If you have been keeping up with the latest blogs and twitters you probably know that personal branding has become a hot topic as we learn more about this “social media” space. While it is easy to argue that if we all do have our own “brand,” that it has existed long before the internet and especially longer than the growth of social media. Certainly politicians and other people of fame carry some level of their own perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that are associated with them.

And as it turns out with the invention of the internet, websites, blogs, podcasts, and twitter we find many people who do seem to have their own brand online. It is more than “so and so” who run’s a website, but people who have a specific set of emotions and qualities that are now associated with them due to how they communicate and converse in the social space online.

It is fitting the user experience expert David Armano write about personal branding in the latest AdAge Digital as he himself has a strong personal brand, and is a great example of how a personal brand can change your life. David Armano through his social participation has clearly become a thought leader and is now writing for publications, speaking at conferences, etc…

Other people have developed book writing careers through a strong personal brand, opened new career doors, and built businesses based on their personal brand. In advertising Olgivy comes to mind, of course this is much before the internet and social space; however it simply means that we now have more tools to establish our personal brands online.

I stumbled across a blog post about choosing the best writer for your company blog, and it got me to think about the emerging trend of CEO bloggers and CEO blogging. The well known CEO blogs tend to do quite well, and it is entertaining to here what the top level execs are thinking in regards to their monolithic brands.

But is having a companies CEO blog really a good thing?

The pros of CEO bloggers

There is something to be said about actually having the CEO of a company take the time to blog on a regular occurrence. If the blogging is unique and genuine it can add a lot of value, credibility, and humanity to a blog and to a brand.

It shows a level of caring and realism, shown in a way that a middle level manager could not replicate even if the messaging was the same.

So there is value, no doubt.

The cons of CEO blogging

What happens in many cases is that a CEO blog simply gets pushed aside. The unfortunately reality is that CEO’s have so much on their plate that blogging will always be an afterthought. Even if they make the time to write blog posts it will not receive the care and attention needed to make the blog a success.

This is the more common situation, as most CEOs have a lot to oversee and fewer managers to ensure that all aspects of the business are running. It is only after a company has reached a certain level that a CEO can really focus on the vision of the company and relationships with the world rather than the day to day operations.

This is why in most situations we heavily recommend that you find someone who is passionate about the company, but in a situation where they have more freedom to build the blog into something worth conversation. The blog ideally should be one of the more important tasks they take on in their job role.

Depends on the situation…

Like always it is very situational, but consider how much time your CEO (or you, if you are a CEO) have to dedicate to your blog before you actually try and launch it.

In trying to keep a close ear to the ground related to corporate blogging I have several google alerts with related keywords. Through one of those posts I ran across the blog post by Media Vision Blog about the failure of corporate blogs. It is true, way too many blogs that are started by companies often fail. There are plenty of reasons that this is true, lack of vision, lack of time, etc…

The truth is you have to make a commitment, and block out time to develop the blog steadily. If you can’t fit the time for a least one blog post a month then you should really access if blogging is going to be the best use of your resources with in a company. Despite the endless value that a blog has the potential of providing, it does take time and effort to build it to the point to obtain that value. The fact of the matter is that if you can’t create quality content over the span of a year then don’t bother starting a blog. You obviously have other areas of your business that provide and can provide a greater impact.

If it is a matter of finding just a little more time to blog, find ways to automate or increase the ease of blogging. Maybe blogging through writing e-mails is easier than logging into the system and typing it in. Maybe breaking up blogging into a few short periods of writing and brainstorming rather than doing it all at once could help.

Maybe you just want to outline the key points and delegate the writing of the post to someone else with in the organization, or via hiring a professional blogger.

There are plenty of ways to make blogging quicker and easier, but it will take time and effort in order to really build the value in the blog.