If you have never blogged before and are interested in starting a corporate blog, there are a few issues and concerns that you need to be aware of before you ever get started. These can be treacherous waters at times and if you are not prepared, it is all too easy to get in over your head. Blogging can be a great way to increase consumer confidence and build a strong brand, but you will need to be able to spot and avoid some common pitfalls along the wall.

First up, you need to make sure that your blog is taking advantage of all the latest technological advances. This means having a blog that has an RSS feed and utilizing buttons that will allow your readers to share the articles on social bookmarking sites. These are two very simple things but many bloggers omit them. An RSS feed is essential since most blog readers rely on their newsreader software to find out when new articles are posted. This is done with RSS feeds. If you don’t have one, your readers may never make it back to your site to see if you have new content posted.

Social bookmarking buttons are incredibly useful and can help new readers discover you. There are plugins available for most blogging applications that allow you to easily add these buttons to your site. Once they are there, visitors can simply click that button to share your blog with others. This can really increase your page views, especially when you have a popular post.

Next, you need to be aware that blogging is a very public forum and you will be opening yourself up to criticism, and some of it may be ugly. You need to go over some responses now so that you can keep a cool head when it matters. If your company has some known issues with customer support or other problems, you need to have responses all ready to go that will address this.

Comments sections can be deadly for a company that has this kind of problem. You can avoid a lot of controversy by simply not allowing any comments. However, this can backfire if readers feel that you are hiding something and do not want to allow them the freedom to discuss your posts. It’s a double edged sword and you’ll need to find the right balance for your unique needs.

Lastly, running a successful corporate blog can take a lot of time. If you are trying to do it yourself, or if you have an employee handling it for you, this will be taking you away from your other work. You may want to consider hiring a blog management service so that you can focus on your actual work and leave the blog to them. This is a great solution for first time bloggers that aren’t really sure what they need to be doing with their blog and how to handle everything that comes with it.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-07-31 05:36:21. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Why Do You Need a Blog For Your Company? If you’ve been hearing a lot about the corporate blogging trend and wondering how you can make it work for your company, there are specific reasons that having a blog is very important. It really is worth the extra effort that goes into the creation and management of the blog,......
• Facilitating Conversation for Better Corporate Blogging Content One of the biggest facets of corporate blogging is the facilitation of conversation, but facilitating communication, community and conversation is not limited to boosting traffic or boosting sales, because it can also allow you to come up with new ideas for content. If you are looking for new ways to......
• Professional Blogging Roundup - Twitter Tools and More Welcome, welcome. Here's another roundup of what's going on around the blogosphere on blogging. Lots of Twitter tools and tips in this edition, be sure to check them out. Corporate Here are some Blogging Tips For Business Owners over at Best News Small Business Today. CIO Insight presents Robert Scoble......
• Corporate Blogging Made Easy One of the best ways for a company to reach out to their customers and build a strong brand is corporate blogging. However, there are a lot of misconceptions out there and a lot of room for error. Let’s take a look at some techniques that you can use to......
• Corporate Blogging Examined Currently, one of the best ways to reach out to your customer base is through the use of a corporate blog. When it comes to getting that personal touch just right and humanizing your company, there is no better tool than a blog done well. Let's take a look at......

• Increase Traffic to Blog, pt1 This is part one in a three part series dedicated to increasing traffic to your blog in a number of different ways. Now that you have your blog set up and you are beginning to post useful information in its pages, the next step is to start attracting useful readers......
• Blog Plug-Ins to Get More Readers Wordpress specifically has a number of plug-ins for blogging that will allow you to attract more readers to your blog. Some of the best blog plug-ins for increasing traffic to come in three main categories: Social networking and bookmarking Posting across many different platforms RSS feed helpers BTE Related Websites:......
• 10 Tips To Increase Traffic To Blog At this present writing, there are more than 115 Million blogs worldwide. The majority of these blogs are strictly for the purpose of making money. Unfortunately, the majority of these bloggers are failing miserably at making money with blogs. The reasons for such a high failure rate vary from: too......
• Become a responsible shopper - do your homework! Looking for a way to be more responsible about what companies you give your hard earned cash to? Look no further than Co-op America's Responsible Shopper: Global Research & Action to Stop Corporate Abuse, which examines leading companies around the world for their corporate standards about social and environmental issues.......
• Increase Traffic Using Blog Exchange Programs If you're one of the over 50 Million bloggers online, and getting more traffic to your blog is important, than you need to know more about blog traffic exchanges. More than likely, if you've been marketing online for awhile, you probably recall the wildly popular traffic exchange programs and banner......