As corporate blogging becomes more popular, many companies are wondering if this is something that is right for them. There are many benefits that can be achieved by having a corporate blog, such as increased sales, better brand recognition and SEO, but none are as important as creating that personal link with your readers. A corporate blog is a tool that can be used to really create a relationship with readers, which can result in an increase of the other three points mentioned above.

To create that personal link there are a few techniques that should be used, as well as a few that should be avoided. In many cases, a fine balance is needed to accomplish your goals. For example, if you need your corporate blog to move a certain product, there is a way of selling it, without appearing overly commercial. Let’s look at a few ways that companies can create the personal touch with their blog.

First, the blogger needs to give at least their first name. A last name is not essential, but if you are a well known executive, this can be a good thing to add. No blogger should be anonymous, as this makes the corporate blog feel more like a promotional tool than a public service or outlet for information. In addition, it does help to have a picture of the blogger, since this does give the readers a face to go with the posts. This is is not necessary, but it is helpful.

Next, the blog should focus on providing information that is useful to readers. This point cannot be stressed enough. If a post is useful, readers are less likely to be offended if you are selling them something. Not all of your posts should be centered around “Buy our products.” You need to create a mix of personal posts, product announcements and news that is related to your industry.

The next point is vital – creating the right kind of relationship. When you first start blogging and you’re getting new readers that are interacting with you, it’s easy to let your guard down and let that level of professionalism slip. This should never happen on a corporate blog. If you need a personal outlet – create your own blog – but don’t bring your issues and opinions to your corporate blog.

This is your company’s public face – do you want it to be perceived as unprofessional and scatter brained? No! Each post should be written in a concise format that uses appropriate language and humor, without crossing the line. This is a balancing act that can be difficult at first.

We recommend using a blog management service that can assist you in finding that balance and avoiding the pitfalls that doom corporate blogs to failure. These are powerful tools, but you need to make sure that you are using them in the right way to avoid having a disaster on your hands that is hard to erase from the public’s mind.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-06-27 05:37:17. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Executive Blogging - Good Idea or Bad? It is obvious that the concept of executive blogging is becoming more popular, as businesses small and large are suddenly turning to blogging as a way to convey news and information to their customers and clients. Still, many companies are wondering if executive blogging is a worthwhile endeavor for them......
• When Companies Blog - The Good, Bad and Ugly Side of Corporate Blogging 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......
• Why Fear Blogging? Are you afraid of blogging? Many companies and businesses are actually quite afraid of corporate blogging because they are afraid of being different. It's time that we get over our fears, however, because the new way of establishing permanent relationships with people is to ask "Do you have a blog?"......
• Corporate Blogs to Model Yourself After Forrester Research recently compiled a review of ninety different Fortune 500 blogs, and found most to be lacking the proper amount of stimulation. Sadly, two things of these corporate blogs barely ever received any comments, 70 % of them stuck completely to topics of their business without ever straying, and......
• Interactive Blogging For Corporate Bloggers As readers become more involved with the blogs they frequent, a new form of communication is becoming prevalent – interactive blogging. There are a few ways to look at this and determine whether or not this form of interaction is right for your corporate blog and your readers. When used......

• Blogging Goals: What You'll See Here in 2009 Thanks to Green Panda Treehouse for pointing me to Visionary Blogging's 7 Strategic Blog Improvement Questions. That article serves as an outline for my blogging goals for 2009. What will I accomplish with my blog in 2009? How will I make my blog more valuable in 2009? There are a......
• Mailbag: Hacking your credit score, Too Much P2P, and Giving Away $150 One of my favorite sports writers, Bill Simmons blends humor, pop-culture, and sports into a very successful column for ESPN. My favorite column of his is the mailbag. He publicly answers select questions from his readers. Many times the readers set him up with a punch line joke, the way......
• Will you be my.....neighbor? Walter at LionSlinger posted a comment on my blog this week.  I had been reliving some of my blogging experience trying to put the experience into perspective and help me plot my future course.  Mainly I have been diverted down rabbit trails where I explored traffic boosting gimmicks.  In......
• Communication 4.0: We Are All Journalists Now The sheepskin on the wall behind my computer monitor says I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Florida.  What it didn't say when it was printed in 1982 was that I majored in Public Relations and specialized in Magazine and Feature Writing.  Today, I......
• Blog Love I have really come to love blogging. It's a great outlet for me to write down the things I am thinking, both serious and personal along with the ridiculous thoughts that cross my mind throughout the day. One of my favorite things of the day is when I check my blog......

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.

Photo Credits: 1

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

• Blog Posting Ideas (Pt. 2) Be a news source – New things are always happening in the world, regardless of the topic. Advancements in technology, new ideas, or even new markets come up all of the time. Thanks to this, you really should have no problem finding things to write about. You could use RSS......
• How Should You Classify Your Corporate Blog? When you are getting ready to start publishing your corporate blog, it is a good idea to put some thought into the kind of information you will be sharing with the public. There are many different kinds of corporate blogs out there and it is a good idea to pick......
• Easy Ways to Increase Organic Visitors to Your Corporate Blog In many people’s opinion, organic traffic is the best. It’s free, it’s targeted and nine times out of ten, you’ll get a much better response, whether it’s for a company promotion, getting readers to your blog and building up solid relationships. Let’s take a look at just a few easy......
• Talking To Not At Your Readers Many corporate blogs fail simply because they strike a wrong chord with readers. If you want to use your blog to increase traffic and sales and improve your relations with the public, it is vital to develop a technique that will allow you to talk to your readers, not at......
• 5 Tips on Corporate Blogging for Companies 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......

• Warning: Avoid these 7 Time Traps or your blog Will Fail - Guaranteed! Image via CrunchBase, source unknown Running a successful blog takes a lot of effort. There are many things that go into blogging that most people don't take into account, when they attempt to start a blog. One of the surest ways to fail at blogging for a living is to......
• How Can I Make Money From A Blog? How Is This Done 5 Things That Will Help Monetize Your Blog 1) Imitate Nature - Don't go stuffing keywords into posts or over doing on page SEO. Google, Yahoo and MSN are looking for quality sites by real people, not someone spitting out hundreds of blogs per month filled with keywords and......
• Turning Blog Visitors into Blog Readers Bringing traffic in the form of blog visitors to your website is really only the beginning when it comes to creating an effective blog. Many of these visitors may only be stopping by once, never to return again. There are a number of different little things that can be done......
• Good Blog Traffic And How To Get It Most people who are into blogging share the same goal and that is to express their thoughts or share their views, opinions, feelings, and everyday experiences to others. You can only do this if you have readers who will keep on following your updates and posts. It would be better......
• Turning Blog Visitors into Blog Readers One of the most important things that you can understand when it comes to your blog and attracting readers is that there is a difference between people who are blog visitors and people who are blog readers. Blog visitors are people that are attracted to your blog for one reason......

This is a review of the Nike Blog at inside.nikebasketball.com

Every few days, Nike updates their inside.nikebasketball.com blog. The posts they provide are relevant for the fans of Nike, and they write in a very well written and interest keeping manner. Despite this, the blog is very difficult to find if you do not know where to go. Searching for the blog does not turn up the pages without a nearly exact title. The blog does not provide a way to comment on or about blog posts. The user will easily get the feeling that the blog is part of a non-responsive environment. The links provided are not clear in their use, and the overall graphics scheme of the site leave a lot to be desired.

Availability, 2 out of 10 –

One would think that by typing Nike Blog, that the blog would be on the first page of links. No dice. The blog was very difficult to find without knowing the URL to begin with. Basic SEO principles will improve the find-ability of the blog, and enable it to show in many searches.

Posting Frequency, 8 out of 10 –

The blog might not be updated every day, or every other day. However the blog is updated every few days, and is consistent in updating at that pace. The size of the Nike brand name would make you think that they could hire a blogger or two to post with greater frequency. It is not like there is a lack of content in the world of basketball.

Relevance, 10 out of 10 –

The blog stays on topic amazingly well. The writing is well, even if you have no interest in the sport of basketball. Someone who knew nothing about the game could find themselves hooked after reading the blog, which is a great testament to the blog.

Accuracy, 10 out of 10 –

Nike is very good about keeping bias and propaganda out of their blog. The content they do produce seems to be on point and is without inaccuracies. If only they would take this professionalism and apply it to other aspects of their blog, they could have a phenomenal blog which is a great source of income.

User Interaction, 2 out of 10 –

There is no place for comments to be placed or for users to reply to posts. This distancing from its users seemingly makes the blog a bit elitist, not caring of what their users are thinking. Answering comments is a simple process which would greatly increase the user appeal for the site.

The Nike blog earns a 64%.

The blog can stand to have one or two staff bloggers who post frequently, and respond to user comments. There is a lot to be said for user interaction, it builds trust in a company, to think that are listening and willing to respond to their readers and customers. The styling of the blog could use a lot of work. The other big loss for the blog is the inability to find the blog without a direct link or URL. Basic SEO principles would enable the blog to turn up easily in many popular search engines.

Originally posted 2009-02-09 05:48:10. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• How to Gauge Web Traffic to Your Corporate Blog There are actually a couple of different ways that you can effectively gauge traffic to your corporate blog, each giving different answers and filling in a slightly larger piece of the puzzle. If you are writing in a corporate blog and you want to get a good feel for how......
• How to Tell If You Are Reaching Your Audience Is this thing on? If you are starting to feel like you are blogging to an empty room, or your posts are accompanied by the sound of crickets, it’s time to start focusing on whether or not you are reaching your audience. There are a number of methods that can......
• What Does a Corporate Blog Say About You? When you have a corporate blog, it is important to realize that it will be saying a lot about you. Whether or not it’s projecting a good image of your company is entirely up to you. Here are some tips to make sure that your blog says all the right......
• Blogging Help Roundup - Learn More About Blogging Hello and good evening. This is Buildify's first roundup of the how-to blog and blogging blogosphere. Sounds like a tongue twister - can you say it five times fast? The following links are several good posts on improving your blog and will add some great skills to your blogging toolbox.......
• How to Manage Your Time With a Corporate Blog Running a corporate blog can be quite time consuming, especially if you are new to blogging. Here’s a brief idea of what you can expect in terms of actual work and the time it will take to build a successful blog. The initial stages will be much more time consuming......

• SEO Tips for Blog Traffic Generation While it may be true to say content is king when it comes to blog publishing, the truth is that writing your blog content is not by far the only thing that you should be focusing on when it comes to attracting a readership following. Quality SEO, or search engine......
• How to Increase Blog Traffic With Comments A really great endeavor worth pursuing when trying to learn how to increase blog traffic is to use blog comments in order to attract a steady stream of people to your blog. When you leave strong comments in other blogs, it can play a large role in how to increase......
• The Incidental Economist Blog Launch Happy Saturday readers!  The following is a guest post written by my good friend TIE promoting his new blog.  Normally, I don't like to post these types of promotions however I've waited a while now for TIE to start a blog.  Before you ignore this post, I want you to......
• How to Relocate your Wordpress Blog to a New Domain Name Making the decision to move my blog from http://www.courseladder.com to http://www.golfballdriver.com was a big one, and a good one, and it taught me a lot about learning how to relocate your Wordpress blog to a new domain name under the same hosting provider. Course Ladder suited me for a while,......
• Double the Traffic to Your Blog - SEO Is Only Half the Battle The sources always interest me as it shows which of my ‘marketing’ activities are making a difference, and I’ve found that SEO (search engine optimisation) is only half the battle!nn...

(Blogger, etc… focus on how posts may be deleted forever without warning, lack of professionalism, etc…)

In a lot of different instances when it comes to blogging, making use of a free blogging platform can really come in handy. If you are writing a personal blog or a blog that is only meant to be read by friends, family members and casual colleagues, then making use of a free blogging platform like Movable Type or Blogger is actually a good idea. These blogs allow you to blog as part of a giant network where you can gain exposure and readership just by posting, which makes them an excellent place for you to start out when you are just beginning to get the hang of blogging. Unfortunately, these are not a long term solution by any means because as a blogger with a free blogging network platform, you are actually subject not only to someone else’s rules relating to blogging, but also a loss of apparent professionalism by not having that individuality or uniqueness that you would have if blogging privately on your own website.

Because you are subject to the rules of the blogging platform that your blog is based off of, you may find your blog posts being deleted for no apparent reason and absolutely no warning, which can force you to deal with a difficult blow. How would you like to write a really nice, really detailed post that will attract readers, only to find out sometime later that it was deleted from the server because a moderator for the blogging platform did not agree with it? No warning is given, nor is any real chance to save your work before it is gone. While most moderators on blogging platform sites like Blogger and WordPress are working hard to be fair, this does not mean that you are protected.

In addition to the risk that your blog posts may be deleted without any real warning or rhyme or reason, another threat that you face is losing your look of professionalism because you are blogging on someone else’s website. This is similar to the difference between having your own domain name, or parking your website at http://www.geocities.com.

Which is more professional, in your eyes, http://www.mycorporateblog.com or http://www.geocities.com/~mycorporateblog?

The same thing goes when it comes to your blog. You want your blog to be a representation of your professionalism as an employee with the company and a blogger on the internet, and what this means is having your own unique blog website using an open source blogging software. WordPress may have a network where bloggers can create their own blogs on site, but their software is also downloadable, allowing you to create your own customized blog off site as well. This gives you an opportunity to create a professional blog that will do everything in its power to uphold your image of professionalism, which is a good part of why you are blogging in the first place.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-11-20 05:18:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• 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......
• Professional Blogging Roundup - Trust Issues and More Less categories this week, but the quality of the links is still top-notch. Take a break from your festivities to glance through a few of these posts: Corporate Miami Examiner asks As a leader, should you be blogging? Business and Leadership says low trust for corporate blogs. Network World wonders......
• Frequently Asked Questions about Corporate Blogging If you are completely new to blogging, you may find that you have a lot of questions and at times, it can be hard to find the answers. We’ve compiled the most common issues facing new corporate bloggers and supplied the answers to these problems below. 1. Is this going......
• Ten Tips for Better Corporate Blog Traffic pt 3 It is basically what allows your blog to notify other blogs that they have been mentioned elsewhere on the internet. Track backs most commonly appear as blog comments, creating another link back to your blog in other blogs on the internet. Not only will this create new links to your......
• 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......

• Big Changes Coming Soon To The Good Human Just wanted to give a heads up to any readers out there that coming up within the next month or so, we will be moving The Good Human to its own domain hosting. I realize that this will cause some headaches along the way, along with a loss of page......
• 10 Benefits of Hosting your Own Blog If you want to create an edge over many of the other bloggers on the web, then one of the best things that you can do is host your own blog. There are a number of benefits of hosting your own blog over having some other service host your blog.......
• Expecting it to be Difficult Sometimes Might Help One Attain Gluten-Free Simplicity 13. Expecting it to be Difficult Sometimes Might Help One Attain Gluten-Free Simplicity (at least with less frustration due to unexpected roadblocks and tight curves).   I remember when I was first diagnosed with Celiac Sprue.  A numbing sense of emotional shock overtook me as my doctor told me and......
• ScribeFire Firefox Plugin In an effort to simplify my life with keeping this blog up-to-date, I wanted to find a quick and easy way to write new blog posts.  I figured surely there must be a nice Firefox plugin to help me, and I was right.  Look no further than ScribeFire.  ScribeFire allows......
• Simple Tips for a Popular Blog Blogs are, hands down, one of the easiest possible ways for you to publish your thoughts or messages on the internet. Blogs are excellent for spiking search engine enthusiasm, meaning that by writing in a blog you can easily attract plenty of traffic. But are you aware of what you......