However, every company I’ve been to has at least a few people who really care, want to do more, and don’t get the chance. Bob and Sherry will never replace the marketing department or the importance of having a great social media team, but they can help. They contribute ideas, passion, and knowledge when talking about your company and your products.

Expecting everyone in the company to stay on message with great content is a Utopian ideal. The reality is that there are a few diamonds in the rough and they are worth finding. The great technical blogs from Mozilla are examples of the power you get when you let those people shine.

Bob in Accounts has a blog about model trains. Sherry in Engineering manages a community of scrapbookers. Both are scared to write about the company – and quite right too, they aren’t briefed, they might not be on-message and they could do untold damage..

Bob and Sherry are passionate about their jobs – well, they might be, or they might fall into the much larger group of people for whom a job is a means to an end – they work hard and know the products inside and out etc etc – well they might, but then again……

These things may, or may not, enable you to identify people who are keen to write about your company. And this is where the wheels really fall off.

The sheer amount of time and resource that your business would have to dedicate to finding your would-be writers, training them, monitoring them, facilitating approvals and incentivising them – it just doesn’t make sense in the context of the small amount of value that may be added as a result.

As I say, it’s a lovely idea. The reality is that it’s better to have a small group of trained social media spokespeople (if you must) and a fairly draconian policy for the rest.