Title: How Top Management Uses Blogs To Increase Business Top management executives at corporate giants like Sun

n Microsystems, Boeing Comm

ercial Airplanes, General Motors and Hewlett-Packard have ventured into the blog
ging arena. What is prompting these busy executives to take time out form their
hectic schedules to join in the conversations in the blogosphere? Simple, it is
the desire to promote a new atmosphere of openness with employees, shareholders,
customers, prospects and the general public in the process not only increasing
business but also, more so, giving a human voice to the company. Bosses Why Blog? What began, as an experiment has become an important means of communication for
GMs It has given me, personally, an opportunity to get much closer with you, the
public. I these are the words of General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz. The blog
osphere, the press, and most of GM's constituents are tuned into his blog, which
gets more than 5,000 visits and 13,000 page views a day. In its simplest terms, a blog can be an online and very public journal. It is an
effective medium used by top management to communicate directly to its market s
egment, business associates, stockholders and employees. Blogs serve as channels
for management to explain to these people that the directions and actions and v
iews that management is taking are in the best interests of all parties concerne
d. Through a blog, the CEO or any high level executive has the opportunity to co
nverse with his target audience on a regular basis. The executive is in a unique
position to set the agenda, steer the discussion and shape the views and opinio
ns. In a way, top management executives would seem to be the logical persons to
blog in behalf of the company. Nobody can represent a company and a product or s
ervice brand better than top executives especially the CEO. They are in a good p
osition to comment on certain issues. Blogging provides management with a fast and cost-effective means of conducting
two-way communications with the company is audience. Management and customers, i
ndustry peers or the public all have the opportunity to respond either in the co
mment box or their very own blogs. Management wants to find out how the public v
iews the company so it can improve its products or services. Listening and engag
ing the blogging community can turn out to be a highly effective way of discover
ing what your targeted audience thinks about your company. Top management can us
e feedbacks, good and bad, to their advantage. These feedbacks are used to impro
ve products or services and systems. The immediate and open communication achiev
ed thru blogging can enable a company to gain a high position in its industry. C
orporate executive blogs also provide a fast and direct method of managing resea
rch on customer experiences, company perception, commentaries on policies and ag
enda. Unfavorable comments are not filtered out. Management evaluates these inputs and
responds accordingly. GM vice chairman Bob Lutz emphasized it is extremely impo
rtant to run the bad with the good comments or else credibility will suffer. In
the blogosphere, credibility counts the most. Once it is gone, the blog is usele
ss. Filtering out the unsavory remarks takes away the essence of a real conversa
tion. It completely eliminates the likelihood of any wrong perception about your
product or service being corrected. As a whole, top management executives use blogs to help generate sales thereby i
ncreasing business. Blogs help them develop a human voice that customers, prospe
cts, shareholders, industry peers, employees and the general public can relate.
Giving a human voice to the company is significant as people basically do busine
ss out of relationships as they do out of prices and benefits. Blogging promotes
a two-way communication about what is important to companies and communitys dial
ogue that more often than not builds a working relationship. Effective Executive Blogs It takes a combination of passion, personality, expertise in ones field, wit and
wisdom, writing proficiency to make an executive blog worth reading. An executi
ve blog is not just a summary of company press releases. For a blog to be effici
ent avoid having posts that read like a press release. Blogging is more informal
and thus easier to bring readers into the conversation. Executive bloggers are
advised to get personal while taking into consideration that a certain level of
propriety is necessary. Blogs are perfect for executives in as much as the focal point is on a subject m
atter that is an expert. An effective blog allows the executive to deal with bus
iness concerns and expound on major industry or company issues. For an executive
blog to be successful, it should at all times reflect the conviction and voice
of the executive, not the PR or legal department. This can be quite difficult as
an executive blogger has added responsibilities to watch what he say, keeping i
n mind securities, disclosure rules. The best executive blog is one written by t
he executive himself. It is hard to be transparent when another blogger is posti
ng opinions on industry or company trends that he has nothing to do with. An effective blog uses short but concise and periodic entries rather than long a
nd boring white papers. In fact, some of the outstanding blogs are those that ha
ve only one or two sentences with links directing readers to related articles. A good executive blogger just focuses on two or three vital points. It is then s
canned and proofread by a blog-savvy staff member. He also should organize the c
ontent of his blog. Arranging the corporate and industry issues he plans to tack
le over time is recommended to build cohesiveness. Categorizing entries with rel
evant keywords can result in higher search engine ranking. New entries should be
posted regularly, at least two to three times a week. There is nothing worse th
an visiting a blog that has not been updated. Some executives hire the services of public relation firms to draw up blog strat
egies and at times to help them maintain the technical side of blogging. Others
have in-house communications staff to handle logistics for them. Some executives
write entries on their BlackBerrys or e-mail them. More importantly, executives
claim they write their own blog personally with the slightest or no editing fro
m the public relations or communications department. Finally, to earn credibility in the blogosphere, an executive blogger should als
o take comments, favorable or not with a grain of salt. It also means owning up
to bad news about the company. As Seth Godin, marketing guru and best-selling au
thor emphasizes, an executive blog works best when it is based on candor, urgenc
y, timeliness, pithiness, controversy and utility, With the deluge of readers visiting blogs, expect more top management executives
blogging to increase business.