A large number of the clients that I deal with are b2b clients. While I don’t give out “standard” advice, one particular form of social media tends to be part of the conversation everytime: blogs. The reason for that is that a company blog is often the best opportunity for a company to give people a sense of what they’re all about. The questions that often come up are about content, frequency and accountability. I’d like to address each of these questions in this post, but I’d like to do it as simply as possible. There are much more complex answers but I want to give you something you could read on a Blackberry.
Frequency, how often to blog:
- As often as you can create something of quality.
- Try for once a day or three times per week.
- The key is consistency but you should post at least once per week.
- It seems the more frequently you blog, the more search engines love you.
Accountability, who blogs:
- Find someone in your company that likes to write and is passionate about your company.
- The more people you have blogging the easier it will be to post regularly.
- Try to haven team of 5-10 if possible. Blogs with larger teams tend to blog more regularly. See BitRebels.
Content, here are a few ideas:
- Highlight an employee for their accomplishments
- Talk about an industry trend,
- Find an article online, reference it, link to it and add you perspective.
- Talk about something that worked
- Talk about something that didn’t work
- Tell an anecdote about the early days of the company
- Showcase the company’s charitable work, if applicable
All of this should give you a place to start but remember, blogs can take some time to catch on, especially if it is not nurtured. Don’t be afraid to make some mistakes and have some posts go unread. If you live and die with every blog posts you have a tough road ahead of you. I recommend creating an editorial calendar to give your content some direction. Most of this week I was blogging about blogging. Next week is going to be a project about the Philadelphia Social Media scene and several non social media events coming up. Two weeks might be about B2B, I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet. Now go break some eggs.