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Beginner's guide to blogging
What is it?
A blog – short for weblog – is now a hugely popular way for businesses and organisations to connect with customers, employees, the media and other audiences.How do they work?
Blogs are posted on the Web and allow readers to interact by leaving their own comments – opening up a new discussion thread, giving feedback or product or service reviews – as well as links to other sources and readers.Who’s doing it?
Today, you can find millions of blogs on any subject, from current affairs and politics, to fashion and TV programmes. Here, we’re going to focus on business or corporate blogging, which can be turned inwards to communicate with employees via an intranet, or outwards to explain company thinking, break news, and help with marketing, branding and PR.Why bother?
It’s a low-cost, effective way to communicate with your customers, brainstorm with colleagues, share knowledge with employees or get news and views from members. It helps collect vital feedback, and, if it’s regularly updated with relevant content, can significantly boost your website’s search engine rankings.Content, style and frequency
Whatever topic you write about, it needs to be relevant to your industry, product or service and must "add value" to the people reading it.Read as many other relevant blogs as you can to get a feel for style and content. Try Google’s Blog Search for blogs on you favourite subject.
Now give readers something they can’t find elsewhere – such as a resource, connection or information. Personal stories, original research or useful tools are all good content. Consider posting top 10/7 or 5 checklists.
Use a human voice when you’re writing and try to keep your copy chatty and informal – as if having a conversation with someone – but also concise.
Ideally, you should post a new entry several times a week to develop your relationship with your audience. If you’re going away, post a short explanation and when you’ll be back.
What else can I put in there?
A huge sea of text is unappealing and may put audiences off. Create white space around what you say and add snappy subheads and bullet points so that readers can find their way through the copy more easily.For interest, add a photo or an illustration or maybe a video interview.
Provide lots of links.
Blog etiquette
Consider publishing corporate blogging guidelines and decide whether blogging should be covered in employee contracts.Guidelines could include:
- not defaming or discussing colleagues and their behaviour
- not revealing confidential information
- avoiding potentially-inflammatory topics such as politics or religion
- blogging in company time
- deciding whether a disclaimer should be included
How to get started
blogger.com – create a free blog using this Google service.typepad.com – offers a 14-day free trial
wordpress.com –mostly free features plus some paid-for upgrades to enhance your site
Blogging search engines to explore:
www.zuula.comwww.technorati.com
www.blogdigger.com
www.icerocket.com
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