A Blog About Blogs: Managing A Corporate Blog

September 16, 2011

Marketing Strategy

Lad Makinde

Managing a corporate blog can be a very complicated and frustrating task at times. For starters everyone and their mom seems to have a blog these days and if you check out other business websites (like I often do) you’ll most certainly find a cornucopia of varying corporate versions each aspiring to be the next blog that helps define the digital marketing revolution. Put all of this together and it can make your head spin.

So, in the hopes that I can be of some help, I’ve scoured the internet for you and come up with a list of corporate blog do’s and don’ts. Some of this may seem a bit obvious, but you’d be surprised… some people don’t believing heavily in the power of brain usage… that’s all I’ll say.

Corporate blog do’s and don’ts –

Do: Know your target audience and write FOR them. Ask this question, how will this help my readers? In most cases your readership should consist of clients or possible clients; write for them.

Do Not: Use your corporate blog as a diary. Your readers don’t care that you took the sports car out and went to wine country last weekend with your sweetheart. Let me clarify, no one cares if you can’t tie that into something relative for your readership base. Plus a blog is a record of you’re thoughts and that record will represent you online, as a search result when someone googles your company. A blog is a record of what you’re thinking, so stop using your corporate blog as a diary.

Do: Use your corporate blog as intellectual exercise for your company. A good blog forces you to think creatively while still being disciplined about your content.

Do Not: Start a corporate blog with excitement only to fizzle out after a month. Successful blogging is as much about persistence as it is about content. Just because you don’t have hundreds of people commenting and liking every post doesn’t mean you’re not doing what you’re supposed to. Know your target audience, find them and stick with it!

Do: Make your corporate blog visually appealing. This is something that I often cast aside as not that important, and it’s really because I’m lazy and it takes extra time to find the right pictures, videos, etc. But the reality is, when people come to a page that’s just massive text, it makes them want to come back later or worse, leave for good. Here are some easy ways to add some life to your blog without designing a new one in the process: add links, highlight key words, use pictures, and use bullet points.

Do Not: Use your corporate blog just for search engine opportunities. There’s a fine line to this one… it is smart to implement key words, and other search engine tactics into your blog, however it has to be done within the concept of having something meaningful to say. Using the keyword terms in sentences that don’t make sense is not a great way to keep readers. Once they figure it out, they’ll be gone as quickly as they arrived.

Finally if you’re doing things right, there’s no better tool for PR than wielding influence with your blog.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s get to blogging!