rather than the possession of the necessary skills. Yes, even skilled communicators benefit from coaching and that is one area where the PR people can come in. Where they should exit, IMO, is when they are asked to write the blog on behalf of the CEO. One thing we know from the research that Edelman does is that many stakeholders, especially employees, believe that company leaders do not engage enough. Having your ‘personal’ blog ghost-written does not address that basic issue.
Steve: and the answer to the question of “should a CEO blog?” would depend on the motive wouldn’t it. They could sell their businesses directly by writing as the CEO or sell their business indirectly by bringing their private persona to the fore. Either way it works only if they have something interesting to say. You have something to say only if you have a distinct point of view, which contributes to a distinct personality. The truth is that many CEOs have very poor personalities and get to the top more because of Murphy than anything else. People like that shouldn’t blog. They should stay home and watch Telly instead.