The first session at blogIndiana that I attend was Corporate Blogging by Krista Neher of photrade. She definitely touched on the importance of authentic communication when you are writing an external or internal corporate blog. She had a few choice comments towards the concept of ghost writing which I agree with to an extent.
I can accept the concept of ghost writing when you have a great writer. You will still get a better response from the public/community when you are the one personally writing the session.
Good point from Erik Deckers via Twitter:
Don’t ghostwrite CEO blogs? Doesn’t always work. Fortune 500 CEOs don’t write their own speeches, annual reports, or press release quotes
Krista: Objectives are extremely important when you are thinking about outsourcing a blog. Content plan and objectives are extremely important when debating on outsourcing.
Krista: Content will make or break your blog. Build a plan. When it is important for people to feel like you are a real human being. Having a blog all about you is possibly not the best thing. Many people do not care about your life.
Krista, I do not agree. People love me. 🙂 Isn’t personal blogging suppose to be catered around the ego? 🙂
Writing Great Content: Short, to the point, blog “style”, ask questions (create open endings), and numbers.
Figure out who your audience is and what they want to learn about
RULE OF THUMB ON WORD COUNT OF BLOGGING: What is your audience going to want to read? People read content blogs to get a lot of information in a precise way.
The best comment of the session:
“Blogging is a relationship not a one night stand.”
Erik Deckers
To expand a little bit on my Twitter comments:
CEOs, especially those in larger companies, just like politicians, don’t write anything themselves. They don’t write letters introducing their annual reports, they don’t write the intro to the company newsletter, and they certainly don’t write their own speeches. They have a marketing staff and speechwriters to do it.
So hoping corporate CEOs can and will write their own blogs is a nice, but not realistic. The ones who do should be commended, but they’re few and far between.
I’m on Barack Obama’s Twitter feed. Is he writing his own tweets? Doubt it. I’m Jill Long Thompson’s “friend” on Smaller Indiana. Did she set up her own profile, or did one of her staff? Staffer, for sure.
While I’m all for transparency and authenticity, I’m also realistic enough to know that it won’t happen. Not once you get to the C-level in companies with more than 20 employees.