I noticed that several celebrated A-List bloggers have recently announced departures from their current companies to new ventures. It’s interesting that these employers have been paying these bloggers to build a community for them for a couple of years — and then they disappear. Who now owns the equity they built through the company blog? The blogger, or the employer?
The answer of course is the blogger. People follow people, not companies necessarily. I fully expect these bloggers will move on and their audience will march right behind them.
In the online world, there is a lot of valuable equity associated with these loyal audiences. Did these companies make a poor investment by allowing their equity to walk out the door? How could this have been managed differently? Is it smart to pay somebody to build a personal brand and then let it leave for the highest bidder … most likely a competitor?
From a traditional business perspective, this is troubling. The closest parallel I can think of is sports when an athlete’s “brand” can be inexorably linked with a franchise. But in that case, there are employment contracts, legal considerations and usually a chance for the home business to bid for the athlete’s services at the end of a pre-determined contract.
I suspect the strange celebrity blog world doesn’t have that kind of contractual discipline. In traditional businesses, this issue is typically addressed through a non-compete clause. If you decide to leave the company, you have to leave the customers behind too, at least for a period of time — usually a year or more.
Similarly, “content” by way of reports, plans and presentations would clearly be owned by the employer. But what about Twitter accounts?
We are in an era where community managers can certainly develop more celebrity and have a bigger brand than the actual employer. Will the social web also be enacting non-compete clauses or are there other considerations here?
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