Most companies know they should be blogging. (If your company still isn’t sold on the idea, read a recent post about why you should join the blogosphere.) There are a variety of benefits to regular posts and updates, namely improved search rankings and increased engagement with past, current and potential customers. However, when it comes down to the actual crafting of posts, things can get fuzzy. Who should write the posts? And what topics should you cover?
Who should do the writing?
This is among the first questions you need to answer before planning your blogging strategy. Your team likely knows the most about your company and has the best insight into your industry. However, just because your team members are knowledgeable may not necessarily mean they are good writers, or that they have the time to contribute to your blog. If you aren’t able to identify at least one writer internally, outsourcing is the way to go. There are plenty of great writers who can get up to speed on your business and post high quality, engaging content regularly on your behalf.
If you do feel confident in your team’s ability, be sure to get everybody on the same page about the messages you want to send your audiences. Also, create guidelines for posting on the blog, i.e. do’s and don’ts about how to refer to your company, the tone that should be used on the blog, spelling and grammar styles, etc. These guidelines will allow your company to communicate to your readers in a consistent way, even if multiple people are contributing to the blog. To ensure these guidelines are followed, it is helpful to have one person responsible for reviewing and editing each post before it is published.
What should I write about?
Whatever you decide to do with authorship, your next step is to brainstorm post topics and plan when each will be published. A very common and useful method of doing this is to create a content calendar that outlines the topic, author and date of each post. To determine what you should write about, I recommend thinking about two types of blog posts: company posts and consumer posts.
- Company Posts:
Do you hear the same question from almost every client or strategic partner? Do you have a complex process that takes time to explain? Do you have pieces of information that you share constantly?
Why not make your life easier and post these items as a blog post? Just like a LinkedIn profile can be shared to explain your professional background, a blog post can explain any aspect of your business that you’re repeatedly sharing. Spending some time to write these out once and then referring people to the links can save you time and money.
- Consumer Posts:
Reader engagement is vital for repeat visits to your site, and what and how you write will either keep visitors or turn them away. The same goes for your blog. If your blog consistently features high quality information or unique viewpoints, readers will look to you as an authority and come back to your blog to learn. If your blog is witty, readers will come back to be entertained. If you offer giveaways that are deemed valuable to your readers, they will engage with you to win free items or services.
In keeping with these principles of engagement, you’ll need to come up with topics that are interesting and appealing to your consumer-readers. These may include industry news and opinions, best practices, tips and advice, company events, public relations articles, contests or anything that may be relevant or useful to your consumers.
Publish
Once you and your team brainstorm ideas for your company and consumer posts, fit each topic into your content calendar, put someone in charge of reviewing and publishing posts and get the first post up. When blogging is done well, it’s one of the best strategies a company can use to engage current customers and generate leads.
If blogging seems overwhelming, we’re happy to walk you through any or all steps of this process. Contact us to let us know how we can help.