On Being a Blog Editor

Debbie Weil at BlogWrite for CEOs has a good post about being a blog editor at an organization.

Her suggestions for the role of blog editor are:

1. Manage the technical or backend of the blog

2. Understand the content strategy of your blog

3. Monitor the blogosphere and MSM

4. Be a great editor

These are all great suggestions, and certainly a blog editor should fill these roles. But I am going to pick on #4 on the list. Debbie writes:

Oh I almost forgot this. Your blog editor needs to be a great editor so he/she can smoothe out syntactical gaffes, correct spelling and otherwise make the blog sound graceful and compelling. And also a great writer as he/she may be doing some of the writing.

Yes, the blog editor should check for grammatical and spelling errors, but the rest of the post makes it sound almost like editors should be prepared to ghost write a blog.

A blog editor might have to or be encouraged to make some posts, and a blog editor should check for appropriateness and other such issues, but what editors should not do is do the writing for the person who’s name is on the blog.

Part of the benefit of having a blog is the direct communication outlet it provides. People will see through a blog which is too polished or formal. The best blogs, especially the best corporate blogs are the ones where the individual author voices shine through, and are not (at least do not appear to be) over-edited.

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