New stats tell us there are around 15,000 corporate blogs, a number which has doubled in just the last six months. According to this research polling 750 corporates, around 80 per cent of corporate blogs are written by a PR, marketing or some other comms person, not the author of the blogs themselves.
So how come us PRs are taking over the corporate blogosphere? The same research says it's because spokespeople don't have time to get to understand blogging or write anything themselves. But judging by the state of some of these corporate blogs, us comms types are too often writing our clients' blogs as if they were a brochure or a magazine column. So...
How to start an authoritative, informative, engaging business blog:
1. Create an account on Bloglines. Run some searches on key words - like what the company you will be blogging about makes, your company name, buzzwords, etc. See which blogs come up and subscribe to them. Spend about a week reading them each day for 5 mins.
2. Start off your blog - having observed by now how your peers write, what they write about, and the style they write in. Put some links to their blogs on your own blog, and they'll see you exist pretty soon.
3. Now start to write on your blog. Use the basic rules of good PR in blogging: tell the truth, blog fast and often, use a human voice, don't lie or hide information, and try to be an authority on what you're writing about.
4. If you are then going to start advocating blogging amongst many staff members, you could get great online exposure, but get some guidelines in place. Here is how IBM blogs about hosted blogs on topics important to its business, employees who create blogs for internal consumption on the company intranet and workers who have the blessing to blog provided they follow guidelines.
Spin Bunny's back
http://spinbunny.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Thumper | January 13, 2006 at 02:38 PM
That's generally pretty good advice, Drew. However, I think you omitted a pretty important aspect of successful blogging (for business or anyone): commenting on other people's blogs.
Personally, I think it's important to divide your blogging time into 4 parts: Reading other people's blogs, commenting in other people's blogs, writing in your own blog, and responding to comments in your own blog.
In fact, commenting in other blogs is such an effective way to build cross-blog traffic (a rising tide that lifts all boats) that I often recommend that people who are new to blogs start reading *and commenting* on relevant blogs *before* they even launch their own. Building those relationships in advance can be a huge help.
Just my take on it. Whadya think?
- Amy Gahran
RightConversation.com
Contentious.com
Posted by: Amy Gahran | January 17, 2006 at 06:12 PM
Good point Amy. But I was outlining how to start a blog, not how to promote one. Maybe I'll do another post on how to promote one.
That aside, I agree with you that comments are important part of the blogosphere, and what makes it more like web 2.0 social networks and less like the old school web 1.0 internet.
Posted by: Drew B | January 17, 2006 at 09:37 PM
Actually, I was referring to commenting on other people's blogs as a prelude to, and important aspect of, *launching* a new blog.
- Amy Gahran
Posted by: Amy Gahran | January 17, 2006 at 11:14 PM
"spokespeople don't have time to get to understand blogging or write anything themselves"....hilarious
Posted by: Dennis Howlett | January 20, 2006 at 01:33 PM