Let’s say that your company is brand new. Or is launching a brand new product and you feel the need for an alternative web presence to your company’s main site. What is the FIRST STEP you should take in today’s Web 2.0 world? Establish a Corporate Blog. Here are the steps:
1. Build a platform: Define your company purpose. Be able to convey to the world your brand and your message.
2. Design: Create a look and feel that matches your theme/message. Why use a WordPress (or Joomla, or Drupal) CMS theme, instead of just a .Blogspot.com blog? Two reasons: 1.) SEO 2.) First impressions. You may say, “Why not start on a free .typepad or .blogspot blog and move to a more expensive theme when the blog takes off? Think about the number of visitors needed to create a successful blog. Now, think about those visitors as potential customers. Like the shopping mall on Rodeo Drive vs. a small town flea market, you want visitors to see an impressively designed structure. If your blog looks like a flea market, how many customers will turn around and walk out? Not only will they be turned off by the appearance of your “mall,” but they’ll also go and tell their colleagues that your mall stinks. Those potential customers will have an impression of your mall, without ever having stepped foot inside it. So, you’re already down levels of influence with a snowball’s chance of getting any of them back. Instead of wasting time trying to chase customers, why not wow them right out of the gate?
3. Branding: It isn’t just your logo, or a banner on your blog. It’s the font you use, the graphics, the color of your background, the texture, the look and feel of your platform. You want a narrow niche and to use content to drill that image into the minds of your readers. Everything that you write about on your company’s blog should relate to the business, your industry, your products/services, your upcoming events, product roll-outs, promotions, campaigns, “did you know?” factoids, etc.
4. Building a Tribe: Just as having a mall doesn’t guarantee an income, having a blog doesn’t insure a stream of money flowing into your corporate coffers. So, how do you get people to not only visit your store, but to hang out, grab a coffee and make it their second home (so to speak)? The trick is not in convincing people to come over, but in recruiting them to your “cause.” Your point of view, the information you provide, the connections and conversations you start… these things build a tribe around your corporate blog. So, what are the steps to building a tribe that will consume every piece of content that you create, and share the crumbs with their like-minded friends? Three steps: become entrenched; engage; give it all away
5. Become Entrenched: The road to becoming respect in any niche starts with possessing that which is essential to being an authority… knowledge. With knowledge comes both the understanding of how to speak to the people within that niche, and the variety of opinions that are required to create compelling and insightful commentary.
6. Engage: Engaging, not only with your community niche, but with those outside of your own, is the first key to building your small army. It isn’t just answering comments and replying to emails. It isn’t just ReTweeting and replying on Twitter in hope of getting reciprocal backlinks. It requires a full-time dedicated person to give the time and energy that many bloggers aren’t willing to give.
7. Give it All Away: Not a single blogger can/will begin their career by monetizing immediately. Building trust and authority takes time, and it isn’t something that you can do easily unless you are willing to put in the work. You don’t have to post every single day, but sticking to a consistent editorial schedule will help your audience know what to expect. As long as you’re giving away content, you will be continuously building a bigger audience, which means that monetization options will increase. Consider giving away the why… and selling the how. That’s what we do here at Wendistry.
8. End Benefits: No… it’s not monetization. Your corporate blog functions as a platform that builds your company’s brand. It is this brand, over time, that will allow you to earn money behind the scenes.
About Wendi McGowan