For those of you who have a blog (for your business), or are considering launching one for your company, Debbie Weil’s book “The Corporate Blogging Book” is a great introduction and guide as to how, why and who your audience would be. I thought she covered a lot of basics in easy to understand language, and had some really terrific examples of how a company can benefit. It was very interesting as to what types of blogs “caught on.” Usually it’s not the one that’s expected.
I also loved the section where she quoted the response from an executive who was asked how he found time to blog. His answer? “It’s no more time-consuming than sending emails to my friends.” Also useful is the chapter on how to write for a blog, including the importance of links, writing for search engines and being conversational. This section of the book alone is worth the cover price and should definitely be read before launching your own blog!
One blog writing tip that I would add is to read everything you write out loud, and if that’s how you’d say it, then write it that way. (Provided you speak in fairly proper English, or whatever language you might be blogging in.) A really cool example of how effective “writing like you speak” can be is not from a blog, but from Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. If you’re a major fan of the film, and like me can quote all the dialogue from the movie, pick up the book. You’ll be amazed how much of his dialogue they used verbatim in the movie. The interesting part is that often different characters in the book (as opposed to the movie) are saying the same exact lines.
As for whether a blog is worth the effort. It depends on your business, time and talents. Last year, I pulled our original DWC Scoop blog (a blog of announcements for Downtown Women’s Club members), out of our website where it was embedded, and renamed it www.womensDISH.com. We added more content relevant to women and business (in addition to press releases and the news for members) and doubled our web traffic to our main site (www.DowntownWomensClub.com) in the first month. For us, the blog was a stand-alone marketing piece.
The bonus was that most of that traffic came from technical types who understood the value of our online networking/marketing services and therefore they were easier to convert to paid members than our existing “in-person” members, who only attend our networking meetings (and have little interest in online opportunities). We also use blogging technology to run our resource and partners pages which need continuous updating. It saves us time and money not to have to outsource those functions.
As for the time issue, I opted to bring in guest bloggers, so it’s more of a group blog, and the pressure is off of me. However, I enjoy writing, and do it for a living so blogging is probably easier for me than most. But, even if you don’t blog yourself, you can network and meet people through blogs by writing comments to the authors. (Note to readers – bloggers love to read comments!)
The Bottom Line: If you’re thinking of starting a blog, or wondering how you can give your company blog a boost, it’s a good overview.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 9:07 am and is filed under Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
