Perhaps of all the things that a company can do in Social Media, blogging is the one that gives companies the most trouble. I wrote a post on August 13th: The Company Blog: Do you know what to do with it? The post was intended to give a good starting point and provide some general advice and ideas. Today’s post is from a different perspective.
After talking with clients and prospects, several themes have shown to continually become the primary conversation.
1- We don’t know what to write about
2- We don’t have the time to blog
3- We have a placeholder and we’re just waiting to get our hands around this whole “blogging thing”
Since these are three of the most common topics, I’d like to address each of them in this post. If you have additional caveats for why your company is not yet blogging, please sound off in the comments.
We Don’t Know What to Write About
I want to be very clear here: 99% of bloggers start out not knowing how to blog or what to blog about. The first year of blogging is often very difficult, full of errors and posts that no one reads or cares about; there are of course exceptions. The process of blogging is a learning experience. You as a writer will grow as you learn what posts get traction in the form of comments and traffic. There are, however, ways to address this concern. If you don’t know what to write about do any of the following:
1- Just start writing. You’ll get in the game and off the sidelines with this approach. It’s one way to do it. Wait for inspiration in some form and write. This is the way a child learns to walk. It’ll take you some time but eventually you’ll get the hang of it. The time to do this is NOW! Waiting around will beget more uncertainty and you will avoid the learning that comes with the mistakes that come with just doing it!
2- Create a plan. Decide, for example, that you are going to write 3 posts per week for the next 6 months and then reassess after 6 months. Create an editorial calendar and create topics for each of the next 26 weeks. Think about topics that would be valuable to the audience you are trying to reach. Answer the questions that your clients often ask you. This should not take you long to do. Create the plan and go, start writing about the topic you’ve chosen.
3- Determine that blogging is not right for you and stop obsessing over it.
I’m serious. These are pretty much your options. Options 1 and 2 are for those of you reading this and know for certain that you need to start a blog for your company. Those are basically your options; plan or don’t plan but do it (I recommend planning). Option 3 is for those of you reading this that have been planning on starting a company blog for the last year and still have more work to do. Unless the work you’re going to do is option 2, save everyone in the organization the headache and just hang up your WordPress login. You are never going to know what to write about when you start a blog. Chris Brogan wasn’t always in the top 10 on AdAge’s Power 150 blog list. Everyone starts somewhere, but the key is that they start.
We Don’t Have The Time To Blog
I get it. I really do. Here’s the question though, if blogging was something that your organization felt was a worthy use of time, would you have the time? I think the real statement isn’t “we don’t have the time,” because truthfully that’s BS. What that statement really says is “we don’t see enough value in blogging, so we’re not willing to set aside the time.” Companies find time to do all sorts of things that produce 0 results. Meetings? How many meetings are truly necessary? How many of the people in those meetings are really needed?
There was a time not too long ago where companies might’ve said: “we don’t have time for email, all we’re going to be doing is answering emails all day.” Yet somehow Blackberry continues to sell email capable phones. The truth is that if your company really believed there was a value in blogging time would be made.
So if the problem really is that the value isn’t present then create that value, seek out that value. Blogging is a low cost way to communicate with your target audience by listening for what would be valuable for them and then creating content that provides that value. If you’re not getting buy-in, ask your boss if he/she’d like more website traffic. If they say yes, check this site out and connect the dots. Decide that there’s value there or stop running in place, because time is not the REAL issue.
We have a placeholder and we’re just waiting to get our hands around this whole “blogging thing”
Cool. Great. Let me know when you figure that out because I’ll be holding my breath. I can’t tell you how many companies I know that are just about ready to launch, if they could just “get it.” Here’s the thing, you’re never going to “get it” unless you do it. Is your company of the belief that its going to wrap its hands around blogging, get it, launch the blog and it’s going to be a hit? Let me with great pride say “FAT CHANCE!” It might happen, it’s a possibility. It’s just not likely. What’s more likely with that kind of thinking? That placeholder is going to be your blog for the next 4 years while a competitor with a “bigger pair” is going to start talking with your customers by leading some kind of conversation, being accessible and putting something out there. There’s nothing more to “get” before you start.
Everything you need is in the following words made famous by Nike:
JUST DO IT.
