Corporate or Personal Blog?

Today, I had the pleasure of spending an hour talking to Lou Hoffman. Lou is the CEO of  The Hoffman Agency, a PR firm that specializes in working with high-tech companies around the globe. One of the things that makes The Hoffman Agency (and Lou) special is their focus on storytelling. And Lou is one of the better storytellers around (don’t just believe me, go read his blog and see for yourself – click here).

Lou and I spoke about many interesting topics (some of which I will share in later posts), but there was one part of our conversation that really got me thinking. And that is the topic of corporate blog versus personal blog.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that I used to blog on a personal site called Virtual Watercooler. (Don’t bother to try to go to the URL, because it is no longer working.) When we renamed and rebranded the company on February 1, my blog moved to here, the corporate blog.

Lou said that he usually recommends that CEOs keep their blogs separate from the corporate site. And there are pros and cons to doing both. On my own site, I can blog about my personal viewpoints –> what I see in the market, things that have worked for me in the past, mistakes that I’ve made that you should probably avoid, and so on.

I have to wonder if the expectations of the reader of a corporate blog are different? Should I still be sharing my personal viewpoints? Are my readers now expecting different types of topics than what I usually write about?

I’m definitely conflicted about this and I’m wondering what you think? If you are a CEO, do you blog separately from your company website? Or as part of it? As a reader, do you have different expectations?

Let me know.

P.S. Lou recently interviewed my 12-year old son, Max, who has been blogging for about 2 years. Lou and Max talked about blogging and storytelling. Click here to read part one, and here to read part two.  Oh, and click here to read Good Morning Geek, Max’s blog. Thanks again, Lou!

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Val Swisher

Val Swisher is the Founder and CEO of Content Rules, Inc. Val enjoys helping companies solve complex content problems. She is a well-known expert in content strategy, structured authoring, global content, content development, and terminology management. Val believes content should be easy to read, cost-effective to create and translate, and efficient to manage. Her customers include industry giants such as Google, Cisco, Visa, Facebook, Roche, and IBM. Her fourth book, “The Personalization Paradox: Why Companies Fail (and How to Succeed) at Creating Personalized Experiences at Scale,” was published in 2021 by XML Press.

Val is on the Advisory Board for the Technical Communications Program at the University of North Texas. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.

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