Comments on: Should CMOs Blog?

By: Monica Sharma

Monica Sharma — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:18:44 +0000

Agreed, blogs are a communication medium.

By: CMOS

CMOS — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:07:47 +0000

I guess that besides all the advantages of blogging, the buttom line is whether they enjoy this media or not.

By: eTechSupport

eTechSupport — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 15:40:37 +0000

I like blogging as I find “the real people behind a blog” and people are big assets for any organization.

By: Roy Young

Roy Young — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 15:48:01 +0000

I agree, Pete.
Therein lies my argument for why we don’t see more CMOs blogging.

By: Pete Jeans CEO at SMO Sydney

Pete Jeans CEO at SMO Sydney — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 02:56:55 +0000

G’day Roy,
I’m Pete Jeans, CEO at SMO Sydney in Australia. We deliver business transformation.
Should CMO’s blog?
It depends on their strategies to build future nett cashflows….and how the blog is positioned to meet strategic internal and external communication goals.
I used to be a CMO before blogging. But I used strategic channels all the time to get soundings on issues that mattered.
Now I blog as a CEO…but only to add value. Why would you do it for any other reason?
Cheers!
Pete Jeans
CEO SMO Sydney, Australia
google us for contact details

By: Roy Young

Roy Young — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 22:34:46 +0000

Thanks to all for a very thoughtful discussion.
I am grateful to be part of such a dynamic, intelligent and articulate group.
For now, I am, frankly, more concerned with the work marketers must do INSIDE their organizations to clarify how marketing contributes value. Indeed, that’s the subject of my forthcoming book. So perhaps blogging on a corporate intranet to reach staff is more valuable to a CMO than blogging on the Internet for customers and other external groups.

By: Mack Collier

Mack Collier — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 19:52:24 +0000

Do I think that the same person/title in every organization should be blogging? No. Do I think every organization should encourage their employees to blog? Yes.
The problem is, when a company is presented with blogging, their first question usually is ‘yes, but how do you MAKE MONEY off that?’. Until you can quantify the process and show CEOs a figure on a balance sheet that says ‘last quarter we had X number of dollars in increased sales for every blog post’, then most companies don’t see the need for blogging.
That’s not how blogging works. It works by letting companies and their customers BETTER UNDERSTAND each other. Blogging can also change a company’s entire culture. Just the other day I ran across a blogger from Sweden who was ‘outted’ as a blogger by a member of the company’s marketing department. Since that time, the entire marketing department has started turning to her to teach them about blogging and social media, and now they are trying to get the company’s CEO to start blogging. A few days ago no one in the company was publically blogging, now the entire marketing department is getting into this space.
The point is, as Hugh MacLeod once said, that blogging makes things happen indirectly. Start blogging and you start talking to your customers. They start talking back. You start to better understand them, they start to better understand you. They realize that you are listening to them, you realize that they just want to be heard. Their expectations of you begin to change to meet your limitations, your processes begin to change to better meet their wants and needs.
End result? Sales increase. Costs go down. Customer satisfaction and service goes up. All this happens indirectly.
The Catch-22 is that companies truly can’t see the benefits of blogging until they start, and many don’t want to start until they KNOW they can make money off it.

By: Kate Murchison

Kate Murchison — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:38:56 +0000

I read the article about CMOs blogging and would have to agree with Roy Young that they should have other things on their minds. Increasing shareholder value and developing strategies to retain sales and increase revenues is what I would expect of a CMO.
From my point of view in a more technical sale, technical blogging, or a moderated forum is the way to get mindshare and lead – talking about issues, not product. In my experience marketing can be seen as such an insidious thing by technical people, that to get technical buy-in a marketing blog will only aggravate the situation.
Another thing that occurs to me is that blogging takes commitment, and unless it is a behaviour a person posesses, the blog is likely to last a couple of months and then peter-out, not the image any company wants to project.

By: Marc Bodner

Marc Bodner — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:28:44 +0000

The issue with many big companies is not whether they should blog or not, it’s how do they process the information. At many of the larger marketers, the gap between what marketing wants to do and the company financial goals and objectives is so wide whole departments could get lost if they fell in! CMO’s don’t stay very long becuase they are not connected with top and bottom line performance. They connect via their own metrics of brand awareness, Golden Lions won at Cannes, interviews on TV, radio, and podcasts (that’s good buzz and buzz it another great marketing objective). Before a CMO or company gets heavy into blogging they need to get a process built that enables them to take advantage of the connection with the consumer, otherwise it’s just BLAHGING for blogging sake.

By: Kevin Horne

Kevin Horne — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:14:42 +0000

I think Roy would find if he interviewed other C-levels, as he did for CMOs, that they are all busy with cash flow. And they are all just plain busy. I take Mario’s comment to the extreme – as a shareholder I don’t EVER want to see a C-level blogging. They are being paid millions – I’ll get their “insights” from the quarterly report transcripts.
In my humble opinion, the best blogs are from those a level or two down in the organization – those who actually touch customers, products, and fellow employees – the “inner workings” so to speak. Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz is an exception – one of the few inner workings guys to get promoted to the C-suite.
Someone should plot his blog frequency against earnings per share over the next year or so.