A digital colleague of mine is giving a presentation on blogging strategies in the coming weeks. His point, at least one of them, is blogging as a personal branding exercise for the professional service provider. No doubt this is a perfectly valid strategy for starting a blog if you're a business owner. Actually, it's a perfectly valid reason to start a blog whatever your profession - teacher, doctor, attorney or clergy. But starting a blog for personal branding isn't the only strategy for blogging if you're living your business social. There are several more:
Talking Points Memo: Besides being an outstanding example of online journalism, TPM's creator, Josh Marshall, isn't full of himself and understands his readers are probably far smarter than he is. He uses crowdsourcing to solicit news tips from readers and even gives them assignments to sift through government documents.
Strategy: Hire a journalist who know your industry and begin reporting on it. In conjunction with that, understand your readers may know more than you do. Engage, energize and empower them to help you.
The Huffington Post: Like TPM, this is a journalistic approach too. The difference is where TPM tips toward objective reportage, HuffPo publishes consistently thoughtful commentary, providing inside scoops and ample links to outside news sources so readers can run down stories for themselves.
Strategy: Move beyond straight reportage of an industry to commentary and thought pieces that give readers (whoever you serve) more than just the news. In this strategy, you may be more controversial, but always be fair. Finally, in this strategy you want to link liberally, creating authority for your content in search engines and give resources for your readers to check out. This strategy also employs a small army of dedicated bloggers. These could be your employees.
Lifehacker: This blog helps us learn how to do more with less, especially after the Great Recession of 08, 09 and arguably 2010 too. From brewing the best possible coffee with out spending more money, to improving your resume, there's a lot that Lifehacker offers. According to Time Magazine, "Lifehacker is especially good on getting the most out of your digital devices; one of last year's most popular posts was 'How to Turn Your iPod Touch into an iPhone'."
Zen Habits: While Lifehacker is a great example of an effective blog strategy, so is Zen Habits. The later "offers simple ways to be more productive." Using advice from Zen, I've increased my morning productivity.
Strategy: Offer your readers outstanding "How-to" advice and useful "tips" that make their lives easier, more enjoyable, and lived better.
Not all blogging strategies fit every organization, but moving from the "it's-all-about-me" to a "let's-help-our-customers" approach will pay bigger dividends later. This brings me to a point I read not long ago. In The e-Marketer Blog, Tobi Elkin got one of those gold-nugget quotes that sidelines on prophetic from Peter Pitts, former Associate Commissioner for External Relations at the FDA. While his was directing to Pharma marketing professionals, the advice is apropos to all of us. Said Pitts, "[Pharma marketers] need to ask whether their social media program is good for marketing and good for public health. If they can't answer yes, then they shouldn't be doing it." .
If you're not a pharma marketer, ask yourself this question: Is your social media program good for marketing and the people you serve. If you can't answer "yes" to that, you shouldn't be doing it.
