Natalie Myers

Corporate Blogs: A Mini-Guide For Finding The Best Bloggers

September 22nd, 2008

When I spoke to Christopher Barger, manager of GM’s FastLane blog, the other day about best practices in managing corporate blogs for a MarketingSherpa article, something that struck me was just how hard it is for these managers to find employees within their companies who are willing to blog on a regular business.

It’s not something we at MarketingSherpa have to worry about too much because most of us are writers. But I’d imagine it’s something many blog managers struggle with.

When I asked Christopher about it, he gave me an interesting take on the topic. He said one basic rule he follows is that: “if you have to talk someone into it, that’s not the right person.”

Here’s a mini-guide to finding the right people for corporate blogging. Ask yourself:

1) Is this person open to putting his or her name and opinions out there?

2) Will the person be able to speak with a natural tone, meaning the person won’t regurgitate corporate lines?

3) Can this person respond to criticism of his or her blog post?

4) Is this person reliable? Can you rely on the person to submit a post on time and respond to comments on the post?

5) Does this person view him/herself as a thought leader? Is he/she looking for elevated visibility in the company?

Natalie Myers

About Natalie Myers

Natalie Myers writes for MarketingSherpa’s Great Minds and Content Biz newsletters. She covers a broad array of topics for Great Minds, regularly interviewing thought leaders and experienced marketers about innovative or highly successful marketing strategies. For Content Biz she focuses specifically on online subscriptions models, including anything you pay for to read, listen to, watch, rent (as in Software as a Service models), etc.

She writes blog posts about topics relating to her beats, including useful information from interviews that doesn’t make it into an article.

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