Corporate Weblog Tips
Backbone Media has a nice short essay on the 10 Tips for Becoming a Great Corporate Blogger.
It’s a great list, and would make a great addition to a brochure for corporate weblogs. Here are a few of my thoughts on each, but pay a visit to their article to get the full picture.
1. Understand the fundamentals of Blogger Relations.
This is what I was getting at when I suggested that Guy Kawasaki’s How To Suck Up list needed to add that an organisation needed to be a part of the blogosphere. You can’t just suck up to webloggers, you need to understand and know them, and that’s easier if you participate. Really participate, not just sit on the fence, or blog from a distance. Get amongst it and converse.
2. Create value.
Might seem obvious, but I think many bloggers forget that they need to add some sort of value to be a worthwhile resource. I’d reword this point to “Create regular value.” Backbone no doubt assumed that creating value was an ongoing principle, but I’d make it explicit.
3. Grow and sustain your audience by providing real analysis.
A brilliant point, because weblogs are all about personality and conversations. Without analysis it’s difficult to make your personality present.
4. Report on community opinion.
This tip is more about providing a resource, and as such doing a little marketing. It’s still valid, and a worthy point.
5. Respond with comments to build relationships and traffic.
I’ve mentioned comments a few times in this weblog, one of which was in my brief How to Network Online post. You can’t meet people at a party without being involved in conversations–unless you have other amazing talents–and the same applies online.
6. Track your conversations.
Backbone give some useful tools to do this, like CoComment, and Technorati. It’s almost hand-in-hand with point 10, and you can merge the two in your aggregator.
7. Don’t be afraid of criticism.
Criticism is actually incredibly valuable. Having people blow smoke constantly doesn’t keep you on your toes. Criticism promotes innovation.
8. Conduct interviews to generate content and ideas.
This is a great idea, and I prefer to conduct the interviews via my podcast. More personality comes through via voice in an interview.
9. Promote your blog.
This is by far the most difficult point, and Backbone don’t really provide any tips. In fact this deserves it’s own top 10 list, and probably why they didn’t give more detail. Marketing mostly consists of being involved in conversations, creating regular value, interviewing thought leaders, and making sure you’re available to the press. However, it’s a big lengthly process.
10. Monitor the web for brand names and references.
In other words monitor conversations about you and your company. Technorati is a great resource for that. I mentioned using the watchlist in my Social Software: Networking Before a Conference techniques. You can employ one of these watchlists to search for your names, etc. Add it to your news aggregator to make it simple and automatic.
Just to disrupt a nice round number, I’d add another point. Again, Backbone may have felt this was obvious, but a corporate blogger needs to dedicate a decent portion of their time to this process. Being involved in conversations is not trivial, and it requires at least a few hours a week. Organisations need to understand this from the outset. A corporations blogger is going to need the companies backing to dedicate that time to a weblog.
There is also another commentary by Luis Suarez on Backbone’s list. Read it all to get a great picture of corporate blogging.