Basic Business Blogging Suggestions
You’ve decided you’re going to take the recommendations of the office evangelist and start writing a blog. The word still bothers you, but you’ve been told that it’s just like a newsletter or an article for a magazine, only faster, and online. But what comes next? How should you approach it? And what will make the difference between a blog that people read, and a blog that people ridicule? Here are some basic ideas and suggestions. (None of these are rules. There are a hundred ways to do things. My associates will fill the comments section with variations on the theme.)
Above All Else, Be Human
If that advice sounds familiar, it’s not unlike the very first post in the Social Media 100 series: Above All Else- People. The advice is the same. People are who read blogs (okay, we could argue that Google also reads your blog, but let’s save that for another time). To that end, present yourself as a human. Write with the first-person (”I”) perspective, and write as if you’re telling me something, not a faceless mass.
Also, pay attention to that previous post and be attentive to people’s attention constraints.
Commenting Is Just as Important
Remember to visit other blogs in the space and comment on stories and posts that appeal to you. Do NOT be “that guy” (or “girl”) and reference yourself and your company on all these comments. Instead, be sure to seem human and comment on things that have interest to you. Commenting matters, and we know if you’re part of our community by how and where you comment.
Blogging Policies
Your blogging policy shouldn’t be any more complex than your email policy. Look over your company’s policy documents and see if you can replace “email” with “blog” and “blogging.” If yes, and it makes sense, that’s probably fine. It should go without saying that company strategy as well as financial data is not especially good to put on blogs.
If you must have some kind of process in place where more than one set of hands has to touch a blog post, keep it simple. Anything more than two sets of eyes beyond the author, and I believe you’ve already killed people’s interest in blogging.
Does This Tie to Strategy at All?
Remember that your business blog has more requirements than a personal blog. Why did you start it in the first place? What’s the GOAL of the blog? What are you hoping to do with it? Think this through and check your efforts against it regularly. If you can set up metrics of any kind, these might help.
For instance, if your goal is engagement, measure number of comments, web hits, RSS subscribers, inbound links, and a few other criteria. But if your goal is customer service, maybe the blog itself doesn’t get measured as much as overall sentiment in the marketplace gets measured.
My point, simply, is to pay attention to the strategy behind why you’ve bothered blogging in the first place.
Platforms Aren’t THAT Important
But you should consider whether the blogging platform you’re using is easy enough to keep it enjoyable, that it has RSS subscription capabilities, tagging, the ability to add plugins and external code, and a few other details that I’m happy to share, if this is a big concern.
Mix it Up
We don’t want to read only about your company, your product, you. We want your take on the industry at large, on events that might be resonant with us outside of your organization, on other forces that might impact our relationship with you and your products. Try to have that in mind when you write. Yes, it’s a blog for your company, but it’s also a source of information, and has to reflect the world around us.
Don’t Sell, but Don’t Be Shy
A blog isn’t about the hard sell. Let’s accept that. Yes, we’ll be suggestive. Yes, we’ll be persuasive. We’ll give you tastes of what you might receive if you buy the whole deal, but if it’s just a place for selling, we’re not reading. There has to be passion and interest and information flowing through there. Sure, you can help us find where to buy things. But maybe try to mix it up a bit. Don’t pretend like you’re not selling, because that can seem awkward, too, but if you can, consider the last few posts you’ve written and see whether or not it’s time to sell to us again.
Build a Workflow
The mood to blog might not always strike you. It might be helpful to keep a notepad file of topics and ideas so that you can tap into these when you’ve a moment. Also, don’t be afraid to write into a text file, and then dump it into your blog software when it’s all done. This will enable you to write anywhere, with or without the web, and when you have a moment. (Note: there are plenty of great tools for this, as well, including Windows Live Writer for PC and Mars Edit for the Mac (Any good offline editors for Linux? No, besides vi!)
Another trick to building a good blogging flow is to have a good blog reading habit. Use a tool like Google Reader and subscribe to sites and relevant searches that will keep you in quality posts.
Link Out
We pay attention to where you link. If every link in your blog is to your own stuff, we discount you as self-referential. Consider pointing out other great posts in your space, and give adequate links and credit. Don’t sell the store, but make sure you’re building a healthy linking habit. Otherwise, links will rarely flow inward as well.
Frequency is How Often You Have Value to Add
If you blog on a monthly basis, your traffic will likely be dismal. Unless you’re Donald Trump, and then, I imagine you’d still pull it off. For the rest of us, try to stick to a weekly-at-worst and a daily-at-best standard for your blogging. Don’t feel frustrated if you can’t do daily right away. Blogging takes practice, and it can sometimes fall to the bottom of our priority list (as it should). But if you build a decent work flow, this effort should become more natural over time.
Pay Attention to Design
I wrote recently about blog design, and so I won’t reinvent the wheel, but in brief: make sure you have easy-to-use contact information on the blog. Put up a very human About page, including information on the blog’s author as well as the company you serve. We KNOW it’s a company blog. We want to know about you, too. Finally, make sure the blog has all the social sharing tools built into it, such that people can bookmark sites easily, share in popular places, and provide this information easily to others.
Encourage Conversation
How do you build blog posts that last and add value? You encourage conversation. One way that I do this often is by asking questions of the people who read this blog. It’s a great way to tap the expertise of the people in your space. No experts in the crowd? Then consider writing your posts in such a way that your most likely audience will have something upon which to comment and add their own value. Making a post too rock solid is just an invitation to have nothing said about it after the fact.
What Else Would YOU Recommend?
Until now, I’ve written this as if you were the prospective new blogger, but I know that the folks reading [chrisbrogan.com] are professionals in their own right. This post will certainly be shared as advice to others considering starting up a blog. What would you add to the advice I’ve already given? What have I missed? Your comments make this post dozens of times better than what I write on my own. How would you advise a newcomer to business blogging?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
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Comments
This is a great post, Chris. It covers all the important points, and I am in agreement with you that, in relation to everything else, the blogging platform is not terribly important.
In support of that position, I have heard of companies that have had great success bringing traffic to their website by creating a blog hosted on Blogger.com, a free service. Free blog hosting platforms like Blogger and WordPress.com are so well optimized for search engines compared to old-style table cell websites (which you typically edit using FrontPage or Dreamweaver), that blogs on Blogger or Wordpress.com are certain to do much better in search results and thus bring more new visitors.
Still, even if a company or individual is just starting out with a blog, I usually try to steer them away from the free services, because there are so many more options available if you host the blog with a third party. Ideally it’s best to create the blog under the same domain name that the company site uses. For example, if the company site is at mycompany.com, the blog would be at mycompany.com/blog or blog.mycompany.com. The main reason for doing this is to take full advantage of the blog’s search engine visibility (its likelihood of showing up in search results for important keywords) because it will give the whole website and the domain name better visibility.
There are simple things that blog writers can do to improve the search ranking of their posts. And there are many things that a platform like WordPress on a third party host (using the company’s domain name, say) does better than a blog on WordPress.com when it comes to search engine optimization. To give one example, on a third-party-hosted blog, you can add instructions for search engine robots telling them not to index archive pages. This may seem like an overly technical point, but it is actually very easy to do and it can have a huge impact on the way other pages on the site are ranked by search engines.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that, yes, the important thing is to write a business blog for human readers, and to follow all the points you outline above. But, all other things being equal, there are some very basic things that businesses should think about at the outset - like the importance of choosing a flexible platform that allows for simple search optimization improvements (not to mention the ability to add the many “plugins” available for platforms like WordPress - which you don’t always have on Blogger or WordPress.com) because it’s not that hard, and doing so will bring a much better return on investment in the long run.
Following up on what Mark said, I agree that staying away from the free services is probably a good idea for a corporate/business blog. In addition to the reasons he cites, I’d also suggest that you want to have the control over the basic blog design necessary to make it fully integrated appearance-wise into your own site. While that is possible with systems like Blogger, it’s often a significant fudge (as used to be the case when I integrated Blogger into my site rather than control the whole thing with WordPress).
An additional suggestion would be to start a series early. As a blog for an existing company - particularly larger or well established companies - you have the advantage of some developed authority already. Use that to develop a regular tutorial/comment/advice series. In addition to developing traffic, a regular series of this type is great for getting you into the *habit* of blogging.
Chris:
I loved this post, especially the part where you reassure bloggers not to worry if they can’t post daily. I’m one of those. I tend to post 3 times a week to give people a chance to leave comments at posts that do go up.
Last night I just didn’t feel like writing so I didn’t and I sort of felt a little guilty until I read your post this morning. All is right with the world again. Ahhhhhhhhhh….
I agree with some of Mark McLaren’s observations, Chris, but would point out that you don’t need to give up the “free” options like Blogger.com just because you want to host the site on your domain. Blogger allows FTP posting of your blog to your own domain rather than to blogspot.com. It takes a little bit of design knowledge to create a template that Blogger can use to post to your site, but it can be wrestled into obedience. Plus, you can configure Blogger to allow you to post via email as well as by Windows Live Writer or some of the other offline blogging tools.
Your blog post gives me so much to think about. My blog is more personally-focused (things I find interesting) but I have to admit that I spend more time on industry or business type blogs. So either I need to broaden my focus and become more impersonal (less sharing) or launch a second blog. But I appreciate all of the ideas you present here.
Chris, I totally love your blogworks… And Steven Lubetkin’s comment has also given me something more to ponder. Thanks for all you do for our community!
I found the part about keeping things in the “I” one of the best reminders. It’s hard, especially when you know that more than one person is actually reading the material. It is difficult when you are trying to develop a persona and nobody knows you or your company. I feel this post is a keeper.
@Liz Staying focused is hard, but very necessary. I have to ask myself a few questions (when a post is in first draft)just to check myself. I do this before I completely buy-in to the content I am writing and while I am still willing to throw it away and start over.
Keep reading great blogs and you’ll be fine.
Great article Chris.
Vicky H
Worthy post. Thanks Chris. I run a couple of blogs for our organization. One of the key points you could expand on is the strategy. The road to the blogosphere is littered with the corpses of failed corporate blogs that jumped in without a clear strategy. Engagement and/or customer service are fine goals, but are really not enough. There has to be an underlying theme or message, one that goes beyond “Our widgets are better,” or “We love you, dear customer.” The ideal strategy incorporates the organization mission, is consistent with the vision of the organization and (this is the tough part) fills a clear gap in the blogosphere (or at least the corporate information or messaging model). There are good resources for business bloggers out there. Following the basic rules about branding, such as you suggested in a recent article, and keeping up with trends can help chances of success.
Great tips - will be sure to use them. That said, my company has a blog (Corporate) and some of our Realtors blog, though they use ActiveRain.com for their blogs. I just opened a Wordpress blog and was disappointed to see they still have no Twitter widget (though I’m sure I can incorporate Twitter badge somehow). Should the blog be personal, or business? In real estate, there’s so much “personal” that’s necessary so you can relate to people within your interest level, so you can better “bond” with them. For someone with broad-based interests that range from geology to babies to gardening to Indy cars, a “personal” blog may be good just for self-expression and as a side benefit, may also interest potential buyers. Question will be - solely self-expression with the adjunct goal of attracting similarly-minded buddies or solely business (i.e. real estate industry “news”)? I’m not satisfied to be solely “business” which is one reason why real estate interested me - I can incorporate what some see as personal (i.e. personal interests) into the business, and still be professional about the business, which is good, and works for me.
No additional ideas for you though!
Here, here Chris….
On the commenting front, it’s certainly fun to go into your site analytics and pull up all of the blogs which have been a source of incoming visits to your site, as a result of comments made on those blogs. I now know which particular blogs will reliably send 15+ people over, via any comments I make on those blogs - here’s to the new marketing!
OBVIOUSLY, one’s comments have to be insightful, relevant and respectful of the readership etc, otherwise, you can fuggeddaboutit!
Yours with boundless enthusiasm,
Richard :)
Chief Deal Weaver
http://www.BlackWidowNetwork.com
[…] Brogan offers some basic blogging tips including the tone of a blog, how often one should post, linking, commenting, […]
Chris - thanks for the great post. The frequency topic is especially helpful. As a ‘weekly at worst’ poster, it is nice to hear that those who don’t post daily, aren’t sentenced to automatic failure.
Chris - what a great post. Many of the business book authors we work with have been asking how and why they should be blogging and building up an online footprint. It’s good to see that our advice to them is very similar to what you have here. Next time we get asked the question, I’m going to direct them to this post. Thanks!
As the office evangelist, it’s often difficult to explain how writing for a blog is different than writing a newsletter/bylined article that can easily get too bogged down in style and a tone — especially when they are not actively participating within the blogging community. That said, posts like this help the cause of the evangelist in having the ability to point to a credible source rather than simply acting the nag… which, will hopefully lead to better content and active participation in the long run.
Baby steps.
I always shudder when I hear clients and others talking about having someone write a blog for them. “Ghost blogging” may not be a sin, but it should be. If ever there was a time to let down your hair and write past the corporate filter, blogging is one of them. The only way to accomplish that is to actually write it yourself.
I’ve become my company’s blog evangelist as you put it, and one thing that worries me is my inability to post consistently. I’m pretty new to the blogosphere, and I found you article quite useful, continue posts like these so you can help folks like me feel better about blogging, and produce better posts, great article. Thanks
Chris- this is really, really good. There’s way too much literature about this subject, and your summary is thoughtful and succinct.
This is a wonderful post with so much useful guidance. I think I will re-read it every now and then to remind myself.
I really like how you mention “Above All Else, Be Human”. This is very true. I think it can be easily forgotten. Often the mainstream media can be quite reserved and impersonal in its tone. We end up trying to emulate that. Whenever I show a more human side in my blog and podcast there is more response and communication. Maybe by being human I give others permission to be human. I feel better about it too!
[…] Basic Business Blogging Suggestions Speaking of Chris Brogan, this post he wrote earlier this week provides some nice basic information for companies that are just starting to launch a blog. As usual, Chris’s community of readers are providing great comments to the post, so be sure to read through those as well! […]
It takes a little bit of design knowledge to create a template that Blogger can use to post to your site, but it can be wrestled into obedience.
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Chris, Love that you're bringing this back to the fore. The advice might not have changed, but the tools and social dynamics have. Your post, and another on RWW gave me an idea for a post...on commenting.
Great article Chris. Off the top of my head I don’t think I can add much more a this stage, however I think I will use this as a referral as my boss has talked about business blogging on the company website and it’s not something really heavily done in our industry, particularly in Australia.