Consider this to be your quick and painless guide to starting a corporate blog both effectively and practically.

1 – Begin by defining your purpose.

This may sound obvious, but many bloggers do not think of their editorial purpose until well into the life of their blog. Exploring social media simply is not reason enough to start a corporate blog. You need a concept that is better defined. Rather than just saying that your blog’s intention is to engage your customers, you want to have a polished editorial purpose, like “Share inside information about the day to day operations within our company in order to better enrich the experience of our customers, engaging them in a dialogue with our business.” This may be a wordy way to put things, but it gives you a real solid idea of what it is that you are trying to accomplish with your blog. This way, if you ever find yourself wondering why you started this project in the first place, your editorial purpose can serve as an excellent reminder. “Oh, right, my goal was to reach out to my customers and share something of myself in the process.”

2 – Determine who responsibility will be given to, next.

Most people do not consider this, despite the fact that it is fairly obvious as part of a practical start up guide for corporate blogging. If you are smart, you will form a team of hardworking individuals that will work on the blog, or at least that will collaborate to come up with good subjects and topics for the blog. However, no matter how many people you have working on your corporate blog, you do need to have one single person in charge who can say yes or no to an idea or a blog post. Having a group is an excellent tool when putting a blog together, but someone absolutely needs to be in charge, otherwise you may have difficulty actually getting things on the page.

3 – Determine who your writers are going to be.

Sure, by now you have a social media manager who is in charge of the final say, but he or she should not be the only writer or the only person in charge of coming up with the content ideas. Depending on the size of your company and its scope, there are probably different departments within; each with a different area of focus. Because your audience is probably interested in all of these different areas, it would benefit your company and your corporate blog to have bloggers from different disciplines. Develop a list of capable writers, and then have each of them agree to writing a little bit every month on a variety of different subject matters in order to get the most out of your corporate blog. Then you can space these assignments out and post their blogs throughout the month easily.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-12-30 05:58:19. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Although corporate blogging can be a powerful tool, there is a time when it can get pretty dicey. Without proper management, a blog can be a disaster that can end up ruining your corporate image. Let’s take a look at three examples of the good, bad and ugly in the world of corporate blogging.

The Good

A good corporate blog finds the balance between being personable and professional. This is a juggling act, but when it’s done right, the result is a successful blog that builds a solid relationship with the public. The best example of a good corporate blog is Sun Microsystems. They’ve allowed their employees as well as management to post blogs on anything under the sun and the result has been terrific in the blogging community. Readers feel connected with the company and they can now put faces with a big corporation. This company has long been a leader in the corporate blogging world and they are a very good example to emulate.

The Bad

Walmart is a terrific example of corporate blogging gone bad. They set up a blog that was supposed to be written by a couple that was traveling the US in an RV and staying at Walmarts. The only thing that was not mentioned was that Walmart was sponsoring this as a corporate blog – not as a personal endeavor as the creators originally claimed. The blogosphere soon found out and the result was scorn. This did not do Walmart’s image any favors and they quickly retired the blog in question and have not made any new overtures.

A lot can be learned from this debacle. Never try to masquerade a corporate blog as anything but a corporate blog. It will backfire.

The Ugly

Earthlink’s blog is perhaps the most notorious. The company already has customer service issues and a lot of ill will already. When they debuted the blog, they were opening themselves up to a whole new host of problems. First, they didn’t allow comments, then they did, then they didn’t and the cycle continued. The posts ended up addressing constant controversy instead of addressing any key issues for the company. They simply could not surmount these obstacles and the blog was eventually cancelled.

For this lesson – make a decision and stick to it. Otherwise you look wishy washy. If you have trouble with customer service, a blog may not be the best idea. Don’t open your company up to problems right off the bat if you are concerned that the blog will turn into a public bashing forum for your company. This was a bad decision on the part of Earthlink and one that they undoubtedly regretted. Instead of fixing their image, they ended up reinforcing bad publicity.

The best way to ensure that your corporate blog joins the ranks of The Good in blogging is to work with a management company that can help you navigate the treacherous waters of blogging. With their help, you can avoid falling into The Bad or The Ugly categories.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-08-08 05:16:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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As corporate blogging maintains a stronger foothold on in many industries, companies are seeking ways to take their efforts to the next level. If you’re interested in growing  your blog’s audience and you want to engage your readers, you may want to consider trying a technique known as live blogging.

This is best illustrated by the activity that surrounds an upcoming launch and the subsequent blitz of a new Apple product. Weeks, if not months, before Apple releases something new, bloggers go to work talking about it, building up buzz and creating a frenzy. Then, as the day of the release gets closer, they kick it up a notch and get prepared. On launch day, many bloggers will be present in the audience and they will be blogging live about what is happening, in real time.

These blogs are always interesting to read, because they have that real time element and the excitement is palpable. You may not be Apple, but there are ways that you can use live corporate blogging to enhance your company, engage your readers and build up momentum to promote your new products.

The first step is to plan out an actual campaign for your live blogging efforts. Take the time to read through other live blogging events and their aftermath. You can learn a lot by taking the time to learn about any mistakes that were made, and how you can utilize the same exact tips in your business. You’ll also need to plan a big event, one that will interest your visitors and is large enough to generate buzz.

For example, a launch that covers a new type of dental floss may not be very exciting. However, a launch about a new type of dental floss that can dramatically reduce tooth decay without brushing would be. You’ve got to find that interesting angle, and then work to figure out how you’re going to push it.

A live blogging event will require some extra equipment. At the very least, you’ll need a laptop or a Blackberry. You’ll have to be connected to the internet and be able to post to your blog from your location. Once you have this in place, you can set up either a regular schedule to keep your readers updated, or you can do it as it happens.

Live blogging is exciting and these techniques can be used for virtually any corporate blog. The key is finding that angle, building up that buzz and following through. If you can do that, you’ll be able to hold a successful live blogging event. It’s a good idea to chronicle your efforts as you go through this process. This will help you plan out future launches and live corporate blogging events that will build on the success of your first one.

Try implementing these techniques the next time you have a new product or service coming out. Chances are, your readers will get swept away and you’ll notice a dramatic increase in site visitors and buyers.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-12-03 05:57:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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(ie: should blog design match main site design?)

There are a lot of different considerations that need to be made when you are taking the initial steps to set up your corporate blog. For example, one of the first considerations that you should make is whether design integration is or is not important for your corporate blog. Should your blog design have the same design as your main site, or is there room for some creative license when setting up a site that is meant to be companion to your main site, but not necessarily part of the same website? The truth here is that either option is viable, as long as you are achieving what you intend to when designing the look and feel of your blog in its early stages on your website.

If your website has a distinct design that is classic and simple, then implementing it both on your main site and your blog site will add seamlessness for easy maneuverability, which is something that your readers will appreciate. As long as they can differentiate between the main website and the blog as they move from one to the other, there should be no underlying issues in creating a seamless design that remains the same from page to page. Because so many WordPress blog templates are designed to allow for extra pages, some corporate bloggers build the blog to spec and then add their main site around it, creating an entire blog and website combination from a single blog template. This is not the only option available to you however, so you should not feel locked into it.

On the other hand, as long as you keep a similar theme in place, there is no reason why you cannot create a website design and a blog site design that are unique to one another. If your website has a set of colors and a main graphical theme that is completely unique to your blog, you may be going for something a little too unique. However, design integration when it comes to hooking a blog and a website together does not mean using the exact same template twice – You can create an acceptable level of design integration simply by using the same images, the same basic color scheme or just a similar layout design. These small details will add up to show your readers that they are still on the same website while still making it easy for them to differentiate between your blog and your website, which can sometimes be beneficial to them.

The design details are ultimately up to you as you put your corporate blog together. What you should be aware of is the fact that both of these options have merit, and you can always add and change elements as you go to suit your style and to respond to comments from your readers. Your corporate blog and website do not have to have the same exact design implemented into both, but seamlessness can be nice when showing readers that the two sites have the same common goal.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-11-06 05:59:20. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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One of the best ways to raise morale is through an internal newspaper that keeps employees appraised on what is going on with the company. They foster a sense of belonging, especially if you cover employee birthdays, events and special happenings within the office. However, if your resources are a bit strapped, you may not have the time to put together a special publication. Print costs are not cheap, and it can be quite time intensive to publish a newspaper each month.

In order to get the benefits that a company newspaper can bring, without the downsides, you can begin to use your corporate blog to fill this position. By including your employees in your blog’s news, they will feel more a part of the company and they will want to share the posts with their friends. Everyone likes feeling like a star, and a blog is a great way to share news, promote friendly competition among employees and keep everyone updated.

Before you jump in and start making your corporate blog into an internal newspaper, there are a few things that you should remember:

1. Ask before using last names.

A lot of people prefer not to have their full names splashed all over the internet. You may not realize it, but if other sites are including your RSS feed, your posts are appearing all over the internet. Always ask permission to use an employee’s last name, or err on the side of caution and use first names only, or their first name and last initial. They will know who you are talking about, but your readers won’t. In today’s environment of identity theft and cyber stalking, last names should be avoided.

2. Always remain professional.

Sure, it’s a fun company newspaper, but the general public will have access to it. Unless you are going to password protect the posts for your internal news, you will need to keep that veneer of professionalism up at all times. It’s one thing to be lighthearted and fun, it’s quite another to veer towards being unprofessional. If something has the potential to be spun in a way that is negative towards your company, don’t publish it.

3. Be wary of posting photographs.

A lot of companies like to use photographs on their blogs to let the public know that there are real people working for the company. This is terrific, but you should always remember point one above. Never use last names to identify people in a photo. The public doesn’t really need full disclosure, they’ll be able to see the real people – they don’t need their names. Again, with the threats to people’s safety, it is best to err on the side of caution.

These are just a few things to remember before adding this option to your corporate blog. Remember, if you don’t want the public to know something about your company – don’t write it! Always keep the fact that news can be twisted in front of you while you are writing your blog.

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Originally posted 2008-08-26 05:40:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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In this day and age, the hottest media and the hottest method for communicating with customers, employees, business partners and competitors are through corporate blogging. If you create a corporate blog for your business, and you follow some basic strategies for improving communication through this popular online media, you will make waves not only in your company, but in your industry, and the entire market as well. More and more companies and corporations are turning to blogging as a means of communicating within the industry. Do you want to start corporate blogging now, while there is still time to make waves, or do you want to wait until you’re stranded with the old forms of communication, when your competitors are reaching out to your customers via their corporate blog?

Face the facts:

If you want to improve communication in your company, you need to start blogging. Corporate blogging will allow you to create new lines of communication between employees, business partners, customers and company and competitors as well. By creating a corporate blog at this point, you are simply opening your company up to the same lines of communication that other companies, possibly within your industry, are already utilizing to reach out to new customers and target markets.

The level of communication that you can create by corporate blogging is better than every other form of communication available between businesses and their customers. If you do not already have a corporate blog, or if you have a corporate blog but you are not properly utilizing it, then you need to make a change right now. If you do not have time to write in a corporate blog as the owner of a company, you need to find someone who can keep up with your corporate blog for you. There are plenty of corporate communication consultants and professional bloggers out there that are more than capable of writing a corporate blog for you. The best corporate blog is one that is written by the company itself, but if you cannot find a way to maintain your own corporate blog, you need to seek help rather than scrapping the idea all together.

Corporate blogging opens up new lines of communication between everyone that your business could ever come in contact with. If you want to create new ways for your customers to reach out to your company, or for your employees to communicate with you and within the business, then you need to create a corporate blog. Once you understand how a corporate blog works and how it can benefit you, you will better understand the importance behind keeping a blog for your company. Try it out for a couple of weeks, open up new lines of corporate communication, and then make the decision of whether you want to keep it up on your own or hire in a corporate communication consultant that can help you get the job done.

Photo Credit: 1

Originally posted 2008-12-19 05:19:45. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Right now, one of the best ways to reach out to your customer base and increase brand recognition is through the use of a corporate blog. However, many companies aren’t sure where they should start and how they can take advantage of this trend. Here are some tips that make corporate blogging easy for any size company.

1. Plan your blog’s path out in advance.

It’s not enough just to create a blog, throw up a few posts and hope it will work. You will need to come up with a clear plan on what you plan to talk about with your blog, how often you will post and a general list of topics that you want to cover. By taking care of this in advance, you’ll be able to avoid a lot of the common pitfalls that make corporate blogs fail.

2. Design your blog to match your corporate site.

This sounds like a given, but it is actually a very common error. If you’re working on branding, you need to create that factor of instant recognition. By integrating your blog’s design into your site design you will be able to easily create that recognition. Many companies try to get crazy with wild themes or simply fail to have any sort of visual link between their blogs and their sites. This is a mistake that can be easily avoided.

3. Use an RSS management system.

Most blogs will have an RSS feed that will allow readers to receive instant updates whenever you publish new content. There are numerous services out there, such as Feedburner, that take this to a whole new level, providing you with tracking, format management and many other features. You can use these statistics to help shape your blog by finding out which posts are the most popular, which ones don’t receive much traffic as well as your overall readership. Pageviews aren’t enough when you’re trying to see if your blog is successful. You need to have that extra information at your fingertips.

4. Use a platform that is conducive to easy and frequent blogging.

If you are using blogging software that is complicated chances are you won’t want to post on a frequent basis. Likewise, you don’t want to have to spend a lot of time training your blogger to use the system. Go with an application that allows a simple type and post action to make it easier.

5. You’ve got to promote your blog.

If you don’t spend the time promoting your new blog, you may as well not have one. Take the time to use social networking sites and other avenues to build your blog readership.

A blog management company can help you accomplish all of these tasks and many more. Busy company owners find that having this kind of help makes corporate blogging incredibly easy and more successful. You will be able to leverage their experience and expertise to create a stellar blog that gets read.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-06-25 05:36:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Do you know what qualities your corporate blog should incorporate in order to get the most out of it? Do you know what people are looking at when they determine whether or not they want to keep reading a specific business blog? The following is a look at some of the most important positive qualifies for a corporate blog to display.

- Corporate blogs must be accountable, so the author needs to be willing to own the commentary that he or she makes. Corporate blogs also need to be believable, in order to gain the trust of its visitors and frequent readers.

- Corporate blogs should be enthusiastic, and only enthusiastic bloggers should be allowed to represent the company behind the blog. Corporate blogs are direct and candid, so they should take on the heartfelt voice of whoever is writing them, and their messages need to be direct and to the point.

- Corporate blogs must be search engine friendly. This means they must increase your search engine visibility. They should also be flexible and versatile in what you offer. Use them internally, use them externally, use them for customers and employees, and use them for as many different purposes as you can come up with to get the most out of them.

- Corporate blogs should be up to date, informative and knowledgeable. They should be more “happening” than the website they belong to, and they should keep everyone reading apprised of new products and services, happenings within the company and other important information.

- Corporate blogs should be easy to read and completely free of jargon. They are not the place for corporate speaking, but rather should be easy to read and understand, because you do not know who is reading, and you want to appeal to everyone.

- Corporate blogs should be operational and manageable in all facets of their operation. They are more than simple communication tools, but can serve a variety of operational roles. They should also be easy to manage on the technical side, which is what blogging is intended to be all about in the first place: Reducing the technical side associated with publishing on the web.

- Corporate blogs should have a purpose. Don’t figure your purpose out as you go, but start with a solid purpose and run with it. If you change directions later, that’s your prerogative, but don’t do any corporate blogging without a clear focus to begin with.

- Corporate blogging content should be reusable. Expand on blog posts and create articles for syndication online. Grow your web presence with series blog posts. Include blog posts in your corporate newsletter, or compile them into a book that your customers can acquire from your company for added usefulness.

If your corporate blog follows all of these basic principles, then you have a winner, and your readers will recognize this.

Photo Credit: 1

Originally posted 2008-12-22 05:26:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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If you are on the fence about starting your own corporate blog, this is a great book to read to help you make your decision. The subtitle is “The Truth About Business Blogs” and that pretty much says it all. For those that don’t have time to go through stories that meander and they just want to get to the heart of the matter, this is the perfect book. It’s hard hitting, logical and presents a clear case as to why you should and why you shouldn’t have a corporate blog

The author did a great job of defining what a corporate blog can and cannot do. This is a great way to learn more about how high you should set your expectations for your blog. If you have pie in the sky ideals, they may be shot to pieces, but at least you won’t waste your time approaching your blog from the wrong angle. The book covers pretty much everything you could ever want to know about business blogging, from the tools you’ll need, to what you can really expect your blog to accomplish for your company.

Although the author uses a healthy dose of skepticism, he also provides some tips that you can really use. For example, he covers the fact that topical blogs are usually much more effective and popular than blogs that simply discuss company business. For those that are still unsure of what blogging is or why you should be doing it, the advice is very clear cut and easy to understand. You can go from a complete blog newbie to a pro just by reading this book.

The book covers what you will want to avoid with your blog as well, especially when it comes to presenting a professional appearance. There are plenty of tips contained within the pages of the book to get you started out on the right path. Although the title would indicate that the author is anti-business blogging, the opposite is actually true. He just seems to want to bring a dose of realism into the world of corporate blogging and help site owners achieve their goals the right way.

You can follow along as a blog is started from scratch, learning all the way about what you should and should not do. This was a great way to present the information that business owners really need to know and this section alone was worth the cost of the book.

Overall, we highly recommend this book to anyone that has considered starting their own corporate blog. You’ll be able to learn quite a bit about the entire process as well as learning some specific mistakes that you should not make with your own blog. We appreciated the way the author presented the information and found it to be a very quick read that was well targeted to the main audience for this book. If you don’t have a lot of time, this is the perfect book to read before you get started on your corporate blog.

Originally posted 2008-09-05 05:13:27. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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When you first start your corporate blog, it can be easy to get caught up in the excitement. After a few on target posts, you may find yourself wandering and it can be difficult to find that balance of posting interesting content and keeping with your original plan. Here are some tips to help you stay focused on your corporate blogging adventure.

1. Set out a roadmap, complete with sidestreets.

You can stay 100% on topic all of the time or your blog would be pretty boring. When you’re figuring out the basics of what you will be talking about on your blog, find relevant secondary topics that still tie into what you do but are a little bit more fun. You can then allow yourself to go down these sidestreets, and you won’t have to worry that you’ll be going off track. In essence, you’re staying on topic, even if it doesn’t feel like it, since you’ve already worked out what will be acceptable to discuss on your blog.

2. Allow yourself one fun post a week.

You can’t be serious all the time and your readers won’t appreciate overly somber posts. Try to allow yourself one to kick back and have fun. This is a good time to post a top ten list or something that is engaging, fun and shows your company in a good light. By giving yourself one free day a week where you can express yourself in a different way, you’re cutting back on the risk that you’ll want to do this all the time.

In addition, your readers will learn to really appreciate this fun day and you may even find that your traffic spike on these days. As you post fun topics like this, you’ll also have a better chance of getting your site on Digg, or other social bookmarking sites. The readers that frequent these sites are notorious for their love of top ten lists and you can explode your traffic if you happen to get one of your posts included. By getting a little funny, you can really increase your chances of having this happen.

3. Utilize polls and other features to keep your reader’s engaged.

If you’re posting the same thing day after day, it is all too easy to lose your focus. Try adding fun elements, such as a polls, that encourage reader participation. You can actually learn a lot about your customers and your readers by trying this. Try to do this at least once a week as well.

These are just a few ideas of how to stay focused on your corporate blog. A blog management company will be able to help you with your needs and can make it easier to produce a blog that is not only fun and engaging but gets your message across the way you need it to be portrayed. They are very useful, especially if you are completely new to blogging in general.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-08-05 05:01:44. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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