CEOs & TECHNOLOGY
According to SocialText, a company that produces social networking software, just over 11% of Fortune 500 companies (about 55 companies) have corporate blogs. The number of corporate blogs has risen slowly and steadily since the end of 2005 when 4% had any kind of blog. (Advertising Age, April 14, 2008).
GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, tapped the interactivity of the Internet to reach GE's two million shareholders. GEO encouraged shareholders to submit questions through the Internet then answered some of them on an NBC Webcast. It gave Immelt an opportunity to restate facts he had been stressing for some time about GE's earnings and to squelch a rumor of an NBC Universal spin-off. (The New York Times, March 14, 2008).
Corporate blogs are becoming more common. According to the Fortune 500 Blogging Wiki, there are 30 Fortune 500 companies who publish blogs – a number that is double the amount in December 2005. One such avid blogger, Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, Inc. recently sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking for the SEC to allow companies to publish substantive financial information through blogs.
In All the Internet's a Stage. Why Don't CEO's Use It?, Randal Stross examines the fact that so few CEOs actually blog. While many companies have employees who maintain blogs, it is a rare situation where the CEO actually does the writing. As Stross explains, “[o]nly the chief executive is in a position to sit astride the beast and share the widest perspective.”
Blogs and corporate reputation are becoming more intertwined, according to an article in The Economist. While some attacks on business come from easily identified groups, the advent of an online “social media” is growing significantly and has the potential to seriously damage a company’s reputation. Bloggers are a completely different breed of “brand assassin[s]” – since they are not as well organized as other advocacy or protest groups, it challenges companies’ abilities to seek them out and negotiate. In other words, “[i]n the blogosphere, however, a corporation’s next big critic could be anyone.” The need for companies to pay attention to blogs and fix the impending problems is becoming even more critical.
According to a Gartner G2/Forbes.com/Survey.com Study survey among global executives, 56 percent of C-Suite executives and 53 percent of senior management in large companies begin their day by accessing the web, compared to 46 percent and 44 percent, respectively, who kick off their day by reading the newspaper. Other key findings include:
- 56 percent of C-Suite executives that the Internet is their most valuable source of business information, surpassing other sources such as newspapers (19 percent) and industry/trade publications (11 percent)
- 86 percent of C-Suite executives in 2004 say they use search engines daily
- 42 percent of C-Suite executives use the Internet to research competitors and industry trends on a daily basis
Blogs are becoming increasingly viewed as an effective way to communicate. As Katherine Heires writes in the Harvard Management Communication Letter, though blogs have accomplished their fair share of criticizing companies, blogs are being seen as a method to improve credibility, establish their reputation and speak directly with their customers and other key constituencies. And as Debbie Weil, creator of the BlogWrite for CEOs blog and author of The Corporate Blogging Book, points out, “[i]f you're not blogging, you're missing out on the chance to contribute to the conversation taking place in the blogosphere.” In order to reap the most from a blog, experts recommend that bloggers:
- Create the blog with a specific goal in mind - helps to set expectations ahead of time
- Use a “genuine” voice - avoid having the PR or communications department write the content and have it sound too corporate
- Allow for an open conversation - be responsive to both positive and negative comments