So you’re thinking of setting up a business blog. The first logical move is to formulate a coherent plan that will ensure your blog achieves its goals. Here are a few steps to developing a successful business blog strategy:
1. Determine the objective
The first question to ask is ‘what do I want my blog to do?’ If it’s a B2B blog, the objective might be to establish thought leadership in a specific market and/or generate leads. If it’s B2C, it might be to drive Facebook content and fans, drive brand engagement and positive sentiment.
2. Create a plan
Once you know what the blog is to achieve, work backwards on a plan to create the content and functionality needed to deliver it. This should include elements like an editorial plan (we recommend defining a focused topic for your blog, keeping in mind its purpose and ultimate goals), social media and visitor traffic targets, engagement and moderation rules.
3. Consider your resources
Delivering high quality, frequent blog copy is not easy and relying on busy executives as the sole source of content is not a sustainable option in many cases. We advocate appointing a dedicated blog editor, with experience in your sector working to a tight brief.
4. Hosting and design
Next, choose where the blog will be hosted – you need capacity for when that story goes viral and traffic spikes. For us, and the majority of the world’s bloggers, WordPress is the best blogging platform, though Blogger and Tumblr are used by many too.
Design is an important element of any business blog, and should reflect and complement corporate branding. Needless to say, a successful web design and presence are fundamental before launching into blogging for business.
5. Leverage with social and SEO
One of the most obvious purposes of corporate blogging is to improve the visibility of your company. If all goes to plan, your blog will drive a large proportion of the visits to your company website. Leverage the blogosphere and search engines to improve your brand’s online presence. Consider which social media buttons to add to your blog, and how to SEO optimise the content.
6. Keep it going
Once you’ve started creating blogs, remember to build momentum and think beyond individual posts towards series of posts. The most credible and popular blogs push out important, unmissable content regularly.
A final bit of advice: while it is vital to have business objectives firmly in place, avoid letting your blog become too strategic or measured.
The holy trinity of corporate blogging are content, momentum and passion. A human voice and great storytelling will always triumph.
Featured image: GotCredit/flickr cc
