Who Should Write the Corporate Blog?

A blog is part of a company's public face and personality. Deciding who should write a corporate blog is an important decision. Obviously it depends to some extent on the purpose of the blog: is its primary purpose customer service, marketing, customer relations, internal communications, or some other use?

There are several choices:

-One person can write the blog.

-A team can write the blog.

-A 'fictional' character can write the blog.

A blog written by one person is very common today.

It tends to give the blog a consistent style and flavor, which is great.

However continuity can be an issue: what if the blogger, part of the company's public face and personality, leaves the company or needs to stop blogging for some reason??  Perhaps this is not catastrophic, but something to consider!

Examples of business blogs with one author include:

Randy's Journal by Randy Baseler, VP of Marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Scobleizer by Microsoft's Robert Scoble

Fastlane by By Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman of General Motors

A team can write the blog.

This allows CEOs and other executives to blog with less time commitment - an occasional insightful and informative post from a corporate figure can add a lot of legitimacy to a blog.

This also lessens the damage should a blogger leave the company or need to stop blogging for some reason.

Examples of blogs written by teams include:

The Ask Jeeves Blog written by several high level Ask Jeeves' employees.

The Extremely popular Slashdot News for Nerds blog.

A 'fictional' character can write the blog.

For example Stonyfield's blogging cows are quite popular.

Some other possibilities include:

Tony the Tiger blogging for Kellogg.

Sporting teams having their mascots blog.

And who could be a better blogger for Disney than Mickey Mouse?

Of course your company could have more than one blog as well. This is becoming more and more common. For example, Stoneyfield Yogurt has five blogs. General Motors has two blogs. Microsoft has hundreds of blogs . . . . .