Comments on: Authorship matters http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters Cornelius Puschmann on corporate and institutional blogging, linguistics, open access and other things that interest him. Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:10:21 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: CorpBlawg » Why you’re interesting but your company just isn’t http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-8692 CorpBlawg » Why you’re interesting but your company just isn’t Sat, 16 Dec 2006 18:47:55 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-8692 [...] Northeastern University and Backbone Media recently conducted a study on corporate blogging where they asked 21 company bloggers for their experiences and opinions. I think the study is interesting not only because of the responses it cites, but because the responses say something about the bloggers who were interviewed and their take on how corporate blogging works. I’ve argued before that corporate blogs - as much, perhaps even more than private blogs - serve a social function, that is, that they seek to establish a relationship between the blogger (acting as a representative of the company) and his readers. Obviously a blog benefits from being informative, but before it can inform it has to achieve the status of a trusted source. However, the only way it can become a trusted source is by making the blogger a familiar, tangible person to his readers - someone with a personality, humor, interests, quirks, etc. The trouble with brochures, CEO interviews, mission statements and normal company websites isn’t that they aren’t informative, it’s that they lack what the cluetrainers have dubbed “a human voice”*. [...] [...] Northeastern University and Backbone Media recently conducted a study on corporate blogging where they asked 21 company bloggers for their experiences and opinions. I think the study is interesting not only because of the responses it cites, but because the responses say something about the bloggers who were interviewed and their take on how corporate blogging works. I’ve argued before that corporate blogs - as much, perhaps even more than private blogs - serve a social function, that is, that they seek to establish a relationship between the blogger (acting as a representative of the company) and his readers. Obviously a blog benefits from being informative, but before it can inform it has to achieve the status of a trusted source. However, the only way it can become a trusted source is by making the blogger a familiar, tangible person to his readers - someone with a personality, humor, interests, quirks, etc. The trouble with brochures, CEO interviews, mission statements and normal company websites isn’t that they aren’t informative, it’s that they lack what the cluetrainers have dubbed “a human voice”*. [...]

]]> By: CorpBlawg » Expanding on authorship, trust and Wal-Mart http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-4201 CorpBlawg » Expanding on authorship, trust and Wal-Mart Sun, 22 Oct 2006 18:37:39 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-4201 [...] It feels a bit like a shameless plug, but in the light of the recent Wal-Mart blog scandal I can’t resist revisiting my previous post on blog authorship and trust. My older post focused on ghostblogging, i.e. the process of having someone other than the perpetrated author - often a professional writer - publish your executive blog for you. [...] [...] It feels a bit like a shameless plug, but in the light of the recent Wal-Mart blog scandal I can’t resist revisiting my previous post on blog authorship and trust. My older post focused on ghostblogging, i.e. the process of having someone other than the perpetrated author - often a professional writer - publish your executive blog for you. [...]

]]> By: Chad Horenfeldt http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2901 Chad Horenfeldt Mon, 09 Oct 2006 00:02:43 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2901 Thanks for your response Cornelius - apologize for not seeing your name. I agree with you that CEO blogs should actually be written by the CEO. For a better idea of my opinion on corporate blogging, check out <a href="http://anythinggoesmarketing.blogspot.com/2006/05/blogs-let-rest-of-us-take-back-night.html" rel="nofollow"> Top 10 Reasons for Corporate Blogging</a>. Again, thanks again for the detailed response and I wish you the best in your research. Thanks for your response Cornelius - apologize for not seeing your name. I agree with you that CEO blogs should actually be written by the CEO. For a better idea of my opinion on corporate blogging, check out Top 10 Reasons for Corporate Blogging. Again, thanks again for the detailed response and I wish you the best in your research.

]]> By: CorpBlawg » Verizon starts blogging http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2371 CorpBlawg » Verizon starts blogging Tue, 03 Oct 2006 18:08:49 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2371 [...] Charleni Li reports that the U.S. telco company yesterday launched a blog on technology and telecommunications policy. It should be interesting to see how they fare - who knows, perhaps they’ll get into a scuffle with the folks over at Cox. One thing going for Verizon is that I can tell who actually writes their blog, which is rather unclear with DST. As I’ve ranted before, authorship matters. [...] [...] Charleni Li reports that the U.S. telco company yesterday launched a blog on technology and telecommunications policy. It should be interesting to see how they fare - who knows, perhaps they’ll get into a scuffle with the folks over at Cox. One thing going for Verizon is that I can tell who actually writes their blog, which is rather unclear with DST. As I’ve ranted before, authorship matters. [...]

]]> By: Cornelius http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2269 Cornelius Mon, 02 Oct 2006 15:08:17 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2269 Agreed. I think having other employee bloggers act as the voice of a company under their own names is preferable to a ghostwritten CEO blog. I also think it is perfectly sensible to have a staff of editors take care of things such as comment moderation. The question I'd ask myself when considering to have my blog ghostwritten is "how would I react if I found out that it's not really John CEO writing this"? Consider you are a business partner of the company in question and you meet John CEO face to face. How would you react if, when mentioning his blog, it became clear that he's not actually the author? I would regard that as a significant violation of trust. Who knows who answers John's email if someone else writes his blog? There's another interesting effect, by the way. With a public blog you're not just talking to one clearly delineated group of people (customers, press etc) - you're talking to a bunch of people who you might not have had in mind at all. You're talking to partner company executives, government officials, shareholders and to people sitting down the hall from you. The idea that what the CEO has to say could be interesting to those people doesn't seem entirely outlandish to me... Agreed. I think having other employee bloggers act as the voice of a company under their own names is preferable to a ghostwritten CEO blog. I also think it is perfectly sensible to have a staff of editors take care of things such as comment moderation. The question I’d ask myself when considering to have my blog ghostwritten is “how would I react if I found out that it’s not really John CEO writing this”? Consider you are a business partner of the company in question and you meet John CEO face to face. How would you react if, when mentioning his blog, it became clear that he’s not actually the author? I would regard that as a significant violation of trust. Who knows who answers John’s email if someone else writes his blog?
There’s another interesting effect, by the way. With a public blog you’re not just talking to one clearly delineated group of people (customers, press etc) - you’re talking to a bunch of people who you might not have had in mind at all. You’re talking to partner company executives, government officials, shareholders and to people sitting down the hall from you. The idea that what the CEO has to say could be interesting to those people doesn’t seem entirely outlandish to me…

]]> By: Todd Hansen http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2266 Todd Hansen Mon, 02 Oct 2006 14:34:14 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2266 Great thoughts! I've been recently discouraged to find so many ghost-written CEO blogs as of late. We've begun a blogging initiative and I thought it would be easier to weed these out. Not so much I am finding. I can understand the practicality of the matter as CEO's have little time if any to crank out a blog post, but if you are going to be the voice of the company in such an intimate forum then come forward with the authorship. Great thoughts! I’ve been recently discouraged to find so many ghost-written CEO blogs as of late. We’ve begun a blogging initiative and I thought it would be easier to weed these out. Not so much I am finding. I can understand the practicality of the matter as CEO’s have little time if any to crank out a blog post, but if you are going to be the voice of the company in such an intimate forum then come forward with the authorship.

]]> By: Cornelius http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2170 Cornelius Sun, 01 Oct 2006 22:37:43 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2170 Hey Chad, thanks for the comment. Firstly, I assumed so far that having my name on each post (it's right under the title) as well as detailed information on the 'about me' page should clarify who I am, but I readily admit that it could be a little more obvious. Secondly, while the argument regarding SEO is perfectly valid, I wasn't talking about anonymous blogs but about blogs written by people assuming a false identify, e.g. Joe Marketing writing Bob CEO's executive blog. My focus so far has been mostly on large companies which are probably less interested in SEO than they are in improving customer relations.* Perhaps I should have explained my conclusion a bit better: my deduction isn't that ghost blogs are "bad" but that they are diametrical to the goal of trust-building. No trust if I don't know who I'm talking to. Whether I can improve my search engine ranking with an anonymous blog or ghost blog is a different matter altogether (I have no doubt that it works). In the end the other interesting question is into what effect either method translates. Does my company sell more because of my wonderful CEO blog? Does more traffic translate into more sales? It's probably easier to measure the effect of traffic on sales than the effect of blogs on a company's image. Tough questions, but very interesting as well... One quick question though: in you opinion, what are the objectives of business blogging? I'm very interested in different perspectives regarding this issue. Thanks again for your feedback! * I'm also doubtful as to whether just posting keyword junk works in the long run, considering that your ranking seems to depend primarily on who links to you - but that's another cup of tea. Hey Chad,

thanks for the comment. Firstly, I assumed so far that having my name on each post (it’s right under the title) as well as detailed information on the ‘about me’ page should clarify who I am, but I readily admit that it could be a little more obvious. Secondly, while the argument regarding SEO is perfectly valid, I wasn’t talking about anonymous blogs but about blogs written by people assuming a false identify, e.g. Joe Marketing writing Bob CEO’s executive blog. My focus so far has been mostly on large companies which are probably less interested in SEO than they are in improving customer relations.*

Perhaps I should have explained my conclusion a bit better: my deduction isn’t that ghost blogs are “bad” but that they are diametrical to the goal of trust-building. No trust if I don’t know who I’m talking to. Whether I can improve my search engine ranking with an anonymous blog or ghost blog is a different matter altogether (I have no doubt that it works). In the end the other interesting question is into what effect either method translates. Does my company sell more because of my wonderful CEO blog? Does more traffic translate into more sales? It’s probably easier to measure the effect of traffic on sales than the effect of blogs on a company’s image. Tough questions, but very interesting as well…

One quick question though: in you opinion, what are the objectives of business blogging? I’m very interested in different perspectives regarding this issue. Thanks again for your feedback!

* I’m also doubtful as to whether just posting keyword junk works in the long run, considering that your ranking seems to depend primarily on who links to you - but that’s another cup of tea.

]]> By: Chad Horenfeldt http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2156 Chad Horenfeldt Sun, 01 Oct 2006 18:03:10 +0000 http://corpblawg.ynada.com/2006/09/27/authorship-matters#comment-2156 If authorship matters, why have you NOT displayed your name on your blog that I can easily see?? :) I also disagree with you that Ghost Blogs are bad. Think SEO - if your blog posts contains keywords that have been optimized for your site and if you continuoosly post content, this (according to SEO "experts") will place you high in the search rankings which will drive traffic to your site. I agree that it's best when the blog has a personal voice but there are other objectives to business blogging. If authorship matters, why have you NOT displayed your name on your blog that I can easily see?? :) I also disagree with you that Ghost Blogs are bad. Think SEO - if your blog posts contains keywords that have been optimized for your site and if you continuoosly post content, this (according to SEO “experts”) will place you high in the search rankings which will drive traffic to your site. I agree that it’s best when the blog has a personal voice but there are other objectives to business blogging.

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