Successful Corporate Blogging

To blog is to be. Or it is if you listen to a certain set who believe that blogging can be the answer to all your corporate woes. In reality, that’s incorrect, blogging can definitely help in some circumstances but it won;t fix a bad product or bad internal processes or poor customer service. What it does do is provide a route for you to talk direct to your customers and a way for them to talk to you and to get a different perspective of a brand or a company to complement the ‘official’ marketing. But one of the biggest challenges for any company taking on the blogging gauntlet is doing it well, instead of paying lip service (or your agency) to do it.

Tony Hung, guest blogging on Problogger, has 5 excellent articles on how to be successful at blogging. Although written from the perspective of an individual blogger, out there on their own, they contain valuable advice for any companies that are looking at making their first steps into the space and what it takes to male a success out of this additional communication channel.

• Five Requisites for Blogging Success gives an overview of the skills and mindset you need: Time and Commitment, Marketing the Blog, Being Interesting, Knowing It’s them not You and Focus
• The Rules behind a Great Blog looks at the behaviours you’ll need.
• How to Find News gives great tips for finding things to write about - if you are writing outside of just your company.
• How to Market your Blog expands on tactics you can use to get your blog out there
• A Last Few Lessons just wraps it all up.

Any company out there wanting to use blogs for their PR or marketing should read this and consider. You need to have the time and commitment to make a blog a success, you need to put part of yourself into it. Decide how it can fit into your job before you take it on - doing it because everyone else is does not mean it is right for you.

One further thing I’d suggest, if you are not ready to make a all out commitment is try it for a limited period of time - tie it into a campaign or a sponsorship and see how it can add to the overall marketing message.