Why Your Company Blog Sucks and How you Can Fix It
In the last couple years, a large percentage of our small business clientele has expressed interest in creating a blog. Many of those clients have added blogs. None of those blogs are markedly successful. Normally, a trend like this would suggest we provided an inferior product, however, statistics show that the vast majority of company blogs are miserable failures.
Why do most company blogs fail?
Because they are boring! Most companies that try to blog use blogging solely as a means to advertise. Why would a blog reader sign-up to read advertisements about how great your company and products are? I read dozens of blogs each day. I choose these blogs because they provide me with useful and relevant information. I select authors because I like their opinions and writing style and they discus topics I enjoy. The average company blog is like reading a newspaper filled with only advertisements and no articles. As a note, I get a newspaper like that every Wednesday and it never makes it further than the recycle bin in my garage. Part of the mystique with blogging is that you’re getting opinions and advice from real people. Not filtered information provided by the media and other for profit organizations. Bloggers are your friends and colleagues, people like you sharing information and secrets. The man is not welcome in the blogosphere.
Why do company blogs with good information still stink?
While most companies fail to understand the basic concepts behind blogging, some get it partially right but miss the boat in other ways. We have one client that produces a decent blog. This company blog provides useful information and tips. The information is attractive and relevant to users and performs well in search engine results, gaining the blog an acceptable amount of traffic. The primary problem with their blog is it is not interactive and it is terribly irregular. While this client does post good information, their irregular posts don’t inspire users to subscribe, comment, or bookmark the blog. Part of what makes a blog successful is developing a community of users who regularly read and participate in a blog. The Wall Street Journal reported in June of 2008 that 74% of corporate blogs rarely get comments, and 56% of corporate blogs simply regurgitated press releases or other already-public news.
7 Things you Can Do to Fix Your Corporate Blog
1. Provide Useful and Relevant Information:
The number one key to any blog is to provide readers with useful and relevant information. Nobody wants to read your blog if it is filled with marketing bologna or if it is simply a list of press releases. If you’re going to have a blog, plan to do a lot of writing. Good quality, topic related content is one of the biggest keys to success.
2. Post Regularly
Having good content is not enough. To develop participation and readership you need to have good content on a regular basis. Regular posts whether daily, weekly, or some other pattern will help with the a blog develop an audience.
3. Be Original
Writing can take a long time. For some it takes much longer than others. It is tempting to just repurpose posts from other bloggers. While shared knowledge is important to the blogging community, users will not read your blog if it is basically a copy of a more popular blog on the same topic. To gain readership you need to provide original relevant information on your topic.
4. Be an Expert not an Advertiser
Nobody wants to read an advertisement for your products and services. Most bloggers blog to promote themselves or their companies, the successful bloggers promote themselves indirectly by developing credibility as an expert on a topic not by pushing their products and services in every post.
5. Have Personality
Many of the most successful company blogs are those that come from the CEO or other employees of a company, not the company itself. Blogs are about developing personal connections. If there is a person behind a blog or personality to a blog it is more likely to be successful. Part of what most blog readers enjoy is the views and opinions of the blogger. Filtered news and information is available anywhere. Honest views and opinions are available through blogs.
6. Encourage User Interaction
Part of creating a successful blog is cultivating user interaction. Building a base of subscribers is important to the long-term success of a blog. Users are more likely to subscribe and participate in a blog if there are other users participating in a blog. User interaction helps establish credibility to new users. Subscribers offer a regularly returning traffic stream for your blog. Try to find ways to convert your subscribers into participants. Ask questions in your post that entice user interaction through commenting.
7. Write for the Search Engines Too
Often, one of the main reasons our clients want to create blogs is to help with search engine optimization efforts. Either through trying to cultivate links or to disseminate more content for search engine spiders. If you are trying to develop traffic through search results make sure you work relevant search terms into your text. Having a blog won’t simply flood your website with customers. Think about terms users would search for and work these into your text in unobtrusive ways.
If you already have a corporate blog or are looking at adding one in 2009 please consider the tips above. Think about useful topics and information you can provide and consider ways you can make your blog more personal. Often some of the most successful corporate blogs come from the employees and not the company. If you’re going to create a blog try to find original ways to give your information personality and to inspire user interaction. Remember blogs are a topic related community not a pile of press releases.
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