Comments on: Corporate blogging: now it’s personal?

By: Real-life boss tops Martin Lukes for sillinness | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online review

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:29:58 +0000

[...] to be personal and unmediated by PRs, and I replied that it must be kept corporate, but made human: Corporate blogging: now it’s personal? I now feel vindicated by this example of how the personal in the corporate sphere can become [...]

By: Message to Nestlé – stay corporate on SM | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online review

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:16:00 +0000

[...] Greenpeace has forced a tantrum out of Nestlé. Under pressure Nestlé broke the golden rule corporates must obey on social media platforms – never get personal. [...]

By: Social media reality check 2010 | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online review

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 11:38:59 +0000

[...] The Forrester stance reflects that made by the likes of WSJ, Apple and some British football clubs. This emerging trend challenges head-on the advice provided by many so called social media gurus. One such example is Neville Hobson in the UK. He advocates making corporate communication personal, which was advice I dismissed in a recent debate with him: Corporate blogging: now it’s personal? [...]

By: How organisations can survive the Tweet-sphere | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online review

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:46:26 +0000

[...] one reason why, in contrast to the likes of Neville Hobson, I argue that there needs to be a clear distinction made between a corporate and a personal voice on SM. If [...]

By: There’s no social media revolution | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online review

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:21:47 +0000

[...] that’s a misleading claim from GM at best; dishonest at worst. Here, the “personal perspective” is a clever way to express the corporate perspective, or Forster would soon be out of a job. [...]

By: Cool stuff – July 27, 2009 — Danny Whatmough.com

Cool stuff – July 27, 2009 — Danny Whatmough.com — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:31:05 +0000

[...] 23, 2009 How Social Media Can Help Get You a Job July 23, 2009 Who's Tweeting? July 23, 2009 Corporate blogging: now it’s personal? | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online revi… July 22, 2009 Email efail, Twitter's evolution, Google Wave and the future of business comms [...]

By: Tom Murphy – Murphy’s Law » To blog or not to blog…

Tom Murphy – Murphy’s Law » To blog or not to blog… — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:40:04 +0000

[...] Seaman followed up with a post titled: “Corporate blogging: now it’s personal?” Here’s the detail. I believe that all corporate utterance is collegiate, not personal. We should [...]

By: Alan_Brighty

Alan_Brighty — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:31:58 +0000

The essence of a company or corporation is that it exists entirely separate and apart from its owners – be they directors or shareholders. Corporate policy evolves through the group decision-making of a board of directors. Information then filters down through formal channels of command. The very philosophy of a corporation is the antithesis of the individualism represented by blogging.

Naturally, PR professionals must be conversant with the advantages of communicating messages through the latest techniques such as tweeting and blogging but they should be aware of the limitations. A public already angry about the huge salaries and rewards enjoyed at the top are going to be twice as annoyed if they think they are communicating their displeasure directly with the boss man and then find out the answers are coming from a corporate minion.

Finally, several companies have experienced the disadvantage of building a personality cult around their chairman only to have the corporate star inconsiderately drop dead.

By: Paul Seaman

Paul Seaman — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:27:09 +0000

Heather, we’ve been through a period in which celebrity CEOs thought it was all about them. They thought they defined it all, and they rewarded themselves accordingly. Now the time has come to bend the stick the other way; toward a sense of corporate responsibility. Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross is sharp on this here: http://reputationxchange.com/2009/07/11/celebrity-ceo-reputation/

That said, as always there is much sense in what you say, and CEOs do remain chief reputation officers.

By: Heather Yaxley

Heather Yaxley — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:47:57 +0000

Well – yes but, no but. Organisations clearly have a culture which in large part derives from the people within it. The “way we do things around here” is the result of corporate rules and regulations to some degree, but it isn’t just what you do, but how you do it. That direction and essence comes very often from the top. So I don’t believe you can really separate the personal from the corporate at the highest levels. A CEO isn’t a faceless automaton, who needs a PR person to guide their every utterance – let alone write it for them. You can’t monitor their every word in the real world, so why imagine you can online? Yes, you can write speeches, but communications isn’t really rhetoric – it is the conversations that these people should be having with key stakeholders all the time. That means customers, suppliers, politicians, investors, employees, even some key media – without being babysat by PR.

But, would I encourage a CEO to blog or twitter themselves – probably not. Would I “ghost” this for them – even less likely. Unless the CEO has the personality and self-discipline to be credible and able to identify the right time to talk and the time to be more discrete, I wouldn’t be advising they open themselves up to online 24:7 scrutiny.

Many CEOs are born communicators – indeed, they are and should be the chief reputation officer – and although they can consult with PR as strategic advisors and wordsmiths, they shouldn’t t need to be told exactly what to say. Frankly any CEO who is such a poor communicator to be a loose cannon deserves the exposure of social media – you wouldn’t accept them being poor at maths (although many appear to have been). So let’s get rid of rubbish communicators – if PR can’t help counsel or train, why hide their failings in this key area.

Ultimately though, I think the key is having a cross-organisational social media strategy. So it may be appropriate for the CEO to be leading communications and there are times when hearing it straight from the top, without verbal bodyguards is correct. There are other times when engineers, designers, customer relations or other functions should be communicating.

Of course there are constraints on communication, but anyone who doesn’t think before they open their mouth or start typing shouldn’t be trusted to go to their local pub – walls have ears too you know!!