Should CIOs blog? Should they tweet, or otherwise engage with social media? It is a question that IT executives should increasingly ask themselves, as they attempt to fight their corner within organisations that can be sceptical about IT as a function.

Blogging, once a pastime for celebrity followers, cookery buffs, and movie fans, has increasingly become a corporate activity as companies understand and embrace the appeal of social media. It can be used as a way to encourage conversations between executives and others in the industry, and with customers. It can be used as a platform to hammer home a particular message, or to promote a particular category of product. For CIOs, who in many cases are managing a transition for the IT function within their companies, it can be a useful way to make themselves heard. It is a pursuit followed by several high-profile CIOs, including Vivek Kundra, the CIO for the US Federal government.

For years now, IT departments have been considered a cost centre within organisations. IT executives constantly have had to battle boards that are unwilling to spend money on what they see as a cash drain on the organisation. However, in the last couple of years, some companies have begun maturing to the point where they see IT as a potential centre for revenue. The savvy CIO understands this transition, and the associated requirement for a more strategic conversation between the IT function and others in the business. If organisations can be persuaded to view IT strategically – as a business partner which can help to drive growth in new and interesting directions – then CIOs can manoeuvre themselves and their departments into a more advantageous position.

A blog is one way to help demonstrate thought leadership both within an organisation and further afield. It also helps to promote a CIO personally as a strategic thinker who can be relied upon for a visionary approach. Here are our top tips to help new CIO bloggers to make their mark:

Break new ground

There are plenty of blogs that say nothing. An online platform for discussion that simply spouts conventional wisdom is almost worse than no blog at all, because it casts the author in the role of follower, rather than leader. Find something new to say, and say it in an engaging and entertaining way.

Find a cause

One way to demonstrate a visionary approach and develop a distinct personal voice is by embracing a subject as yours, and using your blog as online platform to help win over others in the industry. Think about broad topics, such as accountability, service culture, or operational security – something that will identify you as a pioneer with a passion.

Market your blog

Develop reciprocal links. Twitter your blog, and use the blog to expand on some of your Tweets. Comment on other peoples’ blogs and add value to the conversation, rather than blatantly using others’ comment sections as a means of promoting your own outlet. It is also a good idea to promote your blog in areas that will attract like-minded people. User group web sites and discussion boards might be a good example. Measuring and monitoring is part of a good marketing strategy. Services such as PostRank Analytics provide analytics services that can help you to monitor the coverage that your blog posts are getting across various social media services.

Blog short, and blog often

Short, snappy posts of a few paragraphs are better than infrequent, longer posts. Busy readers like smart, informative content that they can digest easily, but they also like to keep coming back for more. Infrequent blogs make you seem inconsistent, and will discourage people from subscribing.

Check in with HR

You don’t need to rock the boat to make some interesting waves. Even bloggers that do not promote themselves as employees of their particular company can be subject to disciplinary action if they overstep the mark and say things that may bring their employer into disrepute. It is therefore imperative that bloggers capitalising on their executive position within a particular company should ensure that what they are saying does not cause any conflict with that company’s message. It would be wise to check in with human resources and with other board members to get the go-ahead to blog as an executive within your organisation

Make your blog last longer than your job

Your vision should outlast your tenure at any one company, and so should your blog. Use a personal URL wherever possible, so that you can take your online location and your blogging history with you where ever you end up. Phil Windley started blogging when he was the CIO for the State of Utah, for example, but has since maintained it while in multiple positions and roles in the tech industry.

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• Social Media Mythbusting For The C-Suite (outspokenmedia.com)
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• Vivek Kundra – A Conversation with Federal Government CIO Vivek Kundra (itc.conversationsnetwork.org)
• Staying Under the Corporate Umbrella in the Midst of the Social Media Storm (socialmediatoday.com)

My Futurity colleague Steve Costello points our that for some public sector CIOs the need for power (i.e. being a big spender) is more important than looking after the public purse. Here’s a post he wrote….

An interesting paradox was reported in the UK IT press recently, when one of the UK government’s Chief Information Officers revealed that if he cut his IT spending by too great a sum, he would be excluded from an informal “club” of top purchasers which has a significant influence on informing cross-departmental policies and procedures.

News from IDC that 6000 technology marketing executives will have lost their jobs by the end of 2009 is hardly a surprise.

You only have to glance at the recent figures from Gartner about 2009 IT spending to see that those that are responsible for marketing, branding and selling kit are going to be in for a rough time.  They paint a picture of the IT industry’s “worst year ever”, with worldwide IT spending falling by 5.2% during 2009,with enterprise IT hardest hit, with a fall in spending of 6.9%.

IT services declined during 2009 by 3.6% to $781 billion, global telecom spending was down 4% to $1.9 trillion, software spending fell 2.1% to $197 billion. The biggest kicking was felt in hardware (servers, storage, network equipments, computers, printers) with sales falling 16.5%, to $317 billion.

(Please bear in mind that this time last year during the worst of the economic crisis, Gartner estimated that the worst case, global IT spending would grow at 2.3%. If you don’t remember this bullish optimism, check it out: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=776112 )

So it’s not the fault of marketing departments then? Well, according to IDC, they have contributed to their own demise. Yes, IT vendor marketing budgets will have declined by 8.3% during 2009, the first decrease in year-on-year marketing spend since the dot-com bust of 2001-2002.

But what money has been available has often been poorly spent, with inefficiencies from product-based marketing not being aligned with brand, sales and corporate marketing. IDC recommends more thematic marketing campaigns, and shared services to remove redundancies.

Over the past decade, we have worked with many of the world’s largest (and smaller) IT organisations, and we’ve experienced these inefficiencies first hand. Many of our clients really do understand integrated marketing, and are a pleasure to work with, but others (ex-clients) can be ingredibly disorganised with product, brand, corporate and PR pulling in opposite directions, with completely different messages and timescales. Projects get abandoned because they are not cleared, audiences recieve mixed messages and marketing is the first to be cut when lean times begin. It’s a pretty simple rule for success though – recognise that sales and marketing are inexorably linked, that your brand must be apparent in everything you do, and be committed to communicating your messages when times get harder. Now, more than ever, your customers need you to be confident.