Hello - I'm interrupting your regularly scheduled blogger to deliver some guest posts this week.  This is Peter Kim from Forrester's Marketing research team - Elana's on vacation and I'm filling in.  You will be returned to your original blogger shortly, but in the meantime...

A few weeks ago, Roy Young posed an interesting question on Marketing Profs Daily Fix: "should CMOs blog?"  The two sides of opinion were roughly:

1. No - CMOs should focus on the bottom line and blogs detract from that focus.
2. Yes - Blogs are a communication channel that allow CMOs to connect directly to consumers.

The line of reasoning behind #1 could be extended to all marketers and employees - everyone should be more focused on their own job.  Yet if #2 were widely accepted fact, we'd see more marketing executives like Eric Kintz or executives in general like Jonathan Schwartz blogging.  So the answer must lie somewhere in the middle.

My take?  Blogs are certainly conversations.  These conversations are the start of new relationships between marketers and customers.  Over time, they will evolve into deeper levels of engagement - consideration, purchases, and loyalty.  CMOs may not be blogging now, but they should certainly start by listening...

Enough from this blogger - what do you think?  Is this a grey area for you or is the answer easy to see?