To PR or not to PR online
An article in the Washington Post takes corporate big wigs to task for not baring all in their blogs. Did anyone really expect them to?
The day Boeing’s board announced its chief executive had resigned after an investigation uncovered that he had an affair with a female employee, Baseler wrote about competition from Airbus SAS, says the article
And we thought he should rush to his computer and blog about the seamy details of an affair within the company that resulted in the firing of the CEO? Not going to happen.
Yes, many companies are using blogs as a marketing and PR tool. And yes, some even have people writing the blogs. Many are only posting company info.
Should they be having a conversation? Sure. But it’s a conversation about their business – not their personal life.
Can they post better content than press releases? Of course they can. Some execs are not good writers though. They may need coaching in how to write a blog or even a ghost writer.
Putting a human face on a company and sharing insights and information is very valuable. But it is still about the business – not their private lives.
An authentic blog can reveal the human side of an exec – but don’t for one minute think they are going to share proprietary data, company secrets or scandals in the blog.
This isn’t PR – it’s common sense.
