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I've had a few questions sent my way thus far, including these: "Should a company blog be written by one person, or several, or by a faceless 'voice?' Should a company have one person as it's 'voice' in the market via various social media platforms?"
Allow me to respond to the first in this post followed by a response to the second tomorrow.
Single voice or many voices
There is ample precedent for either approach, but I think the choice comes down to a matter of a) the availability of personnel resources and b) the company culture.
For example, I work for a small software company with 30 employees. We've made a conscious decision to incorporate blogs and social media into our marketing paradigm. In fact, we're in the process of rolling out a new multi-blog site called User Friendly Thinking (yet to go live) and have nine employees contributing to it. Well, we are supposed to have nine contributors. The last time I checked, only three posts had been written.
That's not a castigation of either our employee contributors or the company. It is a statement of the fact that these people have other things to do and the time they have to blog is limited.
The lack of activity also speaks to the fact that our company has yet to fully embrace the mantra that "markets are conversations" and "participation is marketing." We're only now coming to grips with the philosophy that marketing is no longer relegated to the marketing department.
I suspect that's a mindset shared by many companies, large and small. Take into consideration that, according to Burson Marsteller, only 15 percent of Fortune 500s are making effective use of blogs and that percentage far exceeds the number of small businesses engaged in some form of social media marketing and my point is made.
Enough complaining Paul...answer the question!
Given that a company could commit personnel resources and has adopted a transparent, participatory mindset, if I had my druthers, I'd choose to have many voices speaking to the blogosphere rather than one.
The reasons are manifold: - For one, it gives the company much more Google juice, especially if the blogs are outside the company's own server/IP range.
- Second, it increases the amount of content available for both search engines and humans to consume. That translates into the potential for higher traffic, a greater likelihood that others will link to the content, and improved SERPs.
- Third, it gives the company many human touch points.
Take Microsoft for example. What started most famously with Robert Scoble has now spread across the vast expanse of the organization to include approximately 4000 employee bloggers, according to the Blog Council's Michael Rubin. The company has even created a portal to house them. (Some of them at least. Many employees maintain their own personal blogs.)
While it's still only a small percentage of the total employee base, it's not the number that's of greatest significance, but the philosophy that says rather than have one human touch point, why not have many.
Dell takes a similar approach. Their digital media team consists of 46 employees (yes, 46!) who contribute to a dozen blogs and who constantly monitor and engage the blogosphere and Twitterverse for mentions of Dell. (One of the team members well-known to many of you, Richard Binhammer, told me via Twitter that it's becoming "everyone's" job.)
Good for them, but I own a small business
I come back to my original premise. It's a matter of available personnel resources combined with company culture. Organizations who have adopted a mindset that social media is no longer merely the purview of the marketing or PR departments are succeeding at building a positive reputation and stronger brand online.
If a company's resources are limited to the degree they can only afford to dedicate one person, I say one is better than none. It's important to have a voice in the blogosphere, even if it's a soloist.
The question then arises, who should that person be? The marketing director? CEO? Customer service manager?
If you have someone at the helm like Michael Hyatt, President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, then absolutely the CEO. Michael has a transparent spirit and a unique, warm and engaging voice that's been honed over years of blogging. He has led his company to embrace blogging - including company blogs and book review blogs - to the point where it's part of their corporate DNA.
Unfortunately, not many companies are blessed with someone as well-suited to blogging as Mike Hyatt. In that case, I would suggest finding a person, up or down the line, who is already actively engaged in the social mediasphere and who understands the environment, regardless of their departmental affiliation or position. Give them a new title, Chief Blogger, or even a new job!
A great example of this is a New Orleans oilfield services company, Halo Supply. When Halo commissioned their new site they needed someone to maintain it and found an employee, Tyrus Smith, who worked, believe it or not, as a delivery truck driver. Tyrus had, on his own, learned HTML and Web design. One day he was driving a delivery truck and the next managing the company Web site. (You gotta love that!) Now, Tyrus is putting a number of social media forms into play, including YouTube videos, Picasa photo albums and, very soon, a company blog.
Finally, what about the "faceless voice?"
My answer is straightforward -- absolutely not! Both the blog and social mediaspheres are built on twin cornerstones of authenticity and transparency. Having a nameless, faceless "voice" in no way represents either of those ethics. Not only that, social media marketing is really "personality marketing." Just read Rohit Bhargava's new book Personality Not Included and you'll see what I mean.
Bottom line, if your company can devote multiple personnel to blogging and social media engagement, I encourage it. If not, commission at least one person to be your voice crying in the wilderness. And it doesn't have to be the CEO. Given Halo's example, it might be someone you'd never expect.
Tomorrow I'll answer the sequel question, "Should a company have one person as it's 'voice' in the market via various social media platforms?"
Got questions about the "how-tos" of blogging or social media? The handyman is here to help. Either leave a comment or email me at pchaney at gmail dot com. I'll be happy to address them.
(BTW - Sorry for the latency in posting of late, especially considering I just started. Not exactly a good precedent. However, New York City beckoned and my wife, Amie, and I had to heed the call.)
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Comments
Paul, I absolutely love that companies like Sun, Microsoft and Dell are loosing the reins and letting their employees participate in the conversations. As Paul Dunay says, command and control marketing is pretty much dead.
Posted by: Paul Barsch | 11.13.08
Paul, I think you've already answered the question well. One person or many contributing to a company blog should be a reflection of the corporate culture and the resources available. My preference is to have more than one voice contributing.
One of my clients, a non-profit, is about to begin a blog. At the start, I will most likely write most of the posts, although we'll look to have others inside and outside the organization do some writing. As their p.r. consultant, I'll monitor the content -- editing posts as appropriate before they go up, and also moderating comments just to be sure no one is putting up anything offensive or commercial.
Posted by: David Reich | 11.13.08
@David, I think that's a good approach. Start by doing it yourself then train others. Over time, as their confidence and competence increases, you turn over the reins.
@Paul, the other Paul is absolutely right. (Lots of Paul's in this discussion aren't there.)
Posted by: Paul Chaney | 11.13.08
Hi Paul,
I agree: both approaches can work depending on your corporate culture. The two things I believe are non-negotiable: some schedule of "regular" posts and message cohesiveness. You can lose control without losing the message.
While not everyone is a great writer or comfortable writing, many more people have terrific ideas that should be captured. Perhaps more companies should facilitate multiple authors by hiring a good editor to smooth out the rough edges and, thus, encouraging more voices.
Posted by: Daria Steigman | 11.13.08
Very well stated Daria. A posting schedule and editorial calendar will help make the blog run like a sewing machine. Both are necessary, as is an editor to oversee and ramrod. Since it costs very little to implement a blog solution any company would be wise to invest in an editor to be sure.
Posted by: Paul Chaney | 11.14.08
Hi Paul,
This is something that has been hotly debated at my company. We are similar to you, having only about 40 employees and I am one of 8 bloggers. We absolutely love everything the blog has done for us but some members of the company (who shall remain nameless), believe that we should have a single blogger who can be promoted in the blogosphere, like Brian Carroll. My assertion is that a single voice is good for self promotion where a collaborative voice is better for a company. For example, Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott would not want to have anyone else on their blogs because they are trying to promote themselves as thought leaders. While Brian Carroll is promoting his company, he is also trying to promote his own books. However, if a company wants to promote itself as a thought leader, then multiple voices can bring a diverse range of expertise and opinions. My vote - many voices.
Posted by: Leigh Anne Wallace | 11.14.08
Leigh Anne, you've put things perspective. If company thought leadership is the reason for the blog (we're doing something similar at Bizzuka), then multiple voices are called for. That does not negate the use of a "blog celeb" as it were, buy why not take advantage of all the intellectual property resident within the company. I appreciate your thoughtful commentary.
Posted by: Paul Chaney | 11.15.08
Remember the old elevator pitch. Well, thats what bloging is kind of like.
If I'm running a company I want everyone at the company to have a similiar elevator pitch. To achomplish this it begins with quality communication throughout your company. What is the mission statement of your company, what is the mission statement of your blog program, etc.
I can tell you that as I begin to launch my new company, I want everyone to know exactly what we do, why we do it and how it benefits our customers. It's actually my hope that if we grow to 150 employee's, I would have 150 employee's who would be capable of blogging on behalf of our company.
Ah, so to the age old question of who should blog for your company..to me this is a really easy one to answer in most cases.The more people you have blogging for your company the better off your company will be, even with mistakes made...As we know their are always exceptions to the rules.
Like if your a bank, financial inst, govt contractor, etc.
I really believe that business is changing before our eye's and social media strategies are going to become even more important in the future. In my opinion Bloging is kind of like a modern day eleveator pitch...
Posted by: Dave Dabbah | 11.15.08
I agree that having multiple bloggers is generally the way to go, since the goal is to connect people with your company and its culture, rather than with one individual in it. That said, I also believe in the need for an editor - to ensure that the posts reflect well on your brand, both in terms of what is said, and how it's said. After all, who wants to do business with a company whose people can't spell or communicate coherently?
Posted by: Lynne DeCew | 11.17.08
I can't believe that only 15% of Fortune 500 companies are using blogs. You'd think with all that manpower at those companies, there would be more blogs. Slow to adapt.
Posted by: Rob W | 11.17.08