Another Caution on Group Blogs

I find companies of all sizes struggling with the issue of individual vs. team blogs, an issue I wrote about fairly recently. I keep hearing about this one and getting asked what organizations should do.

While, I have preference and see evidence that individual blogs are more popular, I need to emphasize that this should not be a go/no go issue.  Companies should move forward with what makes them comfortable, then adjust accordingly when they get the hang of it.

I do have one additional caution: The magic of blogs is in their humanity. Readers will glom onto the people they like wherever they find them, rarely the corporate team. There are exceptions and I can see additional exceptions.  If the Car Guys started a blog it would be popular as a team, although i don't see how they could replicate their program or their Boston accents.

(1) This is not a go/no go issue and too m

Comments

[David]

I agree with you that individual blogs are the way to go.

The mutual fund industry used to have individual fund managers and made them visible, though it wasn't technically a blog, the monthly letters that Peter Lynch and others sent out served a simliar purpose. Now most of those firms have faceless teams running the funds. The results and lack of connection most people have to these organizations now is all too clear.

[Michael Gannotti]

Totally agree. When I think of blogs I think of informal conversation vs formal posting. This is best accomplished in my mind by an individual as a opposed to a group. One approach a group might want to take is to create a top level aggregate site that gives a dashboard like view of its members blog postings but then each member having their individual blog. That way you have a central group launch point but still have the personal connectivity of the individual blog.

[Sherry]

I have one problem with group blogs. I'd like to know who is writing the article at the beginning, whether on the website or reading an RSS feed.

[Toby]

Totally agree .. if Click & Clack wrote a blog I would def RSS it! As for the accents and the great laughs .. podcasts and vlogs bebe :-)

[Wade Rockett]

I think that team blogs have the potential to create an engaging, collegial atmosphere similar to that of ensemble podcasts (TWiT, the Slate Gabfest). Having several contributors takes the "informal conversation" idea further: the blog itself is a conversation among peers, and the reader is invited to eavesdrop and join in.

For this potential to be realized, I think that a couple of things are necessary. First, the blog team needs to work as a team, not a collection of isolated individuals who happen to post in the same space.

Second, the team should be like a good ensemble cast: distinctive, but complementary. An all-Gilligan island would be boring.

So a team blog post could read: "Susan posted about X the other day; here are my thoughts about her post, and here are some new developments related to X. Coincidentally, Susan just walked past my office dressed in a mobile phone costume for a Verizon PR event that we're doing. Excuse me, I have to go make fun of her now."

Of course, real success depends on how readers respond! Maybe the ensemble cast only works well in podcasts and sitcoms? Some of my colleagues and I recently started experimenting with team blogging, and it'll be interesting to see how it works out.

[Tris Hussey]

Exactly, Shel, I don't see it as a hard and fast rule. One cool option would be to have individual employees blog on "their own blog", then aggregate the posts into the "company blog" ... and that might lead to some nice competition within the company too for the bloggers to blog more and better.