Corporate Social Media: No Staff, No Blog – Ending a Blog- Part 3
This post wraps-up to my series on the individuals involved with corporate social media programs. In the first part I looked at the downsides of an organization becoming too reliant upon an individual with a social media/community initiatives. The second post looked at the same issue from the standpoint of the individual who may become overshadowed by the brand they serve. I wish this third post could come under better circumstances, but in business things don’t always turn out the way you want them to. What happens when you layoff the staff that runs your corporate blog?
Earthlink corporation has been undergoing some tough times recently that culminated with a number of staff being laid off last month. One of those was their official corporate blogger, Dave Coustan. Dave was hired in 2005, to be the first ‘blogmaster’ for Earthlink. Longtime readers of this blog may remember that Toby Bloomberg first spotted Earthlnk’s ad for this position back in 2005.
If you have a corporate blog and you take away the blogger, well you guessed it, the blog probably goes away too. Dave talked recently about the changes going on at Earthlink and what it will mean for Earthling, the corporate blog.
While many corporate blogs are indeed that, a ‘corporate’ blog, the people reading them often follow the personalities that write them. This is very similar to how people follow columnists in the print media. While I read SI.com, I usually seek out the work of Peter King. If Peter ever left SI, I’d probably visit SI.com less frequently.
One of Dave’s major responsibilities was writing the blog, in his absence what can/will Earthlink do? I don’t think turning the blog over to a group of people that can’t give it their full attention would be wise. Also, Earthlink says one of their goals is to concentrate on doing a better job for their existing customers. It’s a bit ironic then that they’d take away a communication vehicle between company and customer.
Tying back to my first two posts on this subject: 1. What could/should happen to the blog and 2. What should Dave, the individual, or in this case the Earthling do?
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