Is your company blogging yet? With the soaring cost of postage and pay-per-click advertising, blogging offers catalogers a powerful channel to get their message to prospects and customers worldwide. The cost is low. The impact is high. Here are 11 steps to get you started.
1. READ LOTS OF BLOGS. Before you start your own blog, spend at least two weeks voraciously reading. Choose an RSS reader; I recommend Google Reader. Get familiar with blog search engines, such as Technorati. Find bloggers writing about niches related to your company, products, industry, customers, etc.
Add bloggers you like to your RSS reader. Follow their link-outs to find more bloggers. Intentionally oversubscribe to feeds. Aim for 50 feeds in your RSS reader by the end of the second week. Oversubscribing helps you understand which blogs keep your attention. It also lets you experience how readers decide to subscribe and unsubscribe. After you hit overload, pare down your reading list to a comfortable level.
2. READ BOOKS. To understand why blogs are revolutionary, read these books: “Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers” (Wiley, 2006) by Scoble and Israel, and “The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual” (Perseus Books, 2001) by Locke, Levine, Searls and Weinberger. For stories and tactics, check basic blogging books, such as “Clear Blogging: How People Blogging Are Changing the World and How You Can Join Them” (Apress, 2007) by Bob Walsh.
3. MAKE COMMENTS. Before you start, get comfortable commenting on blogs in your niche. Commenting offers a gentle way to ease into the conversation.
4. PICK YOUR PLATFORM. Decide if you’ll download software or use a hosted application. I’m partial to WordPress because of its rich ecosystem of plug-ins and themes. I suggest running this free software in-house, if your IT team can accommodate.
5. PICK YOUR WRITERS. Decide who in your organization will blog — and how frequently. Some organizations have top management blogging: Check out Bob Lutz at GM (http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/bob_lutz) or Richard Edelman at Edelman (www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog). Other organizations hire bloggers for their content, such as Ice.com’s blog Sparkle Like The Stars (www.sparklelikethestars.com/) and BzzAgent’s “90 Days” experiment last year (http://90days.bzzagent.com). Blogging is a serious time commitment. Make sure your designated writers can produce solid content, consistently.
6. PICK YOUR TOPIC. A blog needs a focus and an objective. Decide what your blog is about — and why.
Firms blog for many reasons:
* to attract prospective customers;
* to communicate with vendors;
* to establish expertise;
* to attract potential employees; and
* to communicate with Wall Street.
Different objectives dictate different writing styles and topics. For example, Google maintains one official blog in multiple languages (English version at www.googleblog.blogspot.com) for announcements and news. It has another 50 or so blogs for specific products. An example: Inside AdSense at www.adsense.blogspot.com. Google officially recognizes another 50 or so employee blogs. Check out Matt Cutts at www.mattcutts.com/blog or Christopher Sacca at www.whatisleft.org. While Matt Cutts can blog about the Spicy Chicken Sandwich at Jack in the Box, such a post would be out of place on Google’s main blog.
7. START WITH A PRIVATE BLOG. No need to practice in front of the world. If you’re hosting your blog internally, don’t allow outsiders from beyond the firewall to reach it. If you’re using a hosted blog, try marking posts as private, restricting readership to folks within your company.
Treat the posts as public. Use this internal test period to work out technical, branding, visual or legal hurdles for a month or so. See what frequency of blogging your organization can support. I recommend two posts a week. Choosing a posting frequency and posting consistently builds readership.
8. GO PUBLIC. After a test period of private blogging, commit to a public blog. Launch your public blog with the posts you made during your test period, so your shiny new blog enters the visible blogosphere with a hefty amount of established content.
9. LEARN MONETIZATION. Never run other people’s ads on your blog. Your team should read bloggers who cover blog monetization, however, because they often provide great tips for increasing readership, engagement and inbound links. I regularly read John Chow (www.johnchow.com). He offers great advice on gaining blog traffic, and is far less evil than he purports.
10. MOD YOUR BLOG. Most blogging platforms allow you to customize your design, change functionality, embed video and add widgets. Enliven your basic blog with brand-consistent gadgets and bling. A little bit goes a long away. (For a great, intentionally over-widgeted blog, check out Fred Wilson’s A VC blog at www.avc.blogs.com).
11. TRACK YOUR SUCCESS. You’re doing something right if your blog gains readers, subscribers, comments and inbound links. Track these metrics with FeedBurner, Google Analytics and Technorati. True success is when your blog gets into the mainstream press, is mentioned positively by vendors and customers, and starts generating sales.
Read Hugh MacLeod on increasing revenue at Stormhoek winery five-fold through blogging (www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003577.html).
Best of luck, and see you around the blogosphere!
Alan Rimm-Kaufman is CEO of the Rimm-Kaufman Group, an online agency helping catalogers manage paid search and improve site conversion. You can reach him at (434) 970-1010 or at www.rkgblog.com.
