Social media channels are all well and good. They are important in their way, but they have their limitations. If you want to really connect with your customers, then you need a corporate blog. When you start one though, there are a number of valuable do’s and don’ts you need to keep in mind lest you wind up shooting yourself and your brand in the foot. Below, we’ll touch on the basic strategies for the creation of an excellent corporate blog.
Do Be Outward Facing
The first thing you want to do is write about the world, not the company. It’s fine if some of your posts are inward facing, but if every blog post reads “Me, me, me!” you won’t be successful. Your readers are okay with hearing about you sometimes, but they’re more interested in hearing about them, and in hearing about the world beyond your corporate frontier, with a slant that in some way involves one of your products, services or brands.
Don’t Sell
You sell when you advertise. You sell when you Tweet. You sell on Facebook. Let’s face it, you sell pretty much everywhere, which probably includes trying to sell to them when they call Customer Service to complain about something you’ve sold them previously that isn’t working. Don’t sell anything here. The blog is about conversation, not selling. Give your readers one place where you’re not actively trying to get them to open their wallets and give you money. They’ll thank you for it.
Do Be Provocative
Middle of the road doesn’t cut it. It’s bland and boring. Your readers want to be entertained. The world is full of bland and boring and your customers can get that from pretty much anywhere. Be different, offer a bit of sparkle. Give your readers what they want, keep them surprised and entertained and they’ll keep coming back.
Don’t Ignore Negatives
Your readers want to know that you understand their pain points as they relate to the products and services you sell, so meet them head on in your blog. Talk about them openly and honestly and invite your readers to have the conversation with you. If you ask them to participate, they will. Yes, you’ll get a number of one to three line drive-by style posts that offer nothing but insults, but you’ll also get a lot of constructive criticism that’s incredibly well thought out and helpful. Be brave enough to both take advantage of that and to act on the advice you receive.
Do Maintain A Schedule
People want to see fairly regular updates. If they check back in more than twice and you don’t have anything new, you’ve probably just lost a reader. Don’t allow that to happen, because that’s an easy thing to fix. You can keep a stable readership with as little as two postings a week. If you can’t commit to two posts a week, then you probably don’t need to be blogging.
There are more, of course, but those are the basics. If you can nail down those things, you’ll have a successful blog, and your readership will grow consistently.
