To Blog or Not to Blog for Your Business

A note about blogging for businesses–by ginny keegan

by ginny keegan

 Blogs can be a huge communication vehicle, a way to self express in a more comfortable environment or promote a brand entity. Blogs are typically short and sweet with information that is engaging, informative and helpful to your target audience. The content on blogs for businesses are quite different than those written for or by individuals. This post will focus on blogs for businesses.

I wrote the below while I was a consulting for a company with over 14,000 employees. It was interesting to me that the knowledge about blogging and web technology was so minimal at an organization so large, but that is why they hired me. My job was to help educate the staff  and leadership about "what is blogging" and "why" it should or should not be done. So we had to start with the basics.

Should we blog?

The decision to begin a blog for an organization requires some thought, organization and dedication. There must be a reason to do so and it must also provide an ROI to the organization. It's important to consider and discuss the impact blogging would have and if it's it a strategy that can be fully maintained for the long haul. Blogging and the initiatives that surround it should be included as part of your overall Social Media strategy and/or SEO strategy.

You need to consider many things before you go off and begin a blog for your business. Some key items to consider are as follows:

• Will a blog benefit the business and why? (Impact to brand, increase awareness, increase traffic to websites, etc.)
• How will the blog integrate into the overall social media/seo plan's goals and objectives?
• You will need to outline in full the tactical blog strategy and calendar.
• Define who will maintain, write/author, post and monitor the organization's blog. (define permissions/admins) and follow industry best practices.
• Define the rules for posting, commenting and engagement rules of your staff.
• Do you have enough relevant content to post on a daily basis?
• Will the audience find your content relevant, useful and important to them and will they follow you?

Once you have determined the value of blogging for your business and you decide that it's the right direction for your company, then it's important to document the strategy and plan, then make sure you share that with your staff. So many times the decision is made to blog, and then only the Marketing and I.T departments are aware. Everyone must be aware of the strategy, goals, objectives and corporate policies for blogging as an employee, as well as blogging as an individual when you are outside of work. Some companies will not allow you to post content about the company on your personal blog, so make sure you understand the rules.

Communication to staff about the blog and it's importance will then become a responsibility of the organization that is shared. Most companies have blogging rules and are part of the Social Media policy and procedures. The policy must be understood by everyone before you embark into blogging territory. Work with your I.T dept to define what the policy should be for your company, then add it to the HR docs like all the rest.

Once all the rules of the game are defined and you have a plan, the next thing is to determine what the blog looks like, what type of content you will share on the blog and what technology and people will support it.

Here I have outlined 5 key tips to get started in your journey to blogging for your business:

1. It's important to do your homework / due diligence prior to deploying a blog for your business, because it certainly is not for every company. Victoria Merriman at Digital Loom says "that creating and maintaining a blog may not be the best use of your precious time, energy and expertise". Again, this is something you need to determine and think through carefully. You need to understand and know your target audience and have a plan for what type of content you will share. It's also a good time to see what your competitor's are doing and see what things they might be doing really well. Understand the analytics surrounding their activity and know how to leverage that knowledge for your business. Learn all you can about blogging for your business by using the web to research all you can. (below is a list of good places to start).
2. Write about topics that add value to the audience and post often. There are many reasons for a blog, aside from the obvious, dissemination of ideas or values, but its also could be part of a marketing strategy to promote a website, a department or a business entity.  If done well, search engines will pick up blogs, and your website or blog will be found across the globe in all search engines, naturally and organically (free!). This is one tactic that drives traffic and can become part of your SEO strategy.  Blogs are great ways to cross link to partners or link to other pages within your website to inform the audience, inform staff or engage new customers. (and don't forget! to link your blog to all your social sites and web sites for added crossing linking value and authority). 
3. It's important to follow best practices and basic rules for blogging. As stated above, you must outline the process for blogging for your organization, what the process will be to monitor and publish and what avenues you will take if you need to remove a comment or post from a thread. In your blogging tactical plan you will need to identify the team who will manage the blog/posts, the process for reviewing posts before publishing, what gets posted and what does not get posted. Your company policies and procedures/guidelines must be defined and be sure they are followed. SEW outlines some good pros and cons to consider.
4. Before you dive into creating a blog, it's important to decide what platform your organization will use as the blogging tool. You will want to understand your organizations current technology infrastructure, corporate systems, blogging tool options and  back-end capabilities. This is especially important if you want to track the impact blogging activity has on ROI, leads, and the possibility of integrating the analytics with your crm or cms system. Many corporate tools offer the ability to blog. Work with your I.T person to identify the best option for your business.
5. Understanding the blogging ecosystem will be a huge asset. Understanding how your content can be used to increase awareness about your company, and how it can be used for site optimization and indexing is also key. For example, the participation of your audience is a very important factor here. The longevity of a thread and how your target audience engages with you are all very important variables on your blog becoming successful and how it will be found at the end of the day. It's important to build your blog community where users can engage, interact and feel like they can participate with you through your blog.
   
   Remember! all the above mentioned items must be identified and documented well in advance of starting a blog for your business.

Below are some good sites I found that help explain blogging in more detail and you can view a list of the top 100 blogs ranked by Technorati.

Helpful/ Useful Links about Blogs, with some examples of my fav's.  What are you favorites? Please share!

• Seth Godin  (example of a good blog)
• Oscam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik  (excample of a good blog)
• Write like a blogger by Seth Godin
• How to get traffic to your blog. by Seth Godin
• How Blogs Work by Marshall Brain
• Corporate Blogging: 7 Best Practices by Kari White