When You Fall Off, Get Back On… But Always Identify Yourself
After a 12-month hiatus, John Mackey is back online, posting on The CEO’s Blog. His first post is sort of an “I’m sorry… but I didn’t really do anything wrong.”
The key lesson that can be learned here is this: Posting “anonymously” about your company online — no matter who you are — is not a good idea. I know of two former CEOs of F500 companies that also spent a lot of time what’s now called “Yahoo Finance Stock Message Boards.” Both asked me to send our people into the boards for their companies to respond to negative comments (which they seemed to personally monitor before their morning coffee). Of course, I counseled them that it’s not a good idea — an answer they did not like, but eventually agreed with.
I think a lot of CEOs are monitoring the online conversation about themselves and their companies. It’s a smart thing to do and, if done properly (and in moderation), it can be beneficial to the company — as a source of ideas and opportunities, festering issues, etc. Having said that, I would not advise making the Yahoo message boards their sole focus! There is a lot of nasty discussion going on there driven by anonymous users with questionable agendas. In short, the conversation in these boards is probably not representative of the broader, online conversation around your brand.
If a CEO wants to lurk online, it’s more important that they “hang out” where their customers are hanging out. We’ve had some success setting up RSS readers for CEOs to do this — Netvibes is a good executive-style reader. Set it up on a large screen in their office and it can be a great way to check-in with key information sources.
But if they see a post that compels them to comment, they should do it with full disclosure of their identity.
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