Corporate blogs are becoming increasingly common. But successful corporate blogs – those that build an audience of current and prospective buyers — continue to be rare. But just because people are reading your blog, doesn't mean it's attracting customers.
To make your blog successful from a business standpoint, you have to achieve one key goal: Engagement. That means readers come there voluntarily, enjoy what they read, and extract value from it.
So how do you know if your blog is not providing value? Here are four indicators:
- You treat it as a marketing channel. No one goes out of their way to read advertisements and marketing spin. If you want to engage, you must write like a person. Don't focus so hard on selling the company or its offerings. You should display passion and offer useful information, a unique take, and/or a personal perspective. Write like you are talking to a colleague or industry peer. Aim to
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It has no relevance to your business. This is the opposite extreme. You want to be personal in your tone, but not personal in your topics. Just because you don't want to write about your specific products/services doesn't mean you want to focus on things that don't affect your business or the people in your industry.
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You are ignoring social media. We're not talking about promoting on social media, we mean making your blog sharable on social platforms. Include social media buttons and images, and use titles that fit within Twitter character limitations when possible. The more sharable your blog, the more likely it will reach the right people.
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"Admin" is the author for most/all posts. Who is talking to me? All readers will want to know this. Of course, it's possible that all the articles are written by the marketing or PR department, but they still should have bylines. It's even better if those bylines vary and include top executives, especially the CEO. Given that those people may not have the time to dedicate to regular blog writing, ghost writing is an acceptable substitute. Just make sure, as mentioned in No. 1, that the personality of the "author" shines through.
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