First things first: why blog? We all know that blogging is one of those things we should be doing, but if you don’t know why you may feel yourself lacking in the motivation department. The primary reason for a blog on your website is to keep the search engines happy (Google in particular). Fresh content will keep your website relevant and active, and will contribute to a higher search ranking. Reason number two is the image that your blog helps to create around your brand. If you provide valuable content, you can establish yourself as a credible go-to for information, and if people engage with you then your blog can also be a great place for building customer relationships.
Top Tips for Blogging
- Draw up a publishing schedule and stick to it. It’s a good idea to post regularly (weekly would probably suit most businesses). If you have time to write more than one blog post at a time the do. Write them and schedule them so they’re out the way.
- Draw up a list of blog ideas that you can keep adding to when something comes to mind. You can then fit each topic into your blog schedule.
- Have a look at the blogs of other businesses in your sector. You can learn a lot about what people respond to best and what goes ignored.
- Get to know your audience. Find out what they’re interested in, what they need help with, and what would be useful for them.
- Use relevant quotes, examples and studies to add further validity to your blog.
- How to’s and tutorials are a great way of engaging people through useful content. Valuable ideas and information will help to establish you as a trusted authority in whatever you’re writing about, which in turn will help to generate leads.
- Use keyword search terms when you write (not too many though) to optimise your blog and get it found more easily on search engines.
- Ask people questions. This turns blogging into a dialogue rather than a monologue and makes it far more engaging.
- Don’t be afraid to find your own voice. Write in a tone which suits your personality and that of your company.
- Start an email list and send links to the blogs on your website (not excessively, or else people will get fed up with you).
Many small businesses often fail to understand the purpose of a blog and how it is different from their corporate website. Many company blogs are just bland reproductions of the existing website. There is often no personality on display just a grey suit which uses an officious tone announcing the play-by-play updates of company news that invites no interaction with the reader, which is probably the customer or supplier. With this in mind we’ve been thinking about what makes a good corporate blog. So, inevitably, here are our top ten tips for successful corporate blogs.
Set your guidelines
When creating a blog you must be able to define the value that it’s bringing to the reader. Choose a blog name and theme that fits well with your company’s expertise, but don’t be afraid to branch out into a larger space. Your blog should provide pertinent information for consumers interested in your area of business.
Once you’ve chosen an area to cover, create a set of editorial guidelines that your bloggers can follow.
Once you’ve chosen an area to cover, create a set of editorial guidelines that your bloggers can follow.
Dress down
If your website is the ‘suited and booted’ face of your company, then your blog is your Dress Down Friday look. A blog is a place to let down your corporate hair and get to know your customers. Think of it as a conversation between people, not between a brand and an audience. In order to have a conversation, you need two people – a blogger and a reader.
Give your corporate bloggers the freedom to be themselves. Encourage them to have their own personalities and writing styles. This type of diversity is more representative of your company than any monotonous tone that you could manufacture on your own.
Give your corporate bloggers the freedom to be themselves. Encourage them to have their own personalities and writing styles. This type of diversity is more representative of your company than any monotonous tone that you could manufacture on your own.
Avoid PR and marketing
Might seem like strange advice coming from a company that specialises in public relations and marketing but the insight, knowledge and expertise that a blog can impart is far more useful than any PR pitch that you could post. Stay away from trying to selling and marketing – you can do that on your website or in deadwood media publications.
Choose a blogging team
Not everyone can write – at least not in a manner that draws in the reader. More crucially, not everyone wants to write and many positively avoid it. So choose individuals that are knowledgeable and comfortable writing about the areas you would like to cover. Some companies prefer to elect an editor or group of editors to have a final look at all blog posts, while other companies allow their bloggers to publish directly. We prefer the later – if the guidelines are clear you should trust the people your working with.
Outline your comment policy
Open up your blog for full feedback, you will get a variety of comments – positive, complimentary, hateful, and spam. Be prepared for everything and create a comment policy that your team can follow. Your policy could read like this:
Commenting on our blog
It is our policy to review all comments before publishing them, partly to reduce the possibility of spam comments and partly to ensure comments are in line with our ethics below:
- We will tell the truth. We will acknowledge and correct any mistakes promptly.
- We will not delete comments unless they are spam, off-topic, or defamatory.
- We will reply to comments when appropriate as promptly as possible.
- We will link to online references and original source materials directly.
- We will disagree with other opinions respectfully.
Take it on the chin
Many organisations run scared off social media in the belief that some people (and there will be some people) will just use it as an opportunity to say bad things about you. But they would probably be mean about your anyway whether it’s through social media or in a pub conversation.
Accept that you will have detractors but make a point of welcoming criticism and using it as an opportunity for providing feedback and improvement.
Accept that you will have detractors but make a point of welcoming criticism and using it as an opportunity for providing feedback and improvement.
Promote your blog
Just as you would promote any other company initiative, get the word out about your blog. Share the URL on your website, social networks, business cards, e-mails, and advertisements.
Without promotion, building an audience can be difficult. Get behind the quality work that your team is putting into the blog and promote away.
Without promotion, building an audience can be difficult. Get behind the quality work that your team is putting into the blog and promote away.
Get social
Use share tools, such as Facebook, Twitter and Digg. Share tools allow your users to pass along your content and that’s a great way of creating brand ambassadors. Why not use a simple addthis button to make sharing easier. Also, integrate you blog into other social media platforms by creating profiles across social networks that your readers and customers are active on. Facebook and Twitter are a good start, and YouTube is a must for video-sharing.
Monitor and Feedback
Make sure your web analytics tools are switched on. We generally integrate Google Analytics into any blog we are managing. This tells us how much traffic the blog is receiving, where it’s coming from, where the referral websites are and which posts are being read the most.
Armed with this data you can then tweak future posts to ensure that we are getting the tone and content right.
Armed with this data you can then tweak future posts to ensure that we are getting the tone and content right.
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