Do you have a V.P. of Social Media?

While it’s recognized that only about 12% of the Fortune 500 have a corporate blog, those that do take it seriously.  Companies such as Intel, Google, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell and Kodak have devoted people resources to their corporate blogging strategies.

The companies in this list are Fortune ranking companies.  But, companies like Junta42 and Hubspot are not Fortune ranked companies (in fact considerably smaller) and they devote equally impressive resources to corporate blogging.

I’ll single out two blogging trailblazers from each category above.  Matt Cutts is the corporate blogging face of Google.  And, Mike Volpe is the corporate blogging face of Hubspot.

Matt Cuts is often seen at Internet conferences in a t-shirt and jeans talking about whatever topic is hot at the conference de-jour.  Matt is also very active in his blog which appears to be sponsored by Google, or at least sanctioned by Google.  Matt is the official “webmaster” guy who represents everything Google.  In my opinion Google has very effectively humanized their corporate identity through Matt.  He is a regular guy.  He is not an executive.  He doesn’t speak over any one’s head.  In fact, he is a like-able guy who speaks in plain English.  Even if you don’t like Google’s position on topics as represented by Matt, it’s hard to have a hostile view of Matt, as the face of Google.  He is truly a regular guy.

Hubpot’s blog is branded under their name.  In full disclosure, I am a fan of the Hubspot Internet Marketing platform.  One of many things Hubspot does well is devote time and energy to their blog.  The main guy who is the corporate blogging face for Hubspot is Mike Volpe.  Mike’s title is V.P. Marketing, a pretty mundane title for a cutting edge Internet company.  I’ll forgive him for this because Mike does an excellent job of blogging on a myriad of Internet Marketing topics (he has help from some of his colleagues too).  In essence, Mike is educating and evangelizing the benefits of corporate blogging for Internet Marketing benefits.  Hubspot is a young company.  Their rapid brand growth is evidence of how effective corporate blogging can be.

Corporate blogging can’t be effective without first deciding that it is important to your business.  Those businesses who think the benefits can’t be measured haven’t studied it enough.  These are the same companies who will eventually be blind-sided by their competitor’s corporate blogging strategy.

The biggest risk to a corporate blogging strategy is not recognizing that it should be part of a bigger picture social media strategy.  You wouldn’t launch an advertising campaign without first setting the corporate marketing strategy.  The advertising should support the corporate marketing strategy.

Social media is fast becoming a strategic element in corporate marketing.  In some businesses people’s jobs are being defined under the social media umbrella, and in some cases whole departments.  We’re starting to see titles such as “Chief Blogger,” and “V.P. Communities and Conversations.”

The commitment these companies are showing is to a strategy of conversations with people they want to converse with.

Being in the conversations is everything in a social media strategy.

The online publication B2B Online covered this topic recently.

I am sometimes asked about my title: “chief find officer.”  Hmmm…Maybe it’s time for a title change…

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