What do Bill Marriott, chairman and CEO of Marriott Hotels; Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and president of Sun Microsystems; and Mark Greiner, senior vice president of office furniture maker Steelcase, have in common? They are all corporate bloggers.
Blogs, an abbreviation of Web logs, no longer are the province only of teens sharing stories, political junkies or conspiracy theorists. Sophisticated businesspeople are using blogs to spread their companies' stories. In fact, according to Social Text, more than 11 percent of Fortune 500 companies have corporate blogs. That's up from 4 percent just three years ago.
The Web site thenewpr.com counted 277 corporate blogs written by CEOs or others in top leadership positions.
So why are companies and their top-ranked people spending time and money on this very personal kind of writing?
The reason is that blogs can be quite effective. They can generate buzz, they can answer criticism, and they can help an organization build relationships with customers, prospects, shareholders and employees.
"Blogs, because they get updated frequently, also boost a company's ranking in search engines," says John Cass, author of Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging.
Start by readingSince search is such a powerful tool today, increasing your organic search results is reason enough to blog. But you must do your research before you type the first sentence of your first blog posting.
Sean Howard, an innovation consultant in Toronto, suggests that companies start not by writing, but by reading. Check out other blogs in your industry. Research what your customers are saying about you and your competitors in online communities.
Once you've decided to start your company blog, who should write it? Some believe it must be a high-ranking person in the company. Others think blogging is just another job for a public relations staffer, and some have elevated the role to a new corporate suite position, chief blogger.
Whoever the author, communications skills and the dedication to frequent postings are a necessity.
Mark Young, chairman of Western Creative, a Detroit-based marketing company, advises corporate executives on blogging.
"If you say, 'Check in every Tuesday and Friday,' " there'd better be something there (to read), or people are going to write you off," Young says.
Intel's Heath Buckmaster used the company blog to engage readers and solicit feedback in a post titled "Do Corporate Blogs Really Matter?" He wrote, "This blog exists only if you stay interested … so what do you want to hear about?"
Bill Marriott closes each of his postings with, "I'm Bill Marriott, and thanks for helping me keep Marriott on the move." That's a very nice way to solicit customer feedback and thank employees for their service.
Rex Hammock, founder of Hammock Inc., a content marketing and media firm in Nashville, was a very early blogger, starting in August 2000. He says his Rexblog.com "curates news about media, community and technology for people who are not geeks."
In addition to that personal blog, Hammock's corporate site contains three more:
• Custom Media Crafts provides insights on targeted, single-sponsor media units that Hammock publishes for clients.
• Hammorati is a blog with news and information on the company.
• The Team Hammock blog covers the community involvement of the company and its employees.
Margarita Bauza of the Detroit Free Press recently posed this question to CEOs: To blog or not to blog? If that is the question, what is your answer? The ones who answer yes — and play the blogging game well — give their companies another important voice in the world of marketing.
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