Having talent blog and participate in social media comes up often in my conversations. Should they or shouldn't they? Do we make them blog and get involved in social media or do we just allow the opportunity to pass us by? Mark Ramsey, a media researcher and advocate of social media for radio, shared a straight ahead approach in a recent blog post.Hear 2.0.

From the Sports Radio perspective many talent are very uncomfortable doing a blog in the same way that many newspaper writers are doing radio. The bottom line is that if you want talent to blog you have to invest time with them. You need to detail what it is and why it is important. I sat down with a very successful morning show co-host who asked, "What's the deal with blogging? They want me to do it but don't want to pay anything for it." We had a good conversation about what blogging is and why it has value. When I explained that blogging and social media was a way of expanding his popularity and his personal brand it made sense to him. He was more open to doing it.

It is still a matter of, "Can the talent express his thoughts writing versus speaking?" The wild card as Ramsey puts it is the desire to do it. Talent that 'get it' understand the value it adds to their personal brand but it helps if you take the time to explain it.