In our last post we talked about the pitfall of serving up blog casserole to your customers. This happens when you either run out of content, or don’t have any kind of content strategy. Coming up with a content strategy can be tough. If you are having trouble with content strategy, it may help if you think about it in terms of food.
Blogging Staples 
Some foods are staples such as bread, rice, meat, potatoes. These are your blogs that talk about your core industry, products, markets..etc. They’re not sexy topics but they are necessary. They’re what makes your company tick and it’s important to write about these things. However, too many days of just meat and potatoes becomes tiresome. Many corporate blogs only serve up the staples.
Blogging Appetizers
These are blog posts meant to make your readers hungry for more. For an example of a blogging appetizer, see the blog that preceded this post entitled blog casserole! Blog appetizers are usually short in nature and give only enough information to make your readers anxious for the next post. If you are going to start a blog topic series in which you are going to write several posts about the same topic area, try leading it off with a blog appetizer!
Spicy Blogging
If you’re like me, you like a little spice in your food. I’m always up for chili or Mexican food and I’m always a bit disappointed if my mouth is not burning a little while I’m eating. A spicy blog is one that rocks the boat. Pick a controversial topic and choose a side. Take a stand on a position and invite those who disagree with you to comment on your blog. Spicy blog posts tend to rank highly and spread on social media. I call it the Howard Stern effect. People that love Howard, listen to him. People that hate Howard… listen to him even more. Don’t be afraid to spice things up now and then.
Exotic Blogging
The exotic blogs are the ones that take a long time to prepare and truly amaze your audience. The results of research or shortened whitepapers make for good exotic blogs. Exotic blogs also tend to be longer and are many times filled with data, graphs, images and new knowledge. Exotic blogs take a long time to prepare but they are well worth it. Your readers will thank you.
Blogging Dessert
A meal wouldn’t be complete without a little blog dessert. Blog dessert is when you treat a fellow blogger, customer, vendor…etc. to a little free PR. Pick one of your best customers and write about how wonderful they are. Choose a fellow blogger in your industry and highlight one of their posts. Review a product from one of your vendors and give them kudos (if it’s good). A little chocolate can go a long way in fostering good relationships with your most important people.
Tagged as:
Adding variety to blogs,
Blog Strategy,
blogging,
content strategy,
delicious blogs,
developing a content strategy,
spicing up your blog
When was the last time you went to a restaurant and ordered a casserole? Well, if you wouldn’t order it for your table, why do you serve it to your readers?
Blog casserole is what happens when you lack strategy and don’t know what to write… so you just write stuff. It’s not necessarily meaningful or intriguing or even funny – it’s just stuff. It’s blog casserole. The problem with blog casserole is that no one really likes it. Your readers will eat it but they won’t like it, and they may be less likely to return for another meal.
Instead of blog casserole, treat your customers reading your business blog the same way a chef treats his or her customers to delicious food with variety and spice! In our next post, we’ll teach you how to serve up delicious blogs that will keep your readers coming back for more. Until then, I’m afraid you’re going to have to snack on this….
Tagged as:
bad blogs,
blog variety,
blogging,
blogging tips,
Blogs,
Delicious,
funny,
how to write good blogs,
keeping my blog fresh,
Strategy
“I want you to take the leadership position, Kent!” That was the buzzword laden phrase uttered by one of the worst managers ever. We’ll call him Pete. In this situation, Pete wanted Kent to sign up for more work with no additional pay. Kent was about 65 years old and was disgusted by the request. Kent wanted to spend time with his grandchildren, not taking the “leadership position” whatever that meant.
Pete was trying to do the right thing but he was going about it the wrong way. Pete had additional work that needed to get done and he went after the person with the most experience, Kent. Kent, however, did not want to sign up for more hours. He wasn’t climbing the corporate ladder; he was buying time until retirement. Kent just wanted to do his job well, but nothing more. Pete chose the wrong guy.
Are you a “Pete” when it comes to your corporate blog? Have you relegated the blog to the marketing or PR department for content creation? You figure they produce all the advertising and marketing materials, so they should produce blog content too.
Wrong, Pete. Wrong.
Just because an employee is outside the marketing department doesn’t mean they can’t write genuine content. Just because an employee isn’t very social or skilled verbally doesn’t mean that he or she isn’t a skilled surgeon with a keyboard. Here are five unlikely places you may very well find writers for your corporate blog:
- HR. Don’t these folks understand your culture more than any other department? Of course they do. They hire your employees and your employees are your culture.
- Accounting. Don’t underestimate these people. Although the stereotype places them in the nerdy non-social category, you may be very surprised at their ability to write and how smart they are. (little-known-fact… My undergraduate degree is in Accounting and I passed the CPA exam in Chicago in 1998)
- Facilities. Yes, I’m talking about the grounds keepers and the janitorial staff. Just because they are blue-collar workers doesn’t mean they can’t write. If you have a beautiful or unique building or campus, give these folks some cameras and watch the media they produce.
- Procurement. These employees know your vendors better than anyone. Since your vendors may also be reading your blog it might make sense to have a few posts that speak to that very important audience.
- Interns. Interns can bring a wonderful youthful and outsider perspective to your blog. You should help structure their content and should put an editorial review on their writing but you may be surprised as to the content they produce.
So before you pull a Pete, look beyond just the marketing and PR people for your business blog. You may be pleasantly surprised by what you find!
Tagged as:
blogging,
Blogs,
business blogging,
finding blog writers,
marketers,
who should write on a blog,
writing
I often have the privilege of sitting with a business owner as they ponder whether a business blog would be good for their company. You can see the argument play out in their minds, it obviously isn’t something they had to consider while getting a business degree, and the argument always seems to focused around two recurring.
- Is it worth the investment?
- Does a blog make sense for what we do?
To answer the first question you must know what the total investment involves.
Total Investment:
- Money – Blogging is not inexpensive! Yes, I know you can get a blog running for free depending on what you use… but what about the Opportunity cost of using your time to blog? You may want to invest in a business blogging platform. This takes me to the next bullet point.
- Time – Blogs take research, planning, and wise execution. Not to mention getting all the technical bits set up (many hours) and then the ongoing maintenance (more hours and cost). this, on top of everything else you have to do in your business! Exploring the idea of using a blog in your business will call for a whole new set of skills. Search engine optimization, inbound traffic best practices, blogging best practices, blog marketing, blog management…you get the point.
Now issue number 2, “Does a blog make sense for what we do?”, I always answer this with another question. “Is communication vital to the growth and success of you business?” If you answered yes, then a blog could be a game-changing tool for your business.
Tagged as:
blog marketing,
blogging for business,
blogging platform,
business blog,
business blogging,
business blogging platform,
does blogging make sense,
does blogging pay?,
is blogging cheap?,
is blogging expensive?,
Search Engine Optimization,
should I blog?
Collaborative blogging has it’s origins in Higher Education. Colleges were the first ones to really understand the power of involving multiple contributors (ie students) into a single collaborative blog. They were also the first ones to experience the pain of managing all these contributors manually!
Fast forward a few years and companies are now starting to catch up and look seriously at implementing collaborative blogs which involve not just the marketing guy, but many people throughout their organization. Enabling this transition to collaborative blogging are the higher-end business blogging platforms, such as our own InnoBlogs platform.
One of our favorite partners is Mike Brown, CEO at Brainzooming – a innovative business consulting firm. In fact we have two InnoBlogs implementations in process right now – both of which are in conjunction with Brainzooming.
Mike wrote a blog post today with Seven Tips for delivering better stories with Collaborative blogs. It’s great info and well worth the read. It does a nice compare & contrast with single author vs. multi author blogs. Hop on over to Mike’s blog to check it out.
Tagged as:
brainzooming,
business blogging,
collaborative blogging,
InnoGage Partner,
Mike Brown,
tips for collaborative blogging
You may have heard that Google changed it’s algorithm lately. What you may not realize is Google changes its algorithm all the time. Some estimates put the changes / tweaks at close to 500 per year.
What made this recent change significant was that 1) it was huge, affecting about 12% of US search queries and 2) it went after a specific group of people.
The people that Google went after were those who scrape content from other people sites (also called Farming content) and then publish it on their own sites, thus in essence stealing other people’s Google juice. This is why the algorithmic change was nicknamed “The Farmer”.
What this means for you and your blog is simple…
Be original.
Do not steal content, do not farm content, do not scrape content. Just write your own blog content.
If you do find an exceptionally good blog post (like this one… ha!) and would like to cover it in your own blog, the best way to do that is to write up your own brief summary and then send a nice friendly inbound link to my post as the original information and tell your readers to stop by my place for more info.
If you are creating good, original content for your business blog then The Farmer is definitely on your side!
Tagged as:
Blogging and Google Algorithm,
business blog,
Google Algorithm Change,
SEM,
sem blogging,
SEO,
SEO Blogging,
The Farmer,
The Farmer and Blogs
I traded emails with a woman recently who runs one of the best (manual) collaborative blogs I have seen. They have 6-7 content authors and their blogs are timely and relevant. That is no small undertaking when you are using a free blog product and the vast majority of businesses can’t sustain that long term.
The main problem I saw with their blog was that it was not set up to convert readers to customers. It was just pushing info. When I reached out to her, she said that they were in the middle of fixing their website as it was not converting either, and to follow up in about a year as they could not justify spending any money on the blog while fixing the website.
Although I certainly sympathize with cashflow, I see another problem here – how the blog was viewed. Even though I told her of the ability to generate HUNDREDS OF PERCENT return on investment with InnoBlogs through search engine optimization and customer conversion, she still saw the blog only as as cost.
In the accounting world, this is known as “cost center” versus a “profit center”. Cost centers produce expense and Profit centers produce revenues. Naturally, cost centers are typically viewed as a necessary evil and profit centers are the Prima Donnas of many organizations.
Do you have a corporate blog in your digital marketing mix? Is it a cost center or a profit center? If it’s a cost center, what can you do to make it a profit center?
Tagged as:
blogging,
blogging for profit,
Blogs,
business blogging,
corporate blog,
corporate blogging,
marketing mix,
Search Engine Optimization,
sem blogging,
strategic blogging
I remember a guy in high school, we’ll call him “B” for simplicity (and anonymity).
B had two passions: basketball and academics – and he was excellent at both. There was, however, something about him that really bothered me. When B was with his basketball buddies he talked “street” and sounded very much like a rapper. He would then turn around and immediately speak to one of his other friends in perfect non-accent English as if he just stepped through the doors of Firestone Library at Princeton University.
Now I don’t really care what you sound like – whether you have an accent, lisp, impediment… whatever – as long as I know who I’m talking to. With B, I never really quite knew who he was – and I think he lost credibility with everyone by trying to hard to “fit in”.
What’s the Corporate Blogging lesson here?
Don’t try to be all things to all people – be yourself. Be the Brand
Now this isn’t so hard if you’re a solo blogger like my friends Chris Brogan and Jason Falls. However, if you employ a collaborative corporate blog, with multiple contributors, it gets a little harder.
Here are 3 things you can do to empower your employees to Be the Brand
1. Align
If you don’t practice what you preach, you will never Be the Brand. Exec management must set the example by their actions which will then ripple down throughout the organization.
2. Communicate
Let your customers know what your Brand is and then consistently deliver that Brand promise. Ensure your employees know what your Brand stands for and how they can embrace and embody it. Tell the world and live it out every day.
3. Empower
Your company’s brand should permeate your company culture. Select employees who can communicate well and who embody your brand and give them a chance to represent you through a collaborative blog. Be sure you let them be real. If you have done your job well Aligning and Communicating then genuine “Be the Brand” content will naturally follow.
Tagged as:
be the brand,
blogging and branding,
brand building,
Branding,
business blogging,
corporate blogging tips
