I’m Bored To Death with the Content Conversation
Okay, I’m at the boiling point with the fact that I need to have conversations with marketing and public relations professionals about the key to good online communications is creating good content, stick in a vertical that you know, etc. Isn’t that the key to any business communications efforts?
Now I understand that there are a ton of bloggers out there posting innocuous crappy content, but let’s keep this conversation in the mindset of business blogging.
First off – in business blogging you better be blogging about what you know about, or don’t even come to the party. Can we all agree on that?
The real conflict is in the need to “filter” employee blog content. Most companies should have a blogging policy about disclosure, offensive content and profanity to set the parameters for blogging under the corporate banner. Can we all agree on that?
Now the crux becomes letting go and not reviewing every post before it goes live out of fear of what employees are going to say. A company MUST embrace the fact that employees are humans, who operate on emotion and from time-to-time might post something that’s not totally in agreement with management.
In social media conversations, it is very apparent when someone’s content has been cleansed by “corporate message handlers”. How do we know this? The same way we know politicians are lying to us. It’s too crafted, there’s zero real emotion, no personal experience, no point of view that calls out a position on the topic matter that someone is willing to be accountable for.
So here’s my plea to businesses considering blogging – if you live in fear of what your employees might say – if your messaging is cleansed and reviewed by legal – then please, please, please don’t blog.
Read Wired’s recent article The See-Through CEO on Radical Transparency. Use that as a basis for considering if you want to enter the online conversation. If it freaks you out, go back to sending out press releases as your official means of communications.
BrandonSings:
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