There’s a lot of hyperventilating going on among people pushing corporate blogs because of a survey claiming that CEOs are waking up to the mighty power of blogs.
The survey notes how 7% of CEOs are in fact “blogging themselves.”
Wait a sec. First of all, the survey of 131 CEOs was done by PRWeek (a trade magazine that sells subscriptions and advertising to the flackery industry) and Burson-Marsteller (a large international agency that sells bloggery along with its flackery).
If this survey really represents all CEOs, then we should see 445 blogs authored by the chief executives among the 6,357 U.S. companies listed on either NASDAQ or NYSE, plus the 257 private companies with a billion dollars of more of revenue. There aren’t.
Add to this that the “confidence level” of the survey is only 90 percent. So either there are a whole lot of CEOs writing – and we should visit their blogs lest they get discouraged about lack of linkages – or there’s less than zero.
Unfortunately, PRWeek seems to have found a side business pumping out facile surveys underwritten by PR firms and other companies wanting to promote their services. I’m not saying this invalidates a survey. But it is ironic that the same people who tout the power of blogs to bring truth to light will repeat stuff like this without a single grain of salt because it supports whatever dog they have in the hunt.
By the way. This is the same survey that stunned the business world with the conclusion that "CEOs now realize that attracting and retaining talent is a key competitive advantage and morale booster.”
(Link to previous post or just scroll down a little bit.)
