1. What do you want to
achieve?
What do you want to
use your blog to achieve in your business? Determine what you intend to achieve
from blogging. What goals do you want to achieve with it and what it will and
won’t aim to do.
You might find as you
ponder this that you have many goals for your blog but you should consider
multiple blogs if your objectives are many. There’s nothing wrong with multiple
blogs, each with their own focus and purpose.
2. Share Useful Post
Useful blogs meet
needs, solve problems and help people who read them to improve and grow. This
doesn’t mean your blog has to be full of ‘tips’ (although tips related to how
to use your products could work) but you should consider who will be reading
your blog and what sort of needs they’ll have.
Will they be looking
for information about your type of business, products or services? Do they need
news from your category of industry? Do they have specific problems that you
might be able to help them solve?
While being ‘useful’
might not sound like something that will convert to sales directly it can have
a profound impact upon those reading your blog and your business in the long
term. Solve a problem for someone and when next they are looking to make a purchase
they might just come knocking on your door. Meet a need for someone and they
might just tell their network of friends about you.
3. Be Creative and
Professional
There’s no single way
to build a blog and no one style to have to write them in. Ultimately it’s your
blog and you can develop your own creativity and approach…. BUT…. blogs do lend
themselves to a personal style of communication. Your business already has a website
which conveys content in static form – use your blog (or blogs) to do something
different and dynamic
Give your business a
facelift, publicity and creative touch by writing in a more creative way, using
pictures (of the author and other staff members), by showing some of the behind
the scenes of your company etc. Be Human!
You can use different
mediums (video, image, audio) as well as text to show that your business is not
just a logo and mission statement but a place where real people are at its
heart.
This doesn’t mean
professionalism goes out the door – always keep in mind that everything that
goes up on your blog potentially adds value to your business. Remember to keep
your standards high and everything you publish is effectively on the web for
ever (even when you delete it it’ll usually be indexed in an internet archive
somewhere).
4. Sell, but Don’t Oversell
It’s OK to use a blog
to promote your products or run sales adverts campaigns. some people said that
blogs shouldn’t be used to sell – but I think as long as you’re open in your
transaction and keep your posts useful ‘sales’ related posts can work. The key
is to make the post more useful.
You can run a blog offering
those who read your blog special discounts that can’t be obtained anywhere
else? If you are providing people with value for their money –Naira and Kobo, they
won’t mind a promotion from time to time. The key is to share on your blog a
high value and usefulness information.
5. Establish a Pattern of sharing
Posting
A blog doesn’t need to
have new content on it every day to be successful. Lots of posts as well as regular
posts are important. Readers like to know that they’ll get a regular stream of
content and not sudden bursts of lots of posts and then extended periods of
silence.
You can aim for 2-3
posts a week when you’re just starting out, later increase to 3-4 posts a week and
then move towards 4-5 posts a week. By this method, you’re providing your
readers with a steady stream of useful content.
6. Comment Moderation Principle
One of the biggest
fears of many companies getting into blogging is about what will happen in
their comments section. What happens if a customer with a vendetta starts doing
damage there? What if a competitor sees an opportunity to stir up trouble or
promote themselves?
Different companies
have different approaches to moderating comments on their blog and while some
bloggers can get a little rigid with their views on this – there’s really no
one single rule that should be applied to all blogs. Ultimately it’s your blog
and you determine how people should interact there.
My personal preference
on blogs is to keep them as easy as possible to comment upon and to allow all
comments unless defamatory, spammy or containing obscene language – however
your comments policy might be a little more closed than this. The key is to
know what you will and won’t allow ahead of time and to make that policy
available somewhere for your readers.
Also have in place a
system for enforcing your principle and moderating comments. This will probably
include giving a person (or a team of people) the task of regular monitoring of
comments.
7. Make Your Blog
Interactive
Blogging is often an
interactive thing. Encourage comments by asking questions in post, run polls
and surveys, encourage your readers with blogs to write their own posts that
extend ideas in yours, run competitions, offer special discounts for readers
etc.
8. Link Your Blog with your
Website
In most cases you
should think carefully about how to integrate your blog with your company’s
existing website. Again there are no rules here and it’ll partly depend upon
your objectives but it’d be normal to link to your blog from your main company
website and link from your blog to your website.
9. Finding Readers for Your Blog
from Social Network
One of the challenges
facing new blogs whether they be tied to a business or not is how to get people
reading them. One of the starting points in this is share your blog posting
with your social network like Yahoo, Facebook, twitter etc . Also ask your
customers, blog readers staff, industry associations to share your blog article
with social network.
Also get the word out
about your blog on your letterhead,
business cards, email signatures etc
10. Alternate Blog Posting
If you decide to have
one blog instead of multiple blogs of your company it can be worthwhile to alternate
the content that you share on your blog. There are so many types of posts that
a company could run depending upon their objectives including:
·
Information
about key staff of your company
·
Share
message from the desk of your CEO
·
Share
the breaking news
·
Share
polls
·
Press
release of new products
·
Share
your key customers/clients
·
Instructions
on how to use products
·
Share
FAQs about your business, products or services
·
Share
events from industry
No comments:
Post a Comment