Executive Blogging? Hmm
August 11, 2016
Blogging by senior management appears to be an ongoing struggle. I wrote about it earlier and remarked that it is not for everyone.
In my opinion, key success factors are:
- You need to like doing it. It will cost a lot of time and effort, and if you do not like to spend that on writing, you’d better use your time in another way.
- You need to add something new to the mix, something your employees have not already heard several times through your official channels.
Last week, I came across two other articles about executive blogging.
Do not blog if you do not know where you are going
Erika Parker posted “Executive Blogs: 7 Signs You Should Just Say No “
She also mentions that executives have to feel a need to blog. There should be something driving them, whether that is their personal opinions, a need to interact with employees or a need to change behaviours. If they feel they do it because they have to, they better find another channel or another way altogether.
And while it is not necessarily wrong to hire a ghostwriter, an executive has to feed that person with the direction, the tone-of-voice, personality and topics. They can not leave it all to the writer. But remember: they should always post their blog themselves!
Do not blog about knowledge management
And if this all does not show enough that blogging by executives is not necessarily a simple thing that you “just do”, Nick Milton posted: “Why you should not ask your senior managers to blog“.
That sounds more forbidding than it really is. Nick warns that senior management should not blog about knowledge management, at least not about anything other than stating its importance.
In general, a senior manager’s blog will be too formal (an official communication), too hierarchical and too conceptual to be of practical use. It is not a good example to start informal company-wide knowledge sharing between peers.
Nick gives a few better options for using blogging as a method of sharing knowledge among employees.
I strongly support that opinion, just like I support blogging instead of publishing monthly newsletters.
I am almost starting to feel sorry for all executives.
If they have the drive and enthusiasm (which appears not to happen too often), then they are forbidden to blog about a certain topic. I wonder if any executive still has any motivation left after all this.
Perhaps you know of a good example?
Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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