Make Your Business Blog A Success
Written by WorkatHome on February 10th, 2010
The Good, The Blog & The Ugly: Make Your Business Blog a Success
by Christopher B. Marquis
Blogging grew out of the need for dialogue and the exchange of ideas in a relaxed and informal setting. The GOOD thing about the blog is that it hosts a number of great avenues for businesses in terms of marketing and advertising. The UGLY thing about blogs is that you need to take precautions and use certain strategies if you take a business online with a blog.
This article shares 8 Principles which will help to make sure your blog is helping your business rather than hindering it.
Principle 1: Blog Responsibly
Make sure that employees do not reveal sensitive information about your business in your company blogs. Your competitors could (and probably will) read your blogs and the last thing you want is your secret strategy being leaked to them before you have even launched it to the public.
Principle 2: Know thyself and thy blogging
To keep up with the ever changing world of blogging, it is important you notice new trends. Traditionally, blogs were just comments, stories, questions and notations. Nowadays some of the most successful blogs are multimedia works of art with significant audio and video elements. To make your blog stand out, get creative with multimedia!
(see for example General Motors’ excellent bloghttp://fastlane.gmblogs.com/).
Principle 3: Know thy enemy blogger
Knowing your own abilities, limitations and the available technology is good, but not good enough. You need to also know who you’re competing with. You should therefore follow the advice of Cory Miller when he suggests that we ’study the great blogs and learn what makes them great.’ By studying successful competitor blogs, we learn why they are successful, how we can adopt their strategy and how to improve upon it, thus drawing more attention to ourselves. It’s dog eats dog out there, or rather, blog eat blog.
Principle 4: Blog effectively
One of the important things with blogs is to think consistently about what will be the best strategy for your company. For example, Thomas Nelson Publishing recommends that you have your employees host blogs separately to your company so as to distance personal opinions from company policy. However, a smaller company might do the opposite of that strategy and have all employees post their blogs on the company website to create more of a ‘community feel’.
Principle 5: Blog with Vision
Keep your eyes on the broader picture when blogging. Where is blogging heading? What are the future trends? How can your business take advantage of them? When you do this and implement new strategies, you can be leader not a follower in the world of blogging.
Principle 6: Blog with Depth
This implies that you’re always looking for the unseen advantages of blogging, which means looking at corporate blogging for what it is: an effective TOOL for marketing and advertising. By keeping your eye on the ball you always know WHY, HOW to, and how NOT to blog. The best corporate bloggers always look at blogging in this way.
Principle 7: Keep note of blogging details
The more attention you pay to what is happening on your blog, the more effective it will be. It’s just like a pot plant – the more energy and attention you give it, the better it will grow.
Principle 8: Avoid blog overuse
Don’t’ blog just for the sake of it. Make sure you are blogging with purpose and in conjunction with other effective marketing strategies. Remember, there are a host of other internet marketing strategies that are equally effective and can be used in conjunction with blogging. Explore them all and create a multi faceted strategy that clearly makes your company the preeminent force in your field.
The main trick to successful blogging is to understand what is happening in the world of blogging, what you think is going to happen and also to use your blog carefully so as to avoid any negative outcomes. Following the 8 Principles will help to ensure your blogging is successful.
If you’re thinking about starting an external blog for your company, you might want to lay down a few rules for employees regarding safe blogging, since it can be read by anyone. Examples range from avoiding slander to divulging sensitive company secrets and product information.
Many people set up their blog with a free blogging service such as www.blogger.com. I suggest that you use your own domain to operate your blog using Wordpress or Movable Type. This gives you much more power and flexibility when creating your blog.
http://www.wordpress.org http://www.movabletype.org/
Both of these services provide a lot of support and help materials to get started. You will be blogging successfully in no time!
About the Author:
Author Christopher B. Marquis is the bloger behind AustralianBlogs.com.au, a ‘clearing house’ of information on the Australian Blogosphere. Visit the site for more great blog promotion ideas and news.
Tags: Blogging, blogging for cash, what is blogging
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