The three biggest challenges for CEO bloggers are discipline, passion (about an expertise) and writing ability…..
CEOs: You’ve got to have the discipline to blog and keep at it over a long period of time (months, years).
You’ve got to be passionate about whatever your expertise is.
And you gotta be able to write well, to express yourself clearly, convincingly, compellingly. You have to be compelling enough that you’ll keep your readers coming back and interacting with your blog.
Writing well is hard
So why are there still so few really good CEO bloggers? Because that trifecta is hard to come by. And, er, writing well is hard. Really hard.
Interestingly, there’s a bit of a Catch 22 in this: the more you write (or blog), the better your writing (blogging) becomes. So while there may be a minimum threshold for discipline + passion + writing ability, once you pass that you’ve got loads of potential to become an effective CEO blogger.
A handful who pass the test:
Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems
Note: Jonathan’s blog is now in 11 languages including English. See the drop-down box in the upper right-hand corner! Update: as of this writing, the translated blog entries are not appearing yet.
Karen Christensen of Berkshire Publishing
Matt Blumberg of ReturnPath
Richard Edelman of Edelman PR
Zane Safrit of Conference Calls Unlimited
Anyone else?
Good thoughts! I suspect that time and the lack of it are the primary reasons more CEOs don’t blog. And, if the corporate world remains much the same as when I left it, CEO Blogs more likely will be written by someone in the Communications Department, under the CEO’s name.
You point out the challenges and that they need to be ‘compelling enough for readers to come back’. I think it’s equally, if not more important that CEOs focus their energies on:
.
a. audience: think about what insights and observations readers would most benefit from (they’ll find that compelling for sure). Can’t stress thinking about ‘them’ enough since it’s all too easy to get caught inside the bubble of the boardroom.
b. authenticity: think less about catchy writing, more about authentic sharing of information (writing is important, I’d just like to see it be less perfect, more honest).
c. accessibility: One can be both strong and accessible. Too many business leaders are focused on looking like leaders, when they’ll win over readers (and stock prices) by being human in their communications.
Btw, these reccommendations pertain to CEOs or mid-level pros.
Edelman is a prime example of all the above, glad you pointed to him
Thanks for the good thoughts. Do hope more CEOs will start blogging.
You brat CK. You beat me to the punch.
I see this a bit differently, though I affirm what has been said here.
But to me, the main challenges for CEO bloggers are:
(1) Desire to interact, respond quickly to, and really be candid with customers, public, random web surfers.
(2) Unafraid of flamers, trolls, baiters, freekers, and comment spam, all of which can be controlled completely by Comment Moderation w/Delayed Posting and captchas (character recognition spambot stoppers).
(3) Brave enough to make mistakes publicly, to goof up, to post something that is ridiculed, and know how to wage blogodiplomacy or even blogocombat when necessary.
Other CEO BLOGS of note:
* Jim Estill of SYNNEX/Canada Ltd. (CEO Blog Time Management)
* Working Smart blog
Completely agree – I help CEOs set up and manage their blogs and the content and those are key issues. One other one I would add is TIME. They are so strapped with 10 things to do all the time that unless they incorporate your remark about Discipline, they won’t find the time to do it.
One question I would throw back at you is, “What middle market businesses are actually making money or are very successful because of their blog?” I am looking for some specific examples of companies that have turned that corner and actually make money or consider their blog critically vital to the success of their revenue generating business – and not because they run a few ads – but real business. Any thoughts from anyone?? If so, you can e-mail them to me at bmillet@ceinc.info – thanks.
Blaine
CEO of Customer Experiences Inc.