Corporate Blogs . . . what to write about?
Does your company have a new product or service? Have you hired a new customer service representative or sales person? Has your business been presented with an industry award? Have you just attended an industry conference and learned some new, interesting trends? If so, you should be blogging about these topics on your corporate Website.
The act of blogging has long carried with it the stigma that a blog is an opinion column. Blogs have so many uses in today’s marketing mix that it is hard to keep track of them all. Every business has unique qualities and characteristics that can be creatively infused into one or more blogs.
Here are a few examples of how businesses are using blogs:
A polo club is using their blog to distribute game reports, to promote events and news to its playing and social members as well as to the general public. They are syndicating news via an rrs feed to an online polo magazine for additional distribution and promotion.
DesertUSA.com, an online outdoor and travel magazine, uses a blog to keep reader’s up-to-date about topics that will appear in upcoming issues. They also publish multiple blogs by multiple authors on a range of topics that are also disseminated to their social network via an rss feed (to Twitter and Facebook). Their author blogs help readers learn more about the authors who contribute to the magazine. Plus, the author blogs are about topics that are of interest to the magazine’s subscribers. The blogs extend the content of the magazine into a forum where readers can share their travel experiences, add to an authors trip notes or simply share there love for the desert.
An attorney is using a blog to keep clients up-to-date on industry standards, current cases that may influence the law, etc. They cover topics and blog about issues related to their specialty. The blog keeps their clients informed and it opens up the opportunity for clients to ask the attorney questions. The two-way communication enhances the attorney/client relationship and establishes the opportunity for new business to be developed.
A sports association uses a blog to share stories of how member sporting clubs are using various marketing programs to promote and grow their club and their sport. The sharing of information between peer clubs is a great way to grow an industry. One of the organizations managing members is using a blog to share the associations plans for future growth and changes within their own programs. The members like the blog because they have a better idea of what the organization is working on behind the scenes. The blog increases communication between the association and it’s members.
Blogs are two-way
Blogs create an informal and friendly approach to distributing information and for developing closer relationships with your customers. The tool that makes a blog two-way is the commenting feature. All blogs should enable this feature and encourage readers to participate in a conversation about the article/topic posted in the blog.
The commenting feature available on the bottom of a blog page enables readers to add additional details or content to the topic of the blog post. This enhances the content on the blog and provides information that is multidimensional. A blogger may write about a new smart phone and then readers can post their experiences with that particular phone. Other readers may post additional questions that then lead to more detail about a particular fact or function on the phone.
If your company does not have a blog, you should consider adding one or more to your corporate Website. If you have a Twitter profile or facebook page for your business you can set-up your blog to feed via rss to your social network. The cost to set-up a blog is minimal and the results will be well worth the effort. If you are not sure how to use a blog in your particular business, just send me an email and I’ll see if I can come up with some ideas for you. Email: lynn@dwmi.com.
Blog Costs
Recommended blog software: WordPress
Software cost: FREE
Cost to host blog on DWMI’s servers: $19.95 – $50 depending on specs
Cost to customize blog to match your Website: $500 Set-up
Contact:
Lynn Bremner
Tel. 760-619-2401
lynn@dwmi.com
