Blogging within companies is finally started coming of age, whether that be for recruiting methods, employee branding, corporate PR or even to staying ahead of your competition. It allows a company to reach outside of its normal sphere into completely new areas, to people who would not normally even go near their websites. If you are using it to recruit for you, that then means a whole new potential pool of talent. If you are just spreading the word about new products/ projects or initiatives, then that means new customers.
How cool is that for a company?
So I guess the magic question is, "who should be responsible for blogging about your company?" Well, I guess it should depend on what you are going to use the blog for. If it is a recruiting blog, then responsibility should sit with the recruiters / HR team, with direct input from relevant line mangers and staff withing the areas of the business that are recruiting. New product info is an easy one - the marketing teams should be responsible for this as they will be compiling, writing and promoting this information anyway. Most important though is that it needs to be people in the company that have a passion and drive to do it. As we all know, blogs live and die by the quality and regularity of their content, so it is a commitment that needs to be maintained long term for a long term success.But what about the bigger picture?
The CEO should be the visionary for a company and is therefore responsible for the drive and direction it is going in, so who better to write a blog for your company. The problem is that many CEO's that are currently in charge, often don't know how to write emails - they have PA's or secretaries that do it for them! They will also tell you that their diaries are already full, and they have no time. My answer to this is very simple - "So Mr/Ms CEO, as the person who is responsible for your business, would you not want to invest some of your time in promoting your company and reaching out to new customers / partners / prospective employees?" If the answer is no, then to be honest you have a CEO who is in the wrong job!!
There are of course many CEO's and business leaders who enjoy writing and are very good communicators, and they would be the perfect person in a company to 'spread the word' further, and blog about the company and where it is going. These are the new breed of leaders - CEO's 2.0. They can use blogging as a fantastic tool to reach out to both their internal employees, as well as to the outside world, and this would be a great advantage over their competitors, as there are relatively few of the CEO's actually blogging yet. It would also enhance their reputation in the business world, showing how in touch they are with the ever changing and evolving ways of business communication.
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