What if we don’t want to put an enormous amount of time and effort into a company blog? What if we just want to have a blog that’s just good enough to help us with search engine rankings, but won’t win any bloggies, a client asked me recently. Can’t we just do that?
No! The world doesn’t need one more plain vanilla corporate blog. The client’s question was based on several misunderstandings and myths about corporate blogging.
An effective company blog is not:
– an instant fix for falling search rankings
– a way to blatantly sell products
– easy or quick to create, write or sustain
– easy to build a loyal audience for
– cheap
What good is a corporate blog and why put the time, money and effort into building and sustaining one?
Constant contact
Let’s say that people now come to your website to buy your products somewhere between two and four times a year.
Email is becoming more of a nuisance every day for most people, and it’s become harder, and more expensive, to create effective email campaigns.
Your customers and potential customers undoubtedly do not pay a lot of attention to your online ads (or any online ads.)
Engaging content
A blog that is interesting, interactive, well-designed and professionally written can create daily readers who will have your company top of mind every day.
When they get to your blog, you need to be talking about what people want to hear, not just what you want to tell them. Simple as that sounds, heavy-handed selling or, worse yet, bland “don’t offend anyone” writing are the major reasons that nobody reads most corporate blogs.
Looking good
The vast majority of corporate blogs lack a compelling graphic identity. They’re bland looking and they have bland content.
They have tiny pictures or they rely on cheesy clip art. There’s no excuse for that when there are sites like iStockphoto with images for as little as $1.
Good writing is the key
Most people would rather have root canal than write several blog posts a day. And most people don’t have the skill, talent, experience, or training to write well on a constant basis. (That’s much of what’s wrong online, but that’s a whole other post.)
Posts that are more than 300 words are never going to be read unless they consist of short sentences and paragraphs; bulleted points; subheads and plenty of white space. Who has time to read 1000-word+ posts on your blog?
if you need more than 300 words in a blog post you probably should split it into a series of posts.
The answer is to have a professional writer or editor on your corporate blog.
The bottom line
Is all this going to be cheap? No! A good corporate blog costs money and time. Time to write, promote and most of all, time to build an audience over time.
Love your readers
– Give link love to people who comment on your blog by linking to their websites and blogs
– Try to surprise and delight your readers
– Give them the opportunity to create content. People love to send stories and photos and videos to blogs they like. Incentiveize them.
Blog readers are there by choice. You can’t force anyone to read a blog.
What you can do is make the blog totally fucking amazing.
Note: I have the cartoon above, by Hugh Macleod, on my business cards. If that offends you, you probably won’t like working with me. If it turns you on, and you are thinking about having a corporate blog. Gimme a call.
I do also have a polite business card, a cute one, and a funny one. I use them as needed.
Posted by B.L. Ochman, all rights reserved.
B.L.
Awesome post. You are dead on with all these reasons to have a corporate blog. It’s a great way to build relationships that may or may not lead to sales. Rather than a quick sale that leads to nothing else.
BL, love this post. So many clients are easily sold on “We’ll make you a blog, optimized for search!”
And the content is over-edited by corporate types, and the blog quality ends up sucking from a user-perspective.
Fuck no, I’m not offended by your title. Blogs are conversations – or at least conversation starters – and not a fix-all for Google ranks! I appreciate your insightful thoughts and actual, candid use of our language. Vince
And that, B.L., is a totally fucking amazing post. You’ve said cogently in 563 razor-smart words what most communications “experts” couldn’t articulate even after five cups of coffee. Bravo! I’m nailing your screed to the front doors of every client I have.
Thanks for continuing to cut through the bullshit.
I find this interesting, too: In my most recent experience, I’ve found it just as likely for a big, (self-described) “conservative” publicly traded company to “get it” as it is for a smaller, private, “you could have tons of fun with this blogging stuff” company “not get it.” Seems counterintuitive, but it shows that so many organizations need smart people to help them figure out what’s best.
And “getting it,” of course, is a hugely relative concept. Even those that “get it” still need and want help figuring out how to do the best they can in this world of blogging, podcasting, Twittering, Facebooking, YouTubing, Wal-Marting Across America…
Very refreshing. I agree with everything. I’ve used testimonials as a way to create compelling commentary for one of my clients blogs. See http://www.matchmakersuccess.com.
So few companies do a good job of capturing testimonials. Nothing, I think, is quite as compelling for prospective clients as testimonials from real clients.
Awesome, awesome post. I think your writing is great, and very informative. I’ve read so so many articles on creating corporate blogs – this one finally got it right, got it real. You have written a great post here, and I love that business card I totally want it. Because being totally fucking awesome is ALWAYS job one. Looking good doing it should be job two haha. Have a good one!
-jv
Jeff: Thanks so much for the compliment to my writing. That means a lot to me!
Do check out Street Cards. I think you’ll love them,
B.L.
Great post. This is right on the money and it pretty much sums up the stuff we try to do on the Quicken Loans blog, and hopefully succeed.
We don’t sell loans through our blog. In fact, we don’t even talk about mortgages. What we do write about are the things and people that we find important. And if we attract talented people to want to work with us, that’s a bonus.
Best of all, it’s really fun doing this. That’s the most important part to me. If corporate bloggers just “go through the motions,” forget it. The blog will be boring, a waste of money, and it will suck.
Great post the only thing you missed was that aside from great writing the blog should be optimized for the keywords you want to be found on. Many people miss this. Utilize your blog as a regular site when it comes to SEO and you will be found and your blog will be read. You can do the simple internet marketing tips found on wikipedia.org or go to a professional firm
Either way do not skip SEO!
Why is it necessary to banty about the “f” word as if it doesn’t matter that it’s the “f” word? It *does* matter, especially when you’re trying to attract business (new clients). Some will be offended. I am and I’m a left wing bleeding heart radical.
Politeness still counts in this world, even the blogging world. The “f” word is not polite. Furthermore, it’s not even gramatically correct in this context. And, it shows a lack of creativity on the part of the writer. We’ve got a whole lot more useful, accurate words in our beautiful language. Use them!
I’m not worried about people who are offended by the “f word” since they definitely are not going to become my clients. Warning: you will definitely find profanity in this blog in the future and in past posts. Feel free not to read them.