Me, my blogs and I.

As a freelance writer, I’m increasingly being asked to write blogs for companies that don’t have time to produce three or four topical posts each week for themselves. I’m now a blogger for three different clients, in three different industries.

I find writing corporate blogs pretty fun. It’s mostly short pieces, you can express an opinion, and blogging is a great way to bring stories and posts you’ve found interesting to a wider audience. I really love when you start to see a blog you’ve written gaining traction in an industry – when links start appearing to your posts, and you’re regularly getting comments from readers.

But sometimes it’s REALLY difficult to balance the ‘me’ writing the blog, and the ‘client’ that is ostensibly the author.

Here’s the dilemma: to get traction, I think a blog needs a coherent personality, and a consistent voice. The best blogs – the ones I read regularly – feel like they’re written by a real person. Over time, you get a sense of who the blogger is – the sorts of issues that rile them, what kind of sense of humour they have…

As a blogger for my clients, I want their blogs to have that kind of identity, but I also feel blogs should be authentic and transparent. The more personality I give the blog (which is necessarily a version of my own personality), the less authentic I feel it becomes. When people respond to a post I’ve written about my opinions, and they think they’re responding to my client, it feels a bit dishonest somehow.

I’m really interested to know how other bloggers approach this issue – can you put ‘you’ aside when you’re blogging for someone else? Or should you be open about the fact that the client (or at least the MD) isn’t really writing the blog? If you write a blog from a purely corporate perspective without any personal anecdotes or opinion, do you alienate the audience? Or am I just worrying too much and this is just like writing a bylined article for your clients? 

Comments

[Home Office Mum]

Sally I think it's a really good point you've made. I think corporate blogs can be more impersonal but they do still need colour and opinion to keep it alive and interesting. Perhaps the answer is to ensure you have a really good understanding of who the client is and the type of opinions they'd have on issues so that even though you're injecting your own personality into the blog, it still represents them.

I had to 'put myself aside' when I was writing some catalogue copy for a client. The style they wanted really wasn't me and I had to adapt my writing entirely to their tone of voice and way of thinking. It wasn't a comfortable writing experience but it paid the bills.

I do think it's better when a corporate blog looks as though it comes from the company, not a hired hand so I guess I'd say:
- take on blogs you know you can empathise with to make it more comfortable for you
- ensure you get a really good understanding of the company's personality and views

[Sally Whittle]

@Home Office Mum - thanks for commenting.

Yes, I'd REALLY struggle if I was blogging on something I didn't understand or broadly empathise with, so I agree that's important.

What I find is that so many blogs include personal anecdotes - "I did x with the kids", "we went to Y on holiday" - I think those sorts of things in a B2C setting are valuable but do I pretend and talk about the client, or do I talk about me??

[john bagnall]

Hi Sally,

I don't think the issue you've raised is specific to blogging: it's fundamental to all corporate communications. As such, it's also the reason so many corporate communications, be they blogs, media releases, annual reports or what-have-you, are so dull and uninspiring.

Like people, organisations which aim to be interesting need to have interesting corporate personalities. The challenge to corporate communicators, whether in-house or freelance, is to project and develop those dimensions within whatever confines the organisation's culture and circumstances impose.

That's never easy, and it may take time - but my experience is that it's often more attainable than it first appears. Lip-biting is an essential talent in the early stages, as is an acute instinct for what is set in stone from a client's perspective, and where there may be scope for eventual flexibility. But, above all, it's about basic principles: give the client what they want, then suggest how they might improve it.

Freelancers should never forget that someone's put their standing and budget on the line to hire them. So it makes sense to support them in pursuit of the mutual benefits that might follow. Once you (and they) have been seen to have delivered results, it will become much, much easier to introduce and - through them - to implement, gradually, your own ideas.

The apparent difficulty in applying this to blogging and other social media is the clash between the 'instancy' of the media and the timelines inherent in applying a more measured, strategic approach. But then few of us ordinarily judge another's personality on a single utterance; instead, we have conversations. Short of posting the online equivalent of a Gerald Ratner moment, it's the same for corporate blogging.

If this seems either too safe or too creatively constraining an approach, then corporate blogging (or any other aspect of 'marcomms') may not be an ideal calling. But play the game successfully, and the professional satisfaction of briefing the Chairman or CEO on the comments they have made in their organisation's next posting more than makes up for any small traces of blood still trickling down your chin.

[Sally]

Great points John, thanks.

I think what you say is easier with a more established company that has a defined 'voice' - less so with younger companies just finding a voice, and particarly in B2C where you need that friendliness - and the client I'm struggling with most fits into that category, so I'm almost trying to create an online voice as I go along, without making it too 'mine'.

Good advice, though, I'll have a think about it.

Sally

[john bagnall]

Sally,

I agree it's probably easier with established companies that have defined voices, although you're also more likely to come up against set views and entrenched prejudices (aka 'house style').

I think the key is to have the courage of your convictions. If the online voice which forms in your head on your client's behalf seems right - given all you know about their needs, pecadillos and priorities - then go with it. As long as your sense of it's being 'mine' reflects their interests, neither of you have anything to lose.

If it doesn't, then you've probably got to walk away before they let you go.