More bosses turn to blogging

Blogging carries risks for executives but has rewards if done right.

RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER

Angry customers swarmed Burt’s Bees last fall as soon as the all-natural cosmetics maker announced plans to sell itself.

Critics considered the buyer, bleach maker Clorox, to be far from environmentally friendly.

So Burt’s Bees CEO John Replogle decided to reach out to skeptics, read their fears and respond directly and conversationally to their objections.

He decided to blog.

“We need to meet people where they are, and where they are is online,” he said.

More corporate bosses are venturing into Web logs. They are following the example of executives such as Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, Bob Lutz of General Motors and John Mackey of Whole Foods, who have made names for themselves by engaging audiences with provocative and occasionally regrettable remarks.

About 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies post their executives’ blogs, up from virtually none five years ago. The percentage is higher among smaller, private companies, especially in technology sectors, where CEOs are not bound by the same regulatory restrictions.

The point is to keep a conversational tone and skip the marketing speak and legal and PR protocol that sometimes make traditional communications insincere.

Web readers looking for insight on local leaders can learn why Durham, N.C., software chief Ryan Allis thinks that it’s uncool to lead women on during dating.

Or they could discover on “The Monica Chronicles” that technology trade group president Monica Doss is thinking about singer-activist Bono’s possible connections to the Triangle area of North Carolina.

Or find out what Replogle thinks about Burt’s Bees merging with a corporate titan. “I’m not asking you to judge us by our words, rather by our continued actions,” Replogle wrote in a posting.

It might sound great, but there is still pervasive aversion to blogging in more conservative industries.

“Most of my stakeholders tend to be local or institutional shareholders,” said Grant Yarber, CEO of Raleigh, N.C.,-based Capital Bank. “I don’t think that’s how they want to communicate. I’m a face-to-face person, and failing that I’ll talk on the telephone. That way people can hear the inflection in my voice and understand what I’m trying to say.”

Not all CEOs have been so careful. GoDaddy CEO John Parsons sparked anger in 2005 after saying on his blog that torturous interrogation methods used by the United States at Guantanamo were not inappropriate.

In July, Whole Foods suspended CEO John Mackey’s blog after he used it to bitterly denounce Federal Trade Commission officials.

But done right, blogs project openness and transparency in an age of mistrust. That can encourage readers to share substantive feedback, said Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging and social media consultant in Washington.

For an executive blog to succeed, it must come straight from the horse’s mouth, not a corporate PR machine. Further, it must include critical feedback from readers. Otherwise it’s just more propaganda, said Weil, who wrote “The Corporate Blogging Book” (Penguin Portfolio, $17.96).

One challenge is that not all CEOs are interesting or effective writers. So not all executive blogs are created equal. And executives who can engage stakeholders in gainful conversation must sometimes wrangle with legal and PR departments to get a message out unadulterated.

“There’s still this incredible fear of talking to people informally or hearing back from them,” Weil said.

Some companies go so far as to filter reader feedback that has embarrassing or critical remarks.

That can seem like sanitizing, and it’s also disingenuous and defeats the purpose of starting a dialogue, said Tim Flood, a professor of management communication at UNC-Chapel Hill.

“The blog is a counterculture vibe that gives executives a chance to be regular people. It personalizes and humanizes the corporation,” Flood said.

More important, open-dialogue blogs are a gold mine of market information. For instance, some criticism from customers, employees, investors and others can reveal trends.

Burt’s Bees, for example, introduced a fig-colored lip balm last year after canceling the lipstick version. The decision was based almost entirely on feedback from the Hive, the company’s affectionately termed Web community of about 80,000 registered fans.