The corporate blogger’s professional project

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Reading John Cass’ post regarding the dilution and potential devaluation of traditional journalistic skills by corporate bloggers (which is a continuation of a conversation started by John here and commented upon by me here), I am reminded of the professional project I studied in my Honours year at university — nursing.

Some leading-edge, thought leadership Nurses realised that they would always be playing ‘Rosencrantz & Guildenstern’-ish second fiddle to God-like doctors unless they achieved several things:

1. changed their profession’s skill set
2. changed the general public’s perception of them
3. changed the doctors’ perceptions of them
4. changed their own perceptions of themselves

To this end they started a ‘professional project’: to radically change what nursing means to all of its publics.

My wife, a Registered Nurse, is currently studying to become a Nurse Practitioner in Orthopaedics — someone who can examine patients and make diagnoses and treatment plans in her own right; she would have recourse to specialist help when required but would, in the main, be expected to see and treat the bell-curve majority of patients requiring orthopaedic intervention.

She is fortunate to have a mentor in a colleague at the same hospital who is one of, if not the, first nurse practitioners in orthopaedics in Australia.

I mention this because it may well transpire that, should corporate blogging become a ‘proper’ job with a recognised skill set (and I’m not convinced that traditional journalistic skills are enough — there needs also, perhaps, to be a modicum of ‘people skills’, especially where the blog’s audience is the general, lay public), then there may well be a requirement to determine a specific career path for corporate bloggers into either corporate marcomms or PR.

The product and process knowledge base required to be a corporate blogger will exclude ‘first jobbers’ from the role — the blogger will need to have an acute ear/eye for what is driving customer conversation as well as how to drive customer conversation, underpinned by the need to have answers to customer questions at their fingertips in order to have credibility as a spokesperson for the organisation.

What sort of animal is this corporate blogger going to be?

• a wordsmith
• a ‘people-person’ for retail blogs
• skilled facilitator
• highly knowledgeable about their area of expertise (what they are blogging about)
• able to rapidly and easily liaise with other areas of the organisation
• customer-focused
• not afraid of technology (because the tools of engagement will develop/change rapidly)

Yes, there are paid bloggers out there at the moment who may or may not have these skill sets. But until the ‘corporate blogger’ becomes a mainstream corporate idea these individuals will always be ‘outliers’.

Once the ‘blogger’ becomes a more permanent fixture on the corporate Jobs Noticeboard then it will be interesting to see what sort of animal emerges.

My guess is that corporates will get it wrong at first and hire junior staff to blog on their behalf. A mistake because these bloggers will very quickly be found to be lacking the experience required to engage their audience and answer their questions, thus damaging the brand experience for the customer. A few savvy corporates will get it right (witness GM) but until bloggers start their own Professional Project then I am afraid that credibility, and financial reward, will be in very short supply.

Tagged as: blogging, customer service, ethics, tools