Brendan Cooper – your friendly social media-savvy freelance copywriter and social media consultant. Or: words make ideas make money.

Coca-Cola may have cracked the corporate blog code.

My first reaction on hearing Coca Cola had set up a corporate blog: “Oh no, not again.” I almost didn’t bother looking. I thought it would be grossly over-branded, unbearably saccharine (like the product itself – allegedly) and lacking in credibility of any kind. To my mind, ‘corporate’ and ‘blog’ just don’t fit.

But wait! Take a look at the blogger profile:

“Let me introduce myself. My name is Phil Mooney, and I have served as the historian/archivist for The Coca-Cola Company for the last 30 years.”

More about him here.

So, this isn’t a CEO, nor is it a ghost-written blog. It’s written by an historian/archivist. There’s a photo of him, and he looks like one. He even sounds like one: “Let me introduce myself… I have served…” It’s endearingly non-social-media.

I think this is a neat move on the part of Coca-Cola. I’m not pretending for a moment that this unassuming historian/archivist isn’t towing a corporate line or promoting certain messages, but I do think there’s a certain credibility in having what is generally perceived as a trustworthy, bookish librarian communicate with the wider audience.

Perhaps every company should have one. Alternatively of course, every company could set up a corporate blog and give the ghost-writer the working title of ‘archivist’. I’m not sure that my youthful good looks would be quite appropriate for the role however.