For those of us in marketing who sigh and mumble under our breath, “if only I had MORE hours in a day I definitely would pay MORE attention to our company blog” – we secretly already know there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I believe the super successful lifestyle bloggers can attest that “blogging,” and actually doing it really well, is indeed a full-time job. That’s right, it takes a lot more time than you actually have to create and maintain the kind of blog you’d like – one that catapults your company to the top of the SEO heap and garners thousands and THOUSANDS of followers.
But, this doesn’t mean that you should just become discouraged. This is about celebrating the things you are doing right, and offering a couple of “tick boxes” that could easily help you up your blog game. And, if you already HAVE a corporate blog … well then you’ve already checked box #1!
Start a blog. Adding a blog to your company website is a no-brainer. After all, a blog is the easiest way to establish yourself as a “thought leader in your industry” – and isn’t that the goal? Be perceived by an expert at what you do + share knowledge = phone rings and clients call.
- So, if it was as easy as that – then we actually would turn our blog writing INTO our full-time job. But, after you have established your blog, it’s what you do with it next that matters. You have to SHARE it out.
- This just might be the easiest part. Is your company active on social media? Share it there. Post it to twitter, facebook, Google+, Linkedin. Post it when it’s new – this is the equivalent of “shouting it from the rooftops.” But hey, you clearly have expertise in your field, you spent the time writing it, and don’t you want someone besides your mom to read it? Send it out via email to your clients and followers. Add it to your company e-newsletter. There is NO limit to the places you can and should share out your blog.
- Offer it up for inbound links. If you think your blog would be helpful as content that other like-minded businesses or vendor partners could benefit from, send it to them and invite them to link to it in their blogs or share it on their social media platforms. This is the “more the merrier” approach – and good relevant content can benefit others in their content goals.
- Be consistent. When I get asked, “how often should I be blogging?” I always say, “there’s no right or wrong answer here.” Since Google’s algorithms reward you in search for MORE content pages on your site, you should shoot for more. A lot more. But if you are blogging only 1x per week, that’s totally fine. But that means, DO that – blog 1x per week. Don’t skip. Be consistent. Allow your followers to learn that they can expect that at least once a week, they are going to receive a big ole’ dose of really good, really relevant and fairly entertaining content from you – delivered straight to their inbox.
These tips are really just the basics, but if you apply any of them, you already might be doing more than the next guy. Managing your corporate blog is definitely a marathon, not a sprint – so don’t be too hard on yourself.
Written by Mary Moore.
