Tesla Plus Blog Equals Credibility?
Ousted Tesla founder Martin Eberhart pens a paean to the blogosphere over at Tendo Communications‘ blog, arguing (among other things) that “blogging promotes transparency and builds credibility.”
“For blogging to ring true, it needs to be more than an exercise kept up for the sake of appearance. At Tesla, we began with my blog, which provided direct access to the company’s co-founder and CEO. From there, we expanded into a multi-channel approach until we had separate blogs for marketing/sales, engineering, and notable thought leaders/customers. So whether people had questions about the design of a component, the marketing of the Roadster, or what motivated folks to submit deposits, they could expect a straight answer right from the horse’s mouth.”
Unless your CEO happens to be a horse’s ass. Because if your CEO (Elon Musk) runs around spouting nonsense (via CNET) like “a Prius is not a true hybrid, really,” and “I’d like to take up some of [Detroit’s] manufacturing plants. When the mess gets sorted out I’d like to have a conversation with whoever’s in charge,” blogs and bloggers tend to not be so helpful in the “building credibility” department.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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In Musk's defense, he isn't any bigger of a horse's ass than Eberhart. In fact, being a horse's ass seems to be a requirement for working at Tesla.
Correct. Go build your credibility via blogs. Because when you overpromise and underdeliver on your only broken product all that is left to do is to talk your ass off so much people will start believing it.