Corporate blogging best practices
The Society for New Communications Research solicited capsule summaries of corporate blogging best practices offered by some of its members, who are among the top social media consultants in the US.
Coporate Blogging assumes a huge significance as it involves a real time communication with your prospects. A blog is the first line of communication with your customers and very few brands have successfully managed to use blogs as the means to reach out to users and re-inforce brand image. Here are some gems from Industry experts who speaks on corporate blogging best practices
Shel Israel
Author, Twitterville, co-author, Naked Conversations
Humanize: Remember that one fundamental reason for blogging is the humanization of the corporation. Be a real person when you blog. Show yourself doing a job that you have some passion for. Show your fallibility and, above all, do not fall into the trap of mediocrity, where so many corporate blogs wind up.
Serve your reader more than your employer: This is a success strategy. The more generous you are to your readers, the more influential you will be. Send people away from your site through links to competitors when appropriate. You may lose the sale, but in the long run you will gain a loyal customer.
Join conversations before you start new ones: People are already talking about the issues they care the most about. Read what they have to say and add value to the existing conversation. Then when you start a new conversation, you will already have credibility and trust. If you try to initiate a conversation and people don’t know who you are or where you are coming from, then they will either ignore you or mistrust you.
John Cass
Author, Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging
Participation:Corporate blogging is not just about the content on your site, it’s also about participating in conversations on other blogs. Respond to comments on your blog, and also comment on other blogs. These conversations can be just as important as building relationships with people on your own site and establishing your reputation in your community.
Tracking conversations: Tracking conversations on other blogs is one of the most difficult aspects of blogging. Fortunately there are now technologies that enable you to track conversations. These include coComment, delicious, Co.mments and Commentful.
Personalization: Personalization is important in writing a blog, as blogs provide employees the chance to break down some of the barriers that exist between customers and companies. The informal style of writing that is possible in a blog can help reach customers who would not pay attention to a company’s statements otherwise.
Debbie Weil
Social media consultant, Author, The Corporate Blogging Book
Use it or lose It: If you’ve got a corporate blog, use it! Case in point, after a whopper winter storm Jet Blue had hundreds of angry customers camping out at JFK airport and trapped inside planes on the tarmac. Instead of posting a sincere “I’m sorry” to his corporate blog, CEO David Neeleman said nothing. He did speak to the press and was quoted widely, but his blog hadn’t been updated in weeks.
Just do it: Don’t put blogging on your list of to-do’s. C’mon guys. It takes hours not months — to create a blog. Start internally to give yourself time to develop a credible, compelling blogging voice. Round up a multi-author team of bloggers. In other words, use a “Leap, Then Look” strategy to get started.
Don’t obsess over your ROB (Return on Blogging): Although you can use proxies to measure the ROI of a corporate blog in dollars, the reality is that a corporate blog is still a soft marketing strategy. It’s many things: a direct, real-time conduit to customers, a conversation with customers, a brand enhancer (if you execute well), a way to improve search engine rankings, a way to get media attention, etc. These will ultimately translate to the bottom line even if there isn’t an exact calculation.”
Read more Corporate best best practices by social media experts in the original posts
