Blogging can be a very important element in increasing your social media results. The upside is that its original content that will help your SEO, in addition to helping your brand become known as a thought leader on that subject matter. The downside to blogging is that it can take time to create. The business can create the blog themselves or hire a social media agency to create it.
If you create the blog in-house then it will obviously be all about your company or product. Rightfully so as the blog will most likely be hosted on your business website, it should be all about you. If you’re going to have a blogger review your product it can open up a whole world of issues. How will they be compensated? Why did you choose them? How will their post explain your relationship to them?
I recently attended BlogWell, a conference where large brands explained some case studies in social media. Think of a large company in the U.S. and they were there. They produced a very thorough guideline on best practices for working with bloggers. It’s all about disclosure and is worth looking at if you’re going to explore a blog in your social media efforts. This is serious business as companies can be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars if you don’t properly disclose relationships.
If you’re going to jump into producing a blog for here are two basic tenants to guide you.
Be consistent on your posts
How many times do you plan to update your blog? You want to update every day, but realistically, how many times a week can you update the blog with original content? If it’s once a week then take that figure and run with it. A couple times a week is awesome, just be certain that you can keep up the pace.
If you want to post every day then you better have someone assigned specifically to the blog/social media needs. If that is the case then it would help you to write 30 days ahead, which will obviously impact the timeliness of your posts.
Whatever schedule you decide on, start low and then increase it. Be warned, once you see the results of posting more often you’ll feel pressured to maintain those results. Plan ahead.
Figure out what your voice will be and then work on it
Is the voice of your blog going to be a casual consumer or industry insider? Your customers and visitors to your site will decide how you speak to your audience. Don’t be alarmed when that voice starts to change, but don’t change it too drastically when it does.
Your blog may attract more people or a different base then you thought it would. That’s fine, embrace the new readers, but don’t make the intended audience feel alienated.
The tone of your blog is like a picture of you. In hindsight you think you looked goofy in high school, but it was still you. At your first professional job you thought that you knew everything, until you had your second job. All of those jobs helped make you who you are though. In this case the history and feel of the blog may change, but that only helps you establish online roots and credibility.
