Your blog will let your business communicate directly with your customers and potential clients. It should give the impression that you are connected to what is going on and providing a platform to express your views and concerns. Your company blog is also there to reinforce your brand, provide updates and information, establish your company and staff as thought-leaders and where possible address issues.
Many companies might start a blog simply because the competitor has or it is becoming the norm for your sector. However this isn’t a good reason to start a company blog, it has to be more than that. A business blog should be part of your business’s overall communication and marketing strategy. It should be there to align with your business goals, needs and issues. Your company strategy should determine the blog’s theme, structure and content.
Keep Your Eyes Open
Larger companies can afford to have staff monitor social media for news & trends on their industry, their competitors and the company itself. Your business can have the same effect as the media on the public’s perception of your business. So monitoring them enables you to keeps you on top what is happening and allows you to respond to it.
Planning For Your Business Blog
After determining your company’s marketing goals and the focus of your business blog, try to find an employee to help with the blogging. They should have a passion for and expertise in your sector and if possible a natural, conversational writing style. A great way to start is by simply reading other business blogs You should find that they keep their blog focused and they write short posts. They might not over promote their products and services.
Should You Host Your Blog
One mistake we see all the time is where the business selects the wrong choice when it comes to hosting their blog. Your blog may be either “hosted” or “non-hosted”; each has advantages and disadvantages:
• Non-hosted – The blog lives on your company’s server, which also stores its data. This solutions allow you to promote your brand and URL. Alos more importantly has a clear lin k between your blog and your company
• Hosted – This blog does not take up space on your serve. The host may require you to use its URL, which may not be easy for readers to remember. Review the host’s terms of service carefully to make sure the blog’s content legally belongs to you, not to the host.
How To Blog Your Way to Success
Improve the chances of meeting the goals of your corporate blog with these tips:
- Be real – Avoid the temptation of blogging about everything or trying to reach everyone. Determine who you are when blogging, what you’ll blog about and who is in your target audience.
- Be passionate – Be passionate about your blog’s contents. Otherwise, you’ll burn out and blogging will become a chore. Passion is contagious and can create evangelists.
- Write often– Write five entries each week. Search engines and readers thrive on fresh content.
- Link to other content – Readers discover new blogs through links in other blogs. Earn respect by providing links to good resources and blogs. Sometimes another poster’s blog can spur a post to your blog, so give your source credit by linking back to the referring blog.
- Try To Push the envelope – Do something different and you might get lots of traffic.
- Create meaningful titles – Readers scan titles, so a catchy headline can impel them to read the entry. Be cautious of overly creative titles that may confuse readers.
