So, Should CEOs Blog or Not?

There are some fascinating discussions  about the extent to which CEOs and other employees should publish content on company blogs and social media platforms.  Respected commentators and SEO experts like David Amerland and Mark Traphagen are strong proponents of key employees and CEOs becoming authors and presenting a human face for their brand through content and social media. Some are not so sure.

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Other, equally respected sources have very strong and entirely understandable reservations. Some corporate communications professionals throw up their hands in horror at the thought of untrained CEOs sounding off about anything that takes their fancy with no regard for the brand identity or message. They fear having their own small-scale Trump Twitter storm to manage.

Making brands ‘human’

The thrust of the argument is that there are solid marketing and SEO benefits from encouraging wider participation in a brand’s content creation. For one thing, people like to understand who is behind the logo. And as Google moves towards a semantic search environment, having a wide range of experts contributing their individual authority to that of the brand, should be a big boost for SEO.

If you want to understand more about semantic search, how it is affected by authority, and what this means for the future of SEO and on-line marketing I suggest you get hold of David Amerland’s book Google Semantic Search.

I am heavily inclined towards the view that CEOs and key employees should be regular bloggers. In fact, I would say that it is essential and possibly inescapable.  But, as a business writer and frequent ghost writer, I can also see the potential pitfalls.

Writing is not easy

For one thing we know that company executives and specialists often don’t have the time or the skills to put together a well-structured and well-reasoned article; one that informs and leads to some sort of purposeful conclusion. As writers, we spent years learning how to do this. And even where the skills exist, operational issues and client priorities are always likely to take precedence.

The other difficulty that every copywriter and ghost blogger will have experienced is that business owners and CEOs sometimes struggle to distinguish between their interests and passions, and the content needs of their customers. Some get it and some don’t.  I’m sure this was the sentiment behind a comment I saw in a Google+ discussion about CEOs blogging: ‘They can, but nobody will read it.’

A very real concern would be about how a disparate team of non-professional authors, possibly with a passing knowledge of marketing disciplines, could be expected to produce content that engages readers  and reinforces consistent brand messages and themes. You can produce all the editorial guidelines you want, but will people stick to them? How do you get some discipline and consistency into the process without corporate comms and PR strangling the life out of it? There are some big practical issues for brands to address.

None of these difficulties, of course, discredits the view that effective content creation by a wide range of individuals, and CEOs in particular, has the potential to ‘humanise’ and strengthen a brand, and could ultimately be crucial for SEO.

Can the circle be squared?

Some CEOs and employees will take to the task like a duck to water and will instinctively see the link between the brand message and the interests, needs and questions of their customers. They may struggle with crafting polished prose and their grammar might be a bit ragged, but I don’t think that’s a problem.  (I think I hear a crowd of copywriters and grammar pedants approaching my door with flaming torches at this point, but carry on).

Authenticity and meaning is the name of the game, not finely honed copy.

But in many other cases ghost writing or significant editing seems to be inevitable. But, can ghost-written content ever be considered authentic and can it ever appear as such to readers? That’s a debate that will rage, I’m sure, and it is a really big issue.

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Whose words. whose thoughts?

As David Amerland points out, it certainly puts a premium on brands finding writers who can represent an authentic voice (or possibly voices) for their organisation. But other than a possible supply-side issue, I don’t see a problem with this. When I’m writing on behalf of clients I can think no higher praise than: ‘that content is us’ or ‘that’s exactly what I would have said if I could have found the right words’.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that every good writer can be a good ghost-writer for a business.

Blogging on behalf of a business isn’t about expressing our opinions or world view, it’s about getting inside the soul of the company and seeing things the way they do – and the way their customers do. I wonder how many of the writers with a mainly journalistic background who are becoming bloggers can really empathize with the culture of a business in the way they need to. Clearly ghost blogging works better when we see things in similar ways and there’s a natural affinity between the writer and the business. And maybe that’s the big challenge.

So what do I think?

First, I don’t think I’m going to have to put away the laptop and seek an alternative career handing out baskets at the DIY store anytime soon.  Even if brands accept the need to become large scale content creators, I think they’ll need some professional help.

Second, I can’t help feeling that within a couple of years we’ll have stopped talking about content marketing as if it’s something new and strange. It will be something that brands do, quite naturally, to build relationships and trust with their customers. I have little doubt that this will help SEO in the age of the semantic web and I have even less doubt that this is a really smart thing for brands to be doing anyway, right now.

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Richard Hussey, Copywriter and Blogger

01823 674167 richard@rshcopywriting.co.uk.gridhosted.co.uk

 

 

 

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