Last week, I spent 45 minutes talking to a machine, and it taught me something vital about blogs, the human condition, and the limit of my patience. I’m moving—only about ten blocks—but arranging for everything to arrive on time with the power turned on has marked an epic struggle between myself and half a dozen digital recordings who can only comprehend what I’m saying on the fourth-go-round. When I finally heard the voice of an actual person, I felt the rush of victory—and I recognized something universal.
Humans crave interaction on a personal level. When something is wrong, we want to hear sincere sympathy; we want the person on the other end of the line to recognize us and the importance of addressing our situation immediately. We gravitate toward personalized interactions, even when the ‘interaction’ doesn’t actually occur; it’s enough for us to know that the person we see streaming online or on t.v. is at least pretending to speak to us. We listen to the spokesmodels peddling breakfast bars and household cleaners because they show that they’re just like us, except, maybe a little bit happier since they’ve switched to the superior brand.
Anthropologist Lee Drummond calls the development of a bond between an audience and the media persona a parasocial relationship, and he demonstrates that the allure of personality, even when that personality has no idea that the reader or viewer exists, keeps an audience invested. It sounds a little devious when employed by someone trying to sell you face cream, but creating common ground with visitors to your site is a great way to apply this age-old marketing strategy.
I’ve mentioned that the holy grail of your online presence is consistently updating content, and here is the addendum: assign that task to one person and allow their unique voice to come through. Not all web-publications need to be attributed to the Executive Director; give a voice to someone who can provide ground level information, like a case worker, volunteer, or development staffer—someone who has a panache for creative writing.
Blogging can be a fantastic strategy for achieving your new content protocal, and although it can be scary to produce content outside of the carefully cultivated image of your organization—try it. Chances are, your readers will enjoy connecting to your organization through the eyes of a charismatic insider. And your stats will love you for it.
You highlight a major concern that typically comes from within the Marketing/Communications department of any organization. Does a certain activity, in this case a blog, go too far outside the branding of the company? What is the level of transparency? How threatening might this be to key personalities within the company that have a vested interest in the branding? Truth is, a blog should be slightly outside the branding, covert and almost rogue, but always cooperative and with the same mission as the company. It should be the inside opinion; the information others don’t have.
This is a difficult balance to achieve and shifts from organization to organization, but having an authentic voice to do your bloging is key to success. We all develop internet sensors and we are more than capable of detecting the organization/corporate influence. At times NPO’s believe they are above this possible downfall by their nature, but they are wrong. If we’re being fed the words of marcom, regardless of company purpose, we will know it and we will resent it.
The only way to create a successful blog within an organization is to have it authored primarily by a voice not in a position of power, and instead a position of knowledge (There are good exceptions to this principal though). They should know the organization in and out and should offer the fundamentals and creativity in their constructive criticism or support when warranted. It is not unbiased reporting, it is rather an interesting point of view that must be carefully developed. It must be genuine. It must be an authentic voice, and that almost never comes from within marcom.
A good story comes from one of the larges medical device companies in the world, which also happens to be based here in Boston. The board of directors became aware of many lower level employees authoring blogs often pertaining to work. The boards first instinct was to create policy blocks against the employees and stop the blogs. However, the director knew this would be a catastrophic mistake and instead encouraged the blogs, while remaining hands off. To this day they have no problems from the blogs, while also creating trust inside and outside the company.
Finally, all this is not to say high-level directors and CEO’s cannot be that authentic voice. Commonly they are the best and that is also one of the reasons they are in the position they are. The CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess has a very popular blog on running a major hospital. He succeed because of his personality, understanding of people and because it is not marcom’s voice, it is his own. Pay attention to which voice you are using. It is your real voice? Is it authentic?
Posted by: M. Young | September 30, 2008 at 07:15 PM