by Pavel Solyak
Blogs by senior company officials-often referred to as CEO blogs are a great way for companies to engage and connect with their customers, prospects and investors as well as to talk about goings-on inside the company. Other benefits of business-to-business blogging include building a hub for all your social media initiatives, reinforcing the company’s brand, making company announcements to which people will pay attention, open new marketing channel for products and services and in some cases, even create a dynamic mean for providing customer service and support. B2C companies have been blogging for years, often having separate blogs for their product lines, customer service and investors. Some will keep company blogs, some – employee blogs, and some will go as far as hiring professional bloggers specifically to write posts in a manner consistent with expectation of blog-reading customers.
B2B customers are no different from B2C: fed up with companies that have grown detached from them, they are likely to favor companies that make an effort to connect with them and engage in dialogue and knowledge-sharing.
While your business needs should drive the approach your organization takes to blogging, in B2B industry CEO of Executive blogs are typically the best way to go. The New PR website contains a list of more than 270 blogs by senior executives around the world. Although the list hasn’t been updated since 2008, here are just a few examples of executives who blog:
- Randy Tinseth, VP Marketing of Boeing (Randy’s Journal)
- Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Jonathan’s Blog)
- Bob Lutz, CEO of General Motors (FastLane Blog)
- Hu Yoshida, VP and CTO at Hitachi Data Systems (Hu’s Blog)
- Bill Marriott, CEO of Marriott International (Marriott on the move)
Don’t panic, who authors an official company blog or CEO blog isn’t important. I would seriously doubt Bill Gates or James Skinner spend all day blogging about their companies and responding to all the comments and emails. However, those blogs offer executives a channel to share their perspectives and talk about issues facing the company. Hearing from company’s leaders and executives, people charged with a power to make highest-level decisions and planning corporate strategy, can make the whole organization stand out, heighten the perception of transparency and enhance reader’s ability to comment. Think about it this way: customers feel they can get in direct touch with the top dogs and project their opinions and questions. Giving your customers a voice will in turn engage them with your brand and eradicate much of the skepticism about your organization. Yes, we said skepticism. Customers have grown more distant from brand, having lower levels of trust in both B2B and B2C. But can you blame them with business practices of WorldCom and Enron, car recalls, Chinese lead-filled children’s toys, outsourced customer service, bank failures and government bailouts? Having a transparent company or CEO blog will set you apart in the eyes of customers who are used to companies not caring what they wants, not talking to them and trying to rob them blind for every cent.
Remember, a CEO blog is much different from a CEO’s letter to shareholders or annual report. While you may be able to cut some corners and repurpose content from your reports and internal news for your blog, keep in mind the differences between the two. An annual report appears once a year (unless your organization is doing quarterly reports), the writing is usually formal and blend, and pages are full of numbers, charts and graphs. Such reports usually addresses broad array of issues and gives strategic recommendations and projections. More importantly, there is no way to respond to it. A blog, on the other hand, will appear frequently and focus on a specific issue. The writing is more authentic and candid, opinions are welcome, and of course audience can comment on any posts.
Take a look at the blog from General Motors‘ Blog. Here is a review of GM’s recent posts:
- A piece on Chevrolet team donating year’s supply of diapers, new car seats and other baby supplies to a customer who gave birth while driving GM made vehicle
- A webchat about with the winner of EcoCar NeXt Challenge – a GM sponsored event
- A piece about strong auto sales and continued growth in May
- An item about GM’s green initiative and what it means to be green
- GM’s announcement to repay government loans and its future plans for plant investments
Let’s look at another blog from Boeing’s CEO:
- Firm’s progress on the new 787-9 Dreamliner jet
- An article talking about recent World Trade Organization ruling about company’s biggest competitor Airbus and what that means for Boeing
- A series of hot weather test flights for a Boeing 747-8
- Blog talking about the importance of airplane inspections and Boeing’s stance on safety
Customers and investors alike are more willing to do business with a company whose leaders are displaying though-leadership, expertise and candidly addressing topics and issues about which customers are interested.
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of the Week
17/08/2011 at 5:03 am Permalink
Nice blog. Really appreciate it……..