I’m quickly learning that I should follow my gut instincts. A personal brand i.e. a relationship with an individual generally tends to promote greater trust and credibility than a corporate brand, especially where blogging is concerned.
Of course, some may say that this is old news but it appears that this is not the thinking in many corporations.
A corporate blog has been seen to be the ‘must have’ to be percieved as ‘with it’ and ‘I get it’ during the web 2.0 buzz. However, as the term web 2.0 begins to fade in favour of more s0cial terminology, I think people will begin to really ‘get it’.
A blog has value only if it develops trust, which commonly only occurs at a personal level. That’s what being social is about right? What is a corporate blog anyhow? Is it not just corporate news tailored differently.
What I believe corporations will start to learn and believe is that by providing the platform for their employees to develop their own personal brand (through blogging for example), they will in turn gain trust in the corporate brand, which is essentially the end goal.
There is always going to be a question of how to police these personal brands. My view would be that in most cases, only a very mild form of policy is needed here in much the same way as most employment contracts talks about who owns the IPR of anything you create whilst you are in a given employment contract. To mitigate the risk of people bad-mouthing the corporation and therefore damaging the brand at this level, the answer is simple – treat them well, provide the freedoms to further their personal brand and they will repay you in loyalty.
What are your views?
Danny Baggs' Blog 