So you’ve set up a blog on your website. What next?
Have a view; be short and punchy; be topical; invite (and make it easy for) people to share your blog. Pictures too. Readers love those. Particularly ones of cuddly cats…
What else? Oh yes:
They also like links to other useful sites.
And like a well functioning digestive system, good blogs appear regularly and often.
Oh, and don’t go on. In the digital age, attention spans are notoriously short…hello? Anyone still there?
Bravery is a hard thing to define. It comes in all shapes and sizes. Here though I’m not necessarily talking ‘My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Armies of the North … father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next,’ type bravery. That would be a stretch. I’m thinking more about how brave as a communicator you can be.
Being bullied by a brute nosed journalist can of course make you feel like Maximus, but how many times have you written a stock phrase in a press release such as:
“We’re delighted so and so has joined, bringing with him a breadth of expertise…”
Cosy and comfortable
Or resorted to overused sound bites, or just retreated to the cosy world of corporate jargon and acronym where you know what you’re saying might not have much impact, but hey, no one ever got fired for using corporate jargon did they?
So here’s a challenge. How brave can you be? There’s the CEO to defy, or the inhouse lawyer, or simply those people who expect to see the formulaic press release, intranet article, blog or whatever.
Maybe it’s time to put yourself out there and take a few more risks.
Poor old Starbucks. The 8th December looks like it could be a bad day for the baristas as UK Uncut takes its ‘day of action’ protest to the coffee giant, accusing it of dodging millions in taxes.
I’m sure their PR team will be in full crisis planning mode for what is guaranteed to be a day of less than positive media coverage.
So what’s Starbucks saying about it right now? Well, to be fair, it’s not the radio silence that many a corporation often employs when facing down some bad news. Check out their website and there is at least some blog content addressing the issue. But it’s a bit, well corporate, and frankly still seems to duck some of the issues.
When you have politicians on the radio (Today programme, 3 December) openly talking about boycotting your store, your brand is in serious trouble. If they used the same creativity when it comes to their crisis management as they do to market their coffee, they might have a chance.
A free coffee on the 8th December for any British taxpayer who can show their most recent P60 tax certificate? There’s an idea…
O2’s crisis management has been much debated of late, not least its management of some of the more colourful social media traffic that’s been heading their way. The question is, when the abuse really piles up, do you respond to those tweets, or let them go?
The attached blog http://bit.ly/OhMFJP from the CIPR admires O2’s response to a couple of particularly graphic tweets. My first instinct was to disagree. Surely responding will only encourage the sender to really let loose in a conversation O2 just can’t win.
But perhaps that’s not the point; they (O2), have proved they are at least listening and are working to do something about it.
According to a newish survey by BrandFog, CEOs who use social media are more likely to be trusted by both employees and customers.
Seems like a nice chap
And it’s true; recently I was looking for a bank account to put some money in and found some good rates at a less than well known building society. Having checked on the FSA’s website that it was in fact registered (I said it wasn’t very well known), I then had a quick peruse on their website and found an engaging blog recounting the chief exec’s gardening experiences. Gullible I may be, but I felt that here was a person to be trusted and promptly deposited my money in to his (or at least the society’s) hands.
So a blog, regular tweeting or whatever social media channel you’re using, can influence the purchasing decision; but how do you get your chief exec to engage? Inevitably, it will be the communications team trying to encourage their chief exec to use social media and almost as inevitably they’ll end up drafting content to try and make it easier.
People will spot a blogus
But here is the dilemma: tone of voice and authenticity is absolutely at the heart of getting social media right – people will spot a bogus blog (blogus?) a mile off. Making sure you can replicate his or her style while getting the right content is critical and you can only do that with regular access and their engagement in what you’re trying to do.
Of course in an ideal world, your chief exec will write it themselves and it’ll be engaging, interesting and you can sit back and watch the trust in your company and its senior management steadily grow (you might even pick up some gardening tips).