CEOs: To Blog or Not to Blog?

By Margarita Bauza

RISMEDIA, July 2008-(MCT)-By all accounts, General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz’s blog is doing its job. It’s short, snappy, has frequent posts and is interactive, just what experts say a blog should be.

At http://fastlane.gmblogs.com, Lutz addresses reader concerns and criticisms on vehicles and the company. He also uses it to promote new products and technology. Reader posts show a dialogue happening between the public and GM.

In a Feb. 21 post, Lutz used his blog to defend himself after he was criticized for calling global warming “a total crock.”

“An offhand comment I made recently about the concept of global warming seems to have a lot of people heated, and it’s spreading through the Internet like ragweed. … General Motors is dedicated to the removal of cars and trucks from the environmental equation, period. And, believe it or not-so am I! It’s the right thing to do, for us, for you and, yes, for the planet.”

Started in 2005, Lutz’s fastlane blog is an example of what’s become common practice in corporate America and with company executives.

As of February, www.thenewpr.com, which tracks corporate blogging, counted 277 known blogs authored by CEOs or people in organizational leadership positions.

Experts say blogs help disseminate a company’s message, answer public criticism and develop a relationship between the public and the company’s most visible figures.

Blogs, because they get updated frequently, also boost a company’s ranking in search engines, said John Cass, author of Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging.

Corporate blogging critics say that CEOs should tend to more important business-such as running the company-and leave messages to the public relations staff.

Others say a poorly written or neglected blog with infrequent entries can leave a visitor with a poorer image of the company, such as laziness.

“If you say, ‘Check in every Tuesday and Friday,’ there better be something there or people are going to write you off,” said Mark Young, chairman of the Redford Township, Michigan, marketing company Western Creative, who writes his company blog and advises company executives on blogging.

Other corporate chiefs are embracing blogs.

Mark Greiner, a senior vice president of the Grand Rapids, Michigan, furniture giant Steelcase, uses his blog (http://blog.steelcase.com) to talk about workspaces, leadership and his current read. He recently discussed a favorite pastime, which must have caught the interest of anyone who sits in meetings with him.

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been a bit of a doodler. Many of my doodles are rather meaningless, and are really just a way to pass the time when listening to a presentation/discussion that has gone on well beyond the point of sustained interest.”

Southfield, Michigan, grocer Jim Hiller shares his love of mushrooms, cheese, the occasional exotic plant and, of course, the pleasures of shopping at his stores.

“Anchovy paste is possibly the slowest-moving item in the grocery industry, and the most difficult product to find anywhere. …Of course, we have Anchovy paste at Hillers. We always have, and we always will. It falls into our must-have category. ”

Tom Nixon, one of three partners at the Bingham Farms, Michigan, firm Identity PR, scored political candidates’ campaigns on his company blog.

“Best Brand: Obama. He has a consistent message of ‘change’ and ‘hope.’ Best Media Relations: McCain. He’s managed to stay either above or out of the fray during much of this campaign season, as the two Democrats continued to bloody each other up. Best Crisis Management: Clinton. This is almost by default, as she’s had the most crises to avert, it seems.”

Hiller, of the seven-store Hiller’s Markets chain, sees blogging as a necessity.

“If you’re not blogging, doing e-mail blasts, contemporary things, you’re seen as a dinosaur, and we can’t afford to do that,” he said, adding that he’s not sure whether it has added business.

The corporate blogging practice has critics, such as Dave Taylor, author of Business Blog at www.intuitive.com, which focuses on business and industry analysis.

“I think part of it is an ego stroke,” Taylor said. “You’re the head man or head woman and you get to write about ‘My company this and that.’”

Heads of companies have more important things to tend to, he added.

Christopher Barger, GM’s director of Global Communications Technology, disagrees.

“I don’t know of any businessperson that believes that talking to customers is a bad idea or bad for business,” he said about Lutz’s blog.

“Bob’s original thought was to speak directly to customers and to set the record straight when something was misinterpreted in the media,” he said. “What GM learned is that it was a great way to interact with customers, like a focus group on a mass scale.”

Detroit employment attorney Patricia Nemeth said anything a company puts on a blog should be given serious scrutiny before it’s posted.

“As attorneys, we look at words very technically,” she said. “Words can be cut and pasted and used elsewhere against you.”

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