Marketing

Blogging Do’s and Don’ts

March 1, 2011

This is a part of a series that was created to help you get the practice of corporate blogging built into your company. This series will walk through the process, necessary roles, in addition to guides for each role to help your company get started quickly. The following several posts make up a quick start guide for the employee blogger.

Do’s:

  • Do market your blog on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
  • Do join new groups on LinkedIn, aiming for groups that your target audience is interested in, and join discussions in these groups; create blog posts specifically geared toward a discussion thread in a group to obtain more exposure
  • Do download Digsby, or some other social aggregate, which automatically distributes/links content to all of your social networking sites
  • Do comment on thought leaders’ blogs; the thought leader might retweet the post or include a link to your post or even your blog
  • Do include a link to your blog in your e-mail signature
  • Do encourage prospects to visit your blog to learn more about your company culture
  • Do release consistent, relevant content geared toward your target persona
  • Do include pictures, graphics, and video in your blog posts
  • Do write your posts in bullet ed format — “How To’s,” “Quick Tips,” “Top 10”-style blog posts are typically more successful because they are easier to digest
  • Do make 80% of your blog content your own original thoughts

Don’ts:

  • Don’t paraphrase other people’s ideas and call it a blog post – a blog should be your thoughts, your ideas, your insights
  • Don’t make your blog posts longer than 500 words – readers don’t have the attention span!
  • Don’t write a blog post that is shorter than 5 sentences
  • Don’t expect visitors to come to you – get out there and market your blog to your networks
  • Don’t submit your blog without thoroughly proofreading it, expecting the administrator to edit it for typos/grammar mistakes, etc.
  • Don’t write about topics that are completely irrelevant to your business – keep your target persona in mind at all times
  • Don’t forget to respond to comments on your blog – someone took the time to read your post and give their two cents, so show your appreciation through a response, even if they didn’t agree with your opinion

Additional resources:

 

5 Blogging Etiquette Tips for Beginning Blogger

Corporate Blogging: Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s and Don’ts in Your First Month Blogging – Be a Better Blogger

Next week I’ll discuss about the first blog.