CEO Bloggers Should Be Conversational Executive Officers

Marketing guru Seth Godin advises CEOs not to blog unless they can be: candid, urgent, timely, pithy, controversial, or utilitarian. Seth continues…

Short and sweet, folks: If you can't be at least four of the five things listed above, please don't bother. People have a choice (4.5 million choices, in fact) and nobody is going to read your blog, link to your blog or quote your blog unless there's something in it for them.

Save the fluff for the annual report.

Now Seth’s a really smart guy. He has been at this marketing and blogging thing much longer than I have. However, I feel he left out the most important element of all – CEO bloggers must be conversational. The best CEO bloggers are Conversational Executive Officers. They’re the ones who are conversing with other bloggers by linking/commenting on their posts.

Take Michael Hyatt for example. He is the President and COO of Thomas Nelson, one of the largest publicly traded publishing companies in the country. What I love about Michael’s blog is that he is conversational. He’s not preaching from soap box. You can see by reading his site that he is a regular geek just like the rest of us. He is linking and sharing and, when he can, he responds to reader feedback.

Rex Hammock is another. Now Rex, as CEO of a major custom publishing company, is a busy guy. Yet everyday he takes the time to have a conversation with his readers. He’s linking/reaching out to everyday worker-bee bloggers like me.

So Seth, you are right. But please also don’t forget the Cluetrain Manifesto mantra that markets are conversations. Blogging is a conversation and CEOs bloggers should be Conversational Executive Officers.