Should your association CEO have a blog?

Unless your CEO is like Ben -- fully committed to the project, and willing and able to provide useful insight -- the answer is no. Association CEOs, like corporate CEOs shouldn't be blogging just to jump on the bandwagon.

After reading the Strumpette post on the death of corporate blogging, it's even harder to put together a good agument for setting up a blog for the boss. There's just not much ROI. And here are some things to consider:

1) I've never met a C-level individual who would admit to having the time on his/her hands necessary to keep up a blog.

2) What's more, I haven't met a C-level individual yet who's admitted to being a blog reader. If at all, they're presented with excerpts from subordinates -- a printout with a sticky note, goes in the boss' in-box, says "Read this!"

3) It's easy to sit in a meeting and say "let's have a CEO blog," but someone is going to have to do the grunt work, and it ain't gonna be the CEO. My worry would be that after the newness wore off, the CEO would get more and more detached from the blog. That is, until...

4) All it will take is one complaint from one member, or one key meeting sponsor, and the whole thing will be sunk. Or eviscerated and turned into a running log of bland platitudes and poorly camouflaged advertisements.

Should the CEO blog? Probably not. Should the association blog? Using the institutional voice is another matter -- it allows for commentary from the CEO, the government relations people, the membership people, etc. That seems to me like a much better strategy.

Tagged: Associations, Blogging, CEO Blogs.