Social Media. Blog Consulting. Web content.

Strategic Blogging Basics

The 'just do it' approach may work well in many other fields, but I am not so sure it's the best advice when it comes to corporate blogging. If you don't have specific goals in mind you'll never be able to measure the effectiveness of your blog.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself before you rush in where angels fear to tread.

• Do we know which key journalists are blogging?
• Do we know which keywords or phrases we want to be found for in the news engines and news sites?
• Do we know which keywords, in which news engines and new sites, bring us the most qualified traffic?
• Does our business depend on building relationships with customers?
• Do they need to have a strong interaction and trust level with our brand?
• Does our company have a strong point of view and/or opinions that we’d like to have heard in the public conversation?
• Are we ready to participate in the public conversation and deal with public
  feedback?
• Is our company is prepared to be open and transparent?
• Would we be comfortable if our employees were to speak about the company in blogs?
• Do we have definite, measurable goals we believe can be achieved by blogging?
• Do we have the resources to achieve this – time, writing talent, enthusiasm,
  new content on a regular basis, understanding of the blogosphere and the search engines?
• Have we thought through the pros and cons of hiring a full time blogger – or
  engaging a blog consultant?

How to get started.

Using these questions as a starting point, hold a strategy session and identify:

• The goals you want to achieve with blogger relations and corporate blogging
• Who the key influencers are
• Who your target audience is
• What content would hold their interest
• How many blogs or feeds you will need to meet these content requirements
• What keywords do your audience use to find this kind of content - and think about journalists doing researchonline for a story, as well as other stakeholders
• What keywords and phrases you’d like to dominate in the search engines
• What keywords and phrases you’d like to be found for in the news engines
• Resources in terms of time, money, content, talent and enthusiasm
• Top management buy-in for the project.

posted by John Palmer @ 9:36 AM