By Liana “Li” Evans
Jeremiah Owyang has a great post on “The Many Challenges of Corporate Blogging“. It’s a great read, and I highly suggest taking the few minutes to take in what Jeremiah’s saying. The reasons he lists are spot on, but Debbie Weil author of the BlogWrite for CEO’s blog and The Corporate Blogging Book, added a few more reasons, and I’ve added a few more. If you haven’t read Debbie’s book, this is another read I highly recommend if you even have the inkling you want to start a blog, or you’ve started one and you are wondering where to go next. If you’re interested, check out my review of The Corporate Blogging Book.
I think these reasons that both Jeremiah and Debbie listed are all spot on, but not just for CEO’s or Corporations. These reasons are spot on for anyone considering starting a blog, from the work at home mom to the startup entrepreneur, or even the stamp collector wanting to convey his passion. Blogging is a commitment, it’s not just a fad.
So here’s the reasons I listed in the comments of Jeremiah’s post, with a little more in-depth explanation.
- Don’t Just Blog to “Blog”
Blogging because you read about it on TechCrunch, Newsweek or FastCompany isn’t the reason to blog. Just because your competitor is blogging, doesn’t mean you should blog either. Blogging isn’t just a fad anymore, its a commitment, and unless you can give it the time and nurturing it needs, you’ll likely do more damage to your reputation than if you hadn’t blogged at all. - Don’t Blog Unless You’ve Got Your “Voice” Figured Out
Will your blog be just one person? Will it be a team of people blogging about different aspects of your company? Will you talk about products, services, issues, events, company news? Before you even start a blog, you should define a clear road map of what is “off limits” to talk about on the blog, how to handle issues as they arise (who handles what, and what’s the tone) and exactly what kind of demeanor will be portrayed on the blog – will it be laid back, straight talk, humorous or just newsy? - Don’t Blog Unless You’ve Got the Interest
If you are starting a blog just because “everyone else is” and you really don’t like to right, or communicate with the outside world, perhaps you should rethink this strategy. Why? Because without a doubt, your utter lack of interest, your lack of passion and your lack of love for conveying why people should care will shine through. It will be just like those commercials Ben Stein did for “dry eyes”, he sounds monotonous and boring. If its a reach for you “social” you might want to think about looking at other online strategies to convey your company’s efforts and news. - Don’t Blog Unless You’ve Got The Resources
Time, people and most importantly content ideas are the resources I’m referring to. Unless you’ve got the time to dedicate to writing a post, responding to comments and even dealing with spam here or there, you might want to think again about starting a blog. If it’s only you writing in the blog, and you don’t have the staff resources to help you out, again, you might want to rethink your strategy. If you can’t plan out your content for at least 2 weeks in advance, you really should rethink this blogging strategy. The worst thing a “blogger” can do, is start off a blog in high speed, slow down and then just stop because they are either burnt out, lack the time, lack the resources or just have no more content to give. You’ve created a following and now you’ve let them down – its nearly impossible to get them back when you find the resources you should have ad in the first place.
and lastly…
* Photo Credit, Scott Beale of Laughing Squid
Wow, I’m not so sure I agree with the last blurb about resources. So what exactly is the harm with infrequent blogging? Most people put up a site and forget it for a year or more. Anything is better than that. The idea that you need to map blogging out like a media plan is kind of silly. What’s best about blogging is the spontinaity. Seth Godin told me when I first started blogging in 2003…think ‘pithy’.
I had to look that one up, but it was the best blogging advice ever. Short passionate blurbs…not whitepapers or articles. Talk to a customer today? What did you talk about? There’s your blog post 🙂
Chris Baggott
CEO
Compendium Blogware
http://www.compendiumblogware.com
A very thought-provoking post. Thank you! I know it has me rethinking whether I should put up my own blog; you’ve raised some important questions that would-be bloggers need to be able to answer.
Hey Liana,
You know, when it comes to blogging, it may be a hot trend right now, and it may be perceived as an easy moneymaker, but this is not the case! You’ve made some great points here, especially the general “don’t talk unless you have something to say” sentiment. Your points are right on the ball, and clearly, so are you.
I’m an official Microsoft ambassador and right now we’re really trying to scale up our connections with influential bloggers like yourself. I’d love to share with you some of the stuff we’ve been doing in the last couple months to help women entrepreneurs; we’re really committed to providing all the necessary resources to help women start, grow and expand their business.
We just wrapped up a women’s entrepreneurial tour across the US; the response and turn-out was great!
I’d really love your take on these offerings we have right now; I would have contacted you via email but I didn’t know which was the best way to reach you.
Thank you so much, I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds by directly contacting you. Definitely get back to me if I’ve piqued your interest– I’d love to share more info with you.
Best,
Kimberly
Official Microsoft Ambassador
k-rosenberg@live.com
Chris –
The reason why I state that there should be some kind of schedule is more because business most of the time need to schedule their resources. Blogging takes time – to research and write, to find pictures to go with the title. If you can schedule out that X amount of people are going to be posting to the blog and it takes X amount of time out of their normal day – you’ll more than likely be successful at keeping a pretty stable posting pattern. Businesses, unlike individuals, do need some kind of structure when it comes to blogging, otherwise it can be an afterthought and then get lost in the mix of things and become unimportant. It’s not necessarily about the content or scheduling that.
As for the infrequent – well if you state you schedule from the beginning, they the audience understands, but if you start of like gangbusters then it just fades away, audiences go away and they don’t trust you when you “come back”, it’s really tough to get those people who read your blog before to come back and trust you are there for real.
Thanks!
~Li
Terri –
Thank for stopping by and commenting! 🙂
~Li
Kimberly,
Thanks for commenting and contributing to the conversation. I’ll be emailing you later on today.
Best –
~Li
Here is another reason not to blog if you cannot do it right. Google likes to see a regular schedule, or at least a some kind of commitment to your blog. I have tested this somewhat and when you stop publishing your posts, ALL of them will sink in the SERPs. Even you static pages will drop like files.
Post to much, like when your blog is new and you have those 20 articles you have been saving for it? Just as bad, add them at the same rate you are going to publish after you run out. Set a schedule and stick to it.
It’s 6:00 a.m. in the morning, and I’m blogging – what are you doing? 🙂 I was just writing about this topic, and linking to this blog amongst others. I am often asked this question and answer as follows: Blog when you’ve got a burning issue at the top of your mind. I blog when something is happening, that’s blog-worthy, or perhaps it’s mind-worthy to share. I can’t promise how often that’s going to occur. That might happen weekly. I find that when I go on vacation, I write more often. Perhaps that’s because my mind opens up when I go away from the hum drum of the office schedule. Great blogs contribute something. I like blog entries with images that tie into the story. I like blog entries with links to other relevant sites that feed or support the blog mention. However, I do not always do this. I typically prefer short blog entries, although when I write blog series (of 5 blogs or so), they are typically longer and are well-researched and take longer. These are then promoted through email marketing strategies, and other marketing venues.