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.

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

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Regardless of whether you already have a corporate blog, or if you are planning on starting one, if you want to turn your blog into a successful endeavor for your business, you need to have a recipe for success. Blogs that work well at attracting new clients and readers have a few key elements in common. If your corporate blog exhibits these qualities, then you are already well on your way to creating a successful corporate blogging endeavor.

1 – An excellent blog title.
2 – A friendly tag line or purpose statement.
3 – An easy way to get updates automatically.
4 – A list of categories that is easy to maneuver.
5 – A list of the most recent posts and the most recent comments.
6 – Links to useful, relevant websites, services and products.
7 – Frequent content posts with links that are relevant to the purpose of the blog.
8 – An easy way for readers to communicate with the blog’s author.

So the first question to ask yourself is what is in a good blog title?

Good blog titles are titles that tell your readers what your blog is all about. Your name should ideally notify your readers of who your blog is intended to target, and what your focus is. Your title should be compelling, because your readers need to fall in love with your blog quickly, or they will move on. Creating an excellent blog title can be difficult, so take the time to really think things through. Your title is important for search engines as well, so choose it wisely in order to best benefit your blog.

Next, your tagline is responsible for telling readers what your blog is all about, and how they can benefit from reading it.

This can be done in the header or elsewhere in the blog, as long as there is some statement that lets your readers know why they are reading. The tag line should state the benefit to the reader, who you are targeting, and who you are.

Most readers want to find your content quickly and easily, so lists of your recent posts, and your recent comments is an important addition.

Your readers are also going to want to comment, or find other ways to communicate, so make sure that you make it easy for them to connect with you. The third thing that most readers want is an easy way that they can get updates to your blog automatically, so set up an RSS feed, a newsletter or some other service to make getting updates easier for your frequent visitors and readers. The more you do to attract and retain your readers, the more successful your blog probably will become.

If your blog does not exhibit the eight qualities touched on above, now is your chance to make changes. If your blog does exhibit these eight qualities, then you are well on your way to creating a successful, attractive corporate blog.

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Originally posted 2008-12-23 05:35:56. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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When you find a tool that makes life easier, there is nothing more exciting. The need for corporations to simplify and systematize their processes has to do with working smart and taking advantage of things that allow workers to reach their goals without having to work quite as hard. One really cool tool that comes in handy during corporate blogging is Windows Live Writer. Some of you may already know what this is, while others may be avoiding it simply because it is the product of Microsoft, and there are a lot of people out there who avoid Microsoft gadgets by nature. Not only are we in love with the Windows Live Writer gadget from Microsoft, but we are quite obviously infatuated with it because not only does it make blogging infinitely easier, but also website updating and article writing as well.

This is one, single solitary tool that makes it possible to create a blog post completely offline and then publish it directly onto the blog. This one tool works very well with most of the major blog services, meaning that you do not have to go through a bunch of worthless steps to get everything set up. It allows you to easily and effectively insert hyperlinks, maps, pictures, tags and videos into your blog entries, meaning that you can get the most out of your blog from the use of one single solitary tool. Not all blog formats may be supported, but if your blogging format is supported then this unique tool will be truly invaluable for you. If you use an embedded website blog or an ActiveRain blog, you may be out of luck, but hopefully not for long.

If you cannot auto update your blog because your blogging software is not supported, don’t fret. You can still write your blog entries in the Windows Live Writer software and then copy and paste it into your blog software accordingly. The Windows Live Writer offers four different views, including a web layout, a preview layout, a normal basic Word format layout and an HTML layout. You can write your post or article and then publish it to Blogger, TypePad, Wordpress or whatever blog software you use, and then convert it into the HTML view for your website, or for a random blog platform that isn’t supported, such as ActiveRain, Trulia, etc. You can also switch into the normal view and copy and paste the results to submit to article distribution sites. In other words, any format that you need, the Windows Live Writer can create it for you.

There is only one real downside to the Windows Live Writer right now, and that is the insert video plug-in. It is only currently capable of letting you insert web based videos, rather than videos that are stored on your computer hard drive. This means you can put videos in your blog that you found online, but not videos that you found on your own computer which is something of a pain. Still, the software is excellent for most blogging purposes.

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Originally posted 2008-10-23 05:29:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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