Many companies recognize the potential value of blogging, but struggle to organize their thoughts and the actual writing of the blog. Subsequently, the blog simply doesn't happen. Yet, according to the Business.com 2009 B2B Social Media Marketing Study, 74% of companies surveyed maintain one or more blogs. What are all these companies blogging about? And, how do they manage it?
When I look at companies or sites who are blogging regularly and considered leaders in their industry, I've learned the following:
1. Empower Your Employees - Encourage your employees to blog and share their insights, their smarts, their personalities. Invite employees from different business groups to write about what's going on the industry. They will have unique perspectives given the groups they represent (i.e., marketing, sales, engineering, R&D, support). Their perspectives will be interesting to your current and prospective customers.
2. Share Your Policy - Many companies will be concerned with giving their employees a public voice. This is where establishing a policy will alleviate many concerns. The policy is basical the rules of engagement for your employees...and for your customers. It should provide guidance to your employees about what is acceptable or unacceptable blogging behavior. By sharing your policy publically, your customers will know what to expect when engaging with your blogs. Here are some examples from HP, IBM, SAP and Intel. My thanks to the high tech community for being so open about their policies!
3. Enable Comments - Invite and encourage readers to comment! Comments are what make blogs interactive. They enable the conversation. They provide you, the company, with honest, candid, immediate feedback. It may be supportive, discouraging, antagonistic or enthusiastic. Aside from concerns about foul language, do not disable comments for fear of negative comments. Common sense must be employed to determine the best approach to addressing negativity, but that negativity can have positive results.
4. Invite Guest Contributors - Every industry has its pundits. They exist in the form of analysts, columnists, technologists and executives. Inviting these thought leaders to contribute to your blog can bring a new perspective to a hot topic, insight to emerging trends and clarity to industry debates. Your alignment (or lack thereof) with these pundits may attract new readers to your blog.
5. Establish an Editorial Calendar - Creating a plan can simplify the effort associated with managing and writing blogs. While it is often useful to allow the blog to just "happen" in response to industry trends or to incite new discussion, it is also beneficial for it to reinforce annoucnements or events. Laying out the calendar will help define the need for content or resources, and give you time to fill that need.
6. Be Interesting - This is most important. Think about what you would want to read. What kind of information are you seeking that only a blog can fulfill? A blog is not a product or press release, allow your personality to shine through. As always when thinking social, be transparent and authentic.
What companies or blogs did I check out when thinking about this blog? After 25 years in high tech, I follow blogs from the companies referenced above. However, I also check in with Marriott, Nike, and Whole Foods. With my focus in digital/social media, I read streamingmedia.com, Mashable, Social Media Today, Smart Blog on Social Media and more.
Does your company blog? What's your blogging experience? I'd love to hear the good and the bad!
What's your perspective?