Once you’re ready to set up your own corporate blog, you’ll need to figure out what your audience is since this will determine how you write your blog. If you already have a set group of customers that you feel will be reading your blog, you’re already pretty much set. However, if you want to reach out to a new audience, there are a few things that you will have to do first.

1. What is your demographic?

This is actually quite important when it comes to writing your blog. A younger crowd is going to want to see a blog that is more fun and integrated with social networking features, while an older crowd may feel more comfortable with a more staid blog. It will really depend, but these are some wide guidelines to help you. If you don’t know your demographic, it’s best to shoot for the middle of the road when it comes to style and the types of features that you offer on your blog.

2. How do you plan to find new readers?

Once you know your demographic, this will determine how you go about attracting new readers to your blog. For those under 35, promoting your blog on social bookmarking sites such as Digg will deliver your audience to you. However, these readers are very savvy and don’t appreciate over commercialized posts. You’ll need to learn how to walk that fine line between that and getting your message across.

Other readers can be reached through a PPC ad campaign targeting keywords that are well suited to your blog. This is a little expensive and most companies prefer not to have to spend money to promote their blog, but this is a good method. A secondary choice would be to release a press release detailing what your new blog will be doing.

3. The third option is just to let your readers discover you through search engines.

This will take the longest amount of time when it comes to building up your readership and it is a bit hit or miss. You’ll need to be very patient if you’re trying to grow your blog using only this method and you may never have the results you’re looking for.

The best bet is to combine all of these marketing tools into one to help you target your key audience. Once you’ve done that, word of mount will help you continue to grow your blog. Remember that you’ll need to keep writing compelling content if you want your audience to stick with you. A blog management company can assist you in writing posts that will get attention and they are also very useful when it comes to promoting your blog and handling the every day tasks that are associated with it. If you don’t have a lot of time to devote to building your blog’s audience, this is a very good solution that works well for most companies, big or small.

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Originally posted 2008-07-10 05:05:50. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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One of the main problems facing corporate bloggers is that they do not treat their blogs like a business, and they may not take them seriously enough. There are fortunes to be made in the blogosphere, but many companies will fail to stake their claim, simply because they don’t spend enough time learning the business of blogging. If you want to get in there and dominate your niche, establish your company as the leading authority and get the edge over your competitors, it’s time to take a serious look at corporate blogging.

In order to treat your blog like a business, it is important to get the right mindset first. Many make the mistake of looking at a blog as a novelty, or as a waste of time. However, when used correctly, a corporate blog is anything but that. It is a powerful medium that can be leveraged in dozens of different ways, but only when done correctly. Here are some tips to help you turn your corporate blog into a business and a successful one at that.

1. Develop a cohesive strategy.

In order for your corporate blog to succeed, you’ve got to have a strategy in place for implementation and growth. If necessary, write up a plan that details your goals, and how you plan to achieve them.

2. Do your research.

If you’re jumping into corporate blogging without a modicum of information on best practices, techniques and in general, knowing how to use it to the best of its abilities, you are doing your company a grave disservice. Read books on corporate blogging, stay on top of the latest news in the industry and read the successful corporate blogs to get ideas of what you need to be doing.

3. Set aside an advertising budget.

In order for any company to grow, it’s got to have advertising, and a corporate blog is no different. Even if you have limited funds to devote to this project, with smart spending you can develop an ad campaign that will get the job done. Even small press releases can be incredibly effective and can drive free traffic to your blog.

4. Plant your seeds and tend them to make them grow.

A business needs a good start, and it needs to be tended, just like a plant, if you want it to grow. If you’re putting your corporate blog in rocky soil, and then leaving it to die, you’ll never be able to harvest the reward. Instead, prepare the ground first by testing the waters and implementing the tips above. Keep feeding your business with advertising and new content.

Once you start a corporate blog, you’ve got to be committed to helping it grow, just like you would any business. It takes time, it takes effort, but most of all, it takes your concentration and focus if you want it to be a success. It can be done, but only if you’re willing to make that investment.

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Originally posted 2008-11-28 05:40:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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If you are looking for a way to grow your business but you don’t have a lot of available resources at your disposal, a corporate blog is one of the easiest means of accomplishing this goal. The set up costs are minimal and with the right management, you can easily achieve the same results with a blog that you would with an expensive ad campaign. The key is patience when it comes to corporate blogging. You won’t achieve instant readership but over time, you’ll be laying that foundation that will help your business grow exponentially.

One of the best reasons to start a blog is that it provides your company with a face that the public can see. Usually, companies are perceived as not caring about the little guy and generally being faceless. When you have a blog, you are breaking through that stereotype and allowing your customers a chance to see the real people behind the company. This alone is worth the effort of setting up a corporate blog. By becoming a personality, you will be creating brand loyalty without even trying.

Next, corporate blogging is one of the easiest ways to increase your search engine rankings and as such your discoverability. You need to make it easy for new customers to find you, and while your static site may accomplish this to some degree, you will be limited if you don’t add new content on a regular basis. Many companies just don’t have a need to keep adding content, but a blog can provide a means of accomplishing this without taking away from your overall site plan.

As an example, let’s say that we have a company that sells sports equipment. They’ve made their site and they’ve added their shopping cart and now there is nothing left to do. If they don’t have a lot of new products, their cart isn’t going to change and customers will have nothing new to see and little reason to keep coming back.

If this same company adds a blog to their site, they are providing their customers with a reason to visit the site every single day. This blog could be used in this example to discuss sporting events, the latest news as well as company updates. By integrating this into the products that the company sells, they can reach yet another goal. For example, let’s say that the company blogs about the Super Bowl. They can mention items from their football line in the post to give readers a chance to purchase related merchandise.

This is perhaps the best example of how easy it can be to grow your business with a corporate blog. It has all of the items necessary for success – Frequent content, related merchandise and a personable approach.

To make sure that your blog succeeds and contains all of these elements, it is a good idea to work with a blog management company that specializes in guiding companies towards having the perfect corporate blog.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-08-01 05:40:36. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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In part one of this series we discussed a post made by Matt Cutts on corporate blogging. We went over the first point he made in his post, regarding leaving yourself wiggle room on deadlines. Now, let’s go over the second point, about how to handle yourself when dealing with or talking about a competitor. As Matt put it, never trash talk a competitor – but what does that really mean?

Most corporate bloggers are savvy enough to understand that trash talk has no place in a blog. Even if you are riding high on success and you have the world at your feet, there is no need to even mention your competitors. Trash talking them will actually end up hurting you more than them and once you leave a bad taste in your audience’s mouth, getting rid of it is nearly impossible. Let’s illustrate this point with a scenario.

Let’s say that Business Owner A has a corporate blog that gets a good deal of traffic and covers company news, as well as a few other topics. On Monday, Business Owner B decides to start an ad campaign that will directly effect the revenue of Business Owner A. The first reaction for many is to lash out and belittle the efforts of Business Owner B.

So, that’s exactly what Business Owner A does. They devote several posts of their blog to trashing B, and their product or service. Instead of getting the attention away from B’s ad campaign, all that A has managed to accomplish is giving them more traffic from readers that want to see what all of the fuss is about.

The second effect is that Business Owner A now seems a bit whiny and definitely unprofessional. Competing ad campaigns are common and their readers are savvy enough to figure out that the posts are being fueled largely by sour grapes. The overall image of Business Owner A has now been tarnished, and readers leave the blog as a result.

Now, instead of circumventing the ad campaign launched by Business Owner B, all that A has managed to do was to hand them new visitors on a platter. They managed to hurt their own business and will forever be remembered as poor sports. All of this could have been avoided by simply never mentioning Business Owner B in the first place.

No matter if a competitor is trashing you, dragging your company through the mud, or competing aggressively against you – never trash them in the public eye. The only one that will end up wearing egg on their faces is you. Remember to take the High Road, no matter what – and you’ll end up reaping the benefits. Readers are not stupid, and they do understand more about your business than you think they do.

Don’t give your readers the chance to see you in a bad light. Remember that professionalism is key if you want to establish yourself as an authority. Whining, complaining and trash talk have no place on your corporate blog.

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Originally posted 2008-11-17 05:24:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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