I was talking to a group of fellow business leaders few weeks ago about blogging and shared my idea of introducing a coaching program for senior executives in corporates. I am running a similar power blogging program for entrepreneurs and it has created several happy blogging leaders.
Guess what, the inputs surprised me and were discouraging enough. It was a strong enough prompt for me to write this post along with the myths and inputs I received. Let’s go!
No Direct Benefits
Interestingly, 79 percent of Inc 500 CEOs and 30 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs have an active presence on at least one social network yet blogging still remains an area 51 for most of them.
Executives are busy and since there are no direct and tangible benefits of blogging they see, it doesn’t appeal them to invest their time on blogging their thoughts. Even if they believe in online media, blogging and social media goes least on their priorities.
When executives and business leaders blog, they don’t really have to blog for marketing and sales but to establish thought leadership, authority and face value online. this will directly helps the brand they are associated with that time and their own personal brand. So, there are no direct benefits if we see that way, but huge and countless benefits in long run.
[tweetherder]Four out of five employees believe that leadership teams who blog and engage on social networks attract better talent to the brands because of transparency, thought leadership, willingness to stay ahead.[/tweetherder]
Lack of Interest
Blogging involves learning and I would refer the above fact of no direct benefits, it doesn’t really catch interest of the executives whose main interest is in numbers.
Good leaders and executives believe in learning new things and developing their personal brand. When they reach certain seniority on monitory and position terms, reputation overtakes the numbers. This is when blogging amplifies their credibility, authenticity and social influence. Needless to say, it ultimately has potential to bring them to the league of influencers and mentors
Not Being Tech Savvy
It’s a complete myth that you need to learn technical skills to blog. Blogging is expression of your thoughts. All it needs is you, your thoughts. One can always delegate the publishing and technical tasks if it looks like a hassle. Focusing on thinking, writing, speaking and expressing is more than enough to get your blog going well.
[themify_box ]Moreover, you don’t always have to write. Blogging isn’t about text. It’s about expressing and sharing your ideas with the world. If you’re more comfortable at speaking, video blogging or podcasting is for you.[/themify_box]
If you can write an text sms, you can tweet.
You can write an email? Then you can write a blogpost
You know how to take a photo from phone? You would feel easy with instagram and vine.
Lack of How-To That Works
Lack of professional trainings and coaching appears as another hassle when leaders make up their minds to blog and share their life’s experience and professional expertise to help fellow entrepreneurs. Since these executives have achieved the level, they have higher quotients of credibility for their coaches and trainers.
When you make up your mind to blog as a leader, look out for a good blogging and social media coach irrespective of your geographical location. Save your time with online video sessions if you don’t find a good local coach.
Remember that when you’re learning something new, you’re a student. Trust your coach, do your best and establish yourself as a thought leader. There are tools that can make this journey easier and fun.
It’s Sales Team’s Job, Not for Me
This is a biggie where most of the senior executives think of blogging as a sales and marketing tool. It is indeed but there are several additional benefits of blogging. Establishing thought-leadership, reaching the masses, creating credibility, personal brand and fanbase are just some of them. Deep down you know it’s true.
By now, a leader with growth mindset will give blogging a good try and it’s an amazing move.
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Here is what successful blogging CEOs would do.
- Focus on becoming a thought leader
- Resist the selling urge
- Drive leads with subtle call to actions
- Identify the ability to blog frequency and timings – And stick to it.
- Be there during the times of need
- Take risk and have courage to stand by bold thoughts and statements.
- Get personal
- Focus on depth of ideas instead of the length of the posts.
- Let go the industry jargon
- Try video blogging and podcast
- Avoid overthinking and share easy thoughts
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Some of the brilliant blogs run by CEOs across the world I found are Thom Rainer – CEO at LifeWay Christian Resources, Richard Branson – CEO Virgin Group, Tony Hsieh – Zappos CEO, Skip Richard, Cathy Warwick – CEO at The Royal College of Midwives
Feel free to mention CEO’s who blog in comments. Would love to update the list.
Wait, we are not through yet. There’s more.
I was so intrigued by this idea, I invited people on MyBlogU to brainsotorm with me and received these four additional notes why .
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From David Leonhardt
CEOs might have a number of reasons not to want to blog.
- The most obvious is if they see no benefit, in which case the team has to sell them on the idea.
- The second obvious one, given all that is on a CEO’s plate, is the time factor – busy executives do not have time to blog. That’s why they need a ghostwriter, either internally, or an external writer who works with the CEO’s marketing team to determine the topics.
- The third reason, perhaps less obvious, is that they don’t know what to blog about. But the ghostwriter can work with the marketing team to develop a blogging plan that will move forward the CEO’s goals.
No question, there’s a sales job to do, regardless of the reasons the CEO might not want to blog.
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From Gary Dek
Some of the most common challenges facing an executive who needs to contribute to the corporate blog but doesn’t is the investment of time required to make a meaningful contribution. Formulating cohesive, value-added thoughts supported by evidence and then creating sentences, paragraphs, and complete posts with images, proper formatting and a strong headline is a lot of work, and if the executive doesn’t believe it can directly help grow revenue or expand the bottom line, he/she won’t make the investment.
To ease this burden, it might be best to allow a ghost writer interview an executive and develop a high quality post with the ideas. The executive can then approve the post to go live with his/her byline and the marketing team can promote it like crazy. Afterwards, metrics would need to be put into place to demonstrate how the post and blog as a whole are contributing to the growth of the company. As I’ve always said, starting a business blog is easy; growing one into an asset that generates revenue is a lot more difficult.
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From Bianca Delle
Celebrities and Officials Don’t Blog because they’re scaredIt is easier to defend a stupid tweet than a stupid post of 300 words or more. Celebrities and Officials are much more scrutinized by the public and anything they write can be used against them both in a court of law as well as in the court of public opinion (probably worse for them). How to encourage them to blog?
1. I think they should be asked to BLOG about what they know (their profession) and give advice. They should avoid giving personal opinions on society, environment, government, etc. For instance, an actor could blog about tips on going to casting calls and doing well, acting in the time of special effects… An elected official could blog about how a community can go about improving ROI, services, education etc.
2. Maybe they would be more enticed to blog if they could do it on special sites for celebrities or officials: if the owner of the site can get a few to start blogging the rest might follow.
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From Brooke
I work in the IT industry working with financial software platforms, and I think the reason why my numbers-minded VP’s and the CEO don’t get too involved with the blogging aspect, is because they don’t see the value in it. I see the value because I’m a more marketing-minded person, and I know that results will come with time. They want to see numbers that illustrate their ROI (return on investment) right away.
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From Shannon Hutcheson
Honestly, at that level of management, who would have time? I think that would be the primary reason why heads of company or upper management would not want to blog on their company site. They’d delegate it to someone else.
My input: As long as they find someone who is on the same page for vision, ideas and able to emulate the style, it’s best to delegate blogging and yet be there. At that level, money isn’t the only motivation to blog as shared above. Realistic input from Shannon.
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From Tat
I’m guessing most of them don’t blog because their time has better ROI when spent elsewhere. What I would suggest is someone doing it for them – the business leader can spend 5 minutes or so talking to a writer/assistant about his ideas and then it would be up to the writer to put the article together so that it represents the leader’s ideas and expertise.
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From Edwin Dearborn
First of all, you must show how other CEOs are successfully driving their brand with content that they themselves are creating. Such examples are Oprah Winfrey and Sir Richard Branson. Versus having them write their blog posts, I would have them speak and/or video their blog post. This then allows for it to be turned into a podcast, as well as being transcribed into an actual blog post. This will make it easier for the CEO to adopt content creation.
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The acceptance and influence of socially active and blogging leadership teams works better in taking the company vision, revenues and reputation far.
When you’re leading and contributing to a brand in a senior executive position, you’re sitting on a treasure of experience and expertise already. Expressing will complement and complete will your professional journey. Blog it with passion & freedom! And when you leave that corporate brand with legacy, you would continue your personal brand with grace.
What are your thoughts on this? Bold or blue, hit them in comments. It’s time to unlock your thoughts and the world wants to hear you.
[themify_box ]Get yourself equipped with power blogging coaching and take the road to thought leadership today. The first step matters the most.[/themify_box]
Sunita Biddu is a digital business coach and power blogging mentor helping coaches and small business owners. She helps with building a strong and profitable online presence and reputation that creates a self-sustaining business. Sunita writes on this blog once a week about easy-to-use guides and articles about business, coaching, social media and blogging. You can grab some of her free resources and ebooks from the resources section.