This is going to be a tough year for most companies. And marketers, I feel your pain. To focus in on the realities that you and your company face, I'm writing a multi-part series of blog posts titled, "The Sky is Falling." The goal of this series is to dive down into the issues, barriers and unattainable objectives you're buried under and talk through the ideas, tips and strategies to overcome them. I've planned out 6 articles, but I'll take direction and input from you and continue the series with your ideas if that makes sense. So let's continue.
It took a great deal of hard work and convincing to get a corporate blog started. Your CEO was worried there would be negative comments and customer complaints about products. Your CMO just didn't have time to focus on it (and by inference, wasn't prioritizing the blog's importance).
Even so, you got it off the ground. Now you have a new problem. Few people are interested in the blog. You get few comments if any and Compete.com and Quantcast show that only 2,000 people read it each month. That's just a tiny fraction of your customers, not to mention the entire marketplace.
You may be using other metrics to define the success of your blog. There are many. But without interested readers, you will have a difficult time getting management excited about any other forms of social media. And worse, you will lose interest in writing the blog, ensuring its complete failure. The bottom line: it will be a huge missed opportunity.
So start now and revive the blog.
7 Crucial Steps to Blog Revival
- Take an objective look at your blog. Are you spitting out posts that are regurgitated press releases? Are the posts focused solely on the company and what it's doing? If yes, stop it now.
- It's fine to write about what the company is doing every now and then as long as you are giving it a personal spin and offering insight readers wouldn't otherwise have. Insight, I said. Meaning insider knowledge, secrets, unknown facts, or real people stories.
- The rest of the posts should be focused on your customers and what they're thinking, worried or talking about.
- Oh, did I say customer? Who exactly are you writing the blog for? If you're thinking, our market, that would be wrong.
- For a corporate blog to be successful, it must address a specific audience with a clear point of view, topic focus or personality.
- The same blog isn't interesting to customers, press, shareholders and resellers. Not unless it's the CEO's blog.
- If your target is customers, do you have only one type? Are they very different by industry or by product purchased? Define exactly who you are writing for or the very specific subject that would entice readership from across your customer base. If it draws in other people, that's icing on the cake.
- Make it absolutely clear who is writing the blog posts. This may seem like a minor point, but on today's Web it's huge. When I get to a site and there's no photo of the author, no bio or even a title, I leave pretty quickly. What are they trying to hide?
- Post pictures of the authors and some biographical information above the fold. Just let readers know what they do for the company and who they are in their own words. (It shouldn't read like a press bio.) On Johnson & Johnson's corporate blog each post states the author's name and title. You have to click through to get a picture and a few facts, but it works. Kodak does a nice job.
- Even the CEO's title should appear. He or she may be a rock star in your industry, but it's possible people in far corners of the planet haven't heard of him (or her). Dave, I love your blog as pointed out below, but move the "About" link up from the very bottom of the sidebar to the top.
- Have a world view. Know what's going on in the world (economy, war, natural disaster), in your industry (trends, issues, new regulations) and inside your customers' companies (significant growth, regulatory changes, economic impact) and wind these views into your posts. Illustrate that you are about the customer and what they need to know.
- Market the blog. Don't assume people will just find it.
- Put a link (better yet, a badge) on the corporate website homepage.
- Commit to the success of the blog and put links on all product pages in your online store.
- Put the blog on product packaging, inserts, and marketing materials.
- When your marketing folks comment on blogs across the web, have their signature (or login) point to the blog, not the corporate website.
- Have everyone in the company add the blog URL to their email signature line, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts.
- Post about and link your most interesting blog posts with captivating thoughts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook fan pages and so on.
- Use keywords/tags to get better search engine optimization.
- Comment on lots of other blogs. People who think your comments are interesting will click on your link and land on your blog.
- Do everything possible to make sure your audience knows you have an informative, humorous, insightful blog they must read.
- Write to entice. If you need ideas, read CopyBlogger, ProBlogger, DebbieWeil.com and ChrisBrogan.com. Brian, Darren, Debbie and Chris are great bloggers, and they have fantastic blog writing tips and advice.
- In my experience, offering tips and advice really seem to work.
- Titles matter.
- Don't be esoteric.
- Write shorter blog posts packed with information that are broken up by white-space and easy to read.
- Get your CEO to blog. Okay, only if he or she is dynamic, full of personality and enjoys showing it. You can't miss the extraordinary posts from Tony Hsieh and Dave Hitz. If your CEO just won't (or just shouldn't) find people who are a good fit. Personality blogs do well. There are people who feel comfortable online, connecting on every social site, writing often and letting their personality show through (aka, Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research). Find them and sign them up.
Other posts in this series:
The Sky is Falling - Part 1: Slashed Marketing Budgets
The Sky is Falling - Part 2: A New Direction is Needed
