Are you a company that is into corporate blogging? Do you feel that somehow your blog is not taking off? Nobody’s commenting?
Well, I think it’s a common problem in many companies. They are just into it (i.e corporate blogging) because they saw their competitors had a blog, or they don’t want to be seen left behind, or the boss said so!
If you want your corporate blog to be successful, you can’t take it as another PR tool only. Sure, you can post the news about your company, new products and services, events that your company is sponsoring etc. But corporate blogging is not about that only, if you restrict your blog into all the above mentioned things alone then it’s not a blog… it’s just a “news page” that is located under your domain dot com/blog directory.
Recommendations and Examples
For your corporate blog to be successful you need to do at least several things, the more the better, namely:
- Write Interesting Articles in your line of Business * most important *
So, we have established that people are not eager to visit your corporate blog and subscribe to its RSS just to receive updates of new products, services and all that PR stuff. What people really want is, to read blog posts that are interesting and relevant to your business. Things that they normally do not see or know. Things that you guys are good at.
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For example, if you are an Online Ad-Network Company in Asia, it would be great to know things like- average click-through rates on banner types in Asia
- future of banners, what type of banners are becoming popular, why?
- regional studies on banner blindness, which banners are clicked most when placed in top, left column, middle etc.
- what type of websites make the most money (i.e news, forums etc)
- Banner standardization problem in Asia…. and many more related topics
Guys behind the pingdom blog are a good example of how Corporate Blogs can be interesting. They regularly post interesting articles related to their business (they provide Uptime Monitoring and Server Performance Services). Not only interesting but revenue generating as well, because the more traffic your blog generates the more people will be aware of what your company does, and one day when the opportunity arises those people won’t be so hesitant to buy your products and services. Because they will be already familiar with you and your company.
- Make It Easy to Promote your Blog
After you have started posting interesting articles, make it easy to share them on the net, particularly on Social Sites. Including just one “re-tweet” button can drive tons of traffic. So make use of these online tools and make it easy for your blog readers to share your articles with others. - Introduce your staff-(bloggers) and show some personality
Having human element on corporate blogs can be really effective in terms of relationship building and marketing in general. If you are just hiding behind the ‘admin‘ username while blogging, your readers can’t really bond with you or whoever is blogging for your company.However, when you introduce your staff and put up their short profile on your blog and let them blog under their own name, your blog will have a huge transformation –
- you will start to see that your blog is now more lively,
- your staff-bloggers are more personal and start to build relationship with the readers,
- your blog posts’ quality has improved, since the blogger is not behind the admin user, because now they are kind of responsible for what they post.
- Be Active in Your Corporate Blog
Writing interesting and value-adding posts is one thing but being active and regularly producing good quality content is another. It’s not so much of producing daily posts but more of a regularity. Even if you post twice a week, as long as you stick to that timetable of yours, your readers will get used to it and will know what to expect from your blog. Being active also means communicating with your readers and replying to their comments. And more importantly building relationship with them. - Bonus: Implement a Holistic Online Marketing Approach
In order to maximize the affects of your corporate blog on the users, you need to be active on other Social Sites as well, particularly Twitter and Facebook. Create a Facebook Fan page for your company and make use of Twitter’s huge potential for your company. Don’t underestimate Twitter, some companies are making literally millions with it (Example: Dell makes over $3 million with Twitter). Most of the tips that I have mentioned above also applies to Twitter and Facebook equally; remember, don’t make it another boring press-release only tool!
Example @BuySellAds uses its Twitter effectively, sharing useful stuff that are related to its publishers.
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Great advice! One of the challenges of a corporate blog is the layers of approval required before anything can be published. Often, employees post to the blog an article that has been approved for another marketing channel. Your article accurately points out that a blog cannot be viewed as just another marketing channel. A blog is unique and requires special treatment, which of course, the management may not be willing to give to it.
You are absolutely right. Most blogs die or don’t go anywhere because we fail to put the effort to make it work.
Lot of people think it is really easy to start a blog. But there is lot of commitment needed to make it work.
You have to be active in the blog and build a community of readers who interact in the blog.
Excellent advice. The reader is much more interesting to read articles about how business is designed from the inside, what they see.
Very good and reasonable advice
Hey man you already know that what your readers expect to you and you always keep it in mind.
wow very impressive. thanks for this information about blogging.
Great posts ..I see many corporate blogs in the blogershpere that neglect many of the suggestions you list above. Many of these blogs are just ongoing press releases.
Thanks! Corporate blog it’s really great bonus for bussines.
It’s good to hear that corporations are now recognizing the value of blogs. I remember when blogs were dismissed as something for amateurs.
That is great advice. Especially how if they are using their own names it gives them not only accountability but personality as well.
What really shines through for me in this post is how important social media has become in one’s overall web marketing strategy. Although you don’t get the traditional links that the search engine bots like, you are putting your offering in front of the eyes of real people who can buy in.
Mashallah a very handy peace of advice about blogging thanks alot
@Minnesota Attorney, that’s true, many companies make it really difficult to post something on their blog by their employees. It’s understandable that they want to control what the employees are posting on the blog, but I think they can easily manage this problem by having clear guidelines for all the staff-bloggers on what to post and what not to post on the corporate blog. They could have someone who approves all the blog posts before being published too…etc. There is many ways to implement a system without discouraging staff to post in the corporate blog.
@Marketing Man, web presence is becoming more important for businesses now, especially on Social Sites.
@Everyone, thanks for your feedback!
I agree completely that your sites web presence is extremely important. Thanks for the article Ades.
This business of getting a corporate blog as an afterthought is a dodgy one. Staff inevitably are too busy to pay much attention, and unless people are specifically tasked to do work on it, you’ll get very little buy-in from staff, unless htere is a reason for them to get excited about the blog.
Corporate blogs sometimes are very low on quality and content. These blogs created with a healthy budget fail to impress people. THe points listed are great points. Also the blogs must be optimized for Search engines. Too many frames flash to impress viewers do make your blog useless from the point of view of SEO
even i’m still not have any corporae blog. I agree with your point.
Great tips for improve corporate blog. Thanks for valuable advise.
You corporate guys should better begin using these tips cause they are time tested and will surely work.
ehm..corporate blog. Need to think deep about that.
Hi Ades,
I think you have formulated some simple bullets well enough to give a good start & right enough to not miss the basic errors starters generally do. It’s accuracy I liked.
Corporate blogs are sometimes very low, the quality and content. This blog created with a healthy budget fails to impress people. Items listed are great points. The blogs are optimized for search engines. Flash to do to impress the spectators, many frames to make your blog useless from the perspective of SEO