Preliminary questions
First
and foremost, define the purpose of your corporate blog even before you
start writing the first line. What is the objective of this blog? Is
it about awareness? Is it intended for you to share knowledge with the
community? Is it there to show that your corporation and its experts
are particularly good at something? If you are able to answer any of
these questions, then you should also be able to clearly define the editorial line.
Of course, it is possible to maintain a blog just to "talk about the
weather". But at the end of the day, there are very little chance that
this is going to benefit your corporation. Eventually, not only will
this make your blog ineffective, but you may also run the risk of losing
your management support. It is particularly advised to target your
blog as if it was a standard information vehicle, through a carefully
chosen niche strategy.
It is also recommended to create a blog per activity, rather than one that mixes up different subjects. This will increase the community effect and make it a lot more efficient. Think about starting small rather than launch upfront as many blogs as you have domains that you're dealing with. It is much more desirable to have two or three blogs which are successful rather than a hundred which are not. Besides, don't forget that blogging could be time-consuming.
How much time should be devoted to that exercise? And by whom? This is probably the most crucial question. If the blog depends on an individual then it can also become a mind-boggling question. Very often, bloggers who do this for leisure, give up after a while or once they have moved to a more time-consuming job for instance and their free time vanishes or is considerably reduced. This is one of the reasons why a lot of blogs disappear after roughly a year of activity. When it comes to corporate blogging, things are theoretically easier because experts are potentially plentiful and it is possible to pool expertise and form expert-teams so that experts aren't all busy at the same time. One can therefore establish rosters for the blog to be maintained on a regular basis by different people. Even on the open Internet, this is one of the most effectual methods which I have found in order to keep the blog alive in the long run.
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