We created a small group of people in our company to help our customers prepare and implement Corporate Guidelines for the company blog sites they build with our system. We have especially focused on the ones that have public access besides the Internal communication and knowledge management features as goals. We started preparing documents and example guidelines that are available from the corporations that already have those in place – good better and best… We actually could not find bad ones. While we were doing that I found a very, very nice article called “Policies compared: Today's corporate blogging rules” form Fredrik Wackå from Malmö, Sweden. He is with W PR & Information AB. I would like to personally thank him for the wonderful article he put together. Thank you, Fredrik. The article is great and everybody dealing with corporate blogging should read it.
I will be posting some more information about similar pieces but I really wanted to start with this one.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Sunday, September 03, 2006
About Corporate Blogging, search engines and how to use the corporate blog to attract traffic
I got a couple of questions this week forwarded to me from our sales team and sent directly from some of our customers. Will the corporate blog site get the company more exposure? That is a question with several “Yes's” as answers and with several “If's” too. Yes, the corporate blog will definitely help you get better search engine ranking and drive more traffic to your website. But you also have to help the situation. It will not happen by itself. You have to do your homework and keep doing it all the time.
You have to know first that Google and Yahoo have different indexing mechanisms and this brings different results to both search engines. You also have to know that usually the blogging software you are using and especially our system will automatically ping the main blog search engines but each corporate blog’s administrator will have to help too. For example: manual submission to Blogpulse is required and creating a corporate or personal profile at Technorati will help significantly. The easy part of it ends here - that is what I have always told all corporate bloggers, not only our own customers.
You have to blog guys! It is a blog! It needs attention, or you can say – it is a company, it needs work, it needs attention and care. Debbie Weil says: “Corporations do not blog, individuals do”. I could not agree more. My interpretation with the same meaning for quite some time now has been: “It is up to the people in one company, the employees and owners that care, that have to get organized and blog, communicate and discuss with customers, vendors, and last but not the least - between themselves. The company will not blog, it is the people inside that will”. Debbie Weil has worded it better and more precisely.
So, in order to really use the company blog as a tool you have to blog, you have to share your thoughts, worries and achievements with the world. That is the key.
One of the first issues is to create company blog guidelines. Another step is to select a team within your company or hire professionals to do it for you. My personal opinion is that an insider will do a better and faster job while the “hired guns” will take some time to step up properly. On the other hand the hired pros will not need time to learn what a corporate blog is and how to keep it alive. The CEO or any other member of the management is good to blog but this is not obligatory. Quite often regular employees or PR and Marketing Department members would do a better job.
Once this is in place - get the hot topics off the charts and the business plan, get the initial customer feedback and start writing about it. I can not stop repeating that you have to blog often; you have to keep the blog alive. It will be a mistake if you just put text in there and post for the sake of the daily obligation. Blog wisely! Choose the topics properly and have your own opinion in there. I think that if 3-5 posts a week appear on your company blog per blogger – that will be something. Check blog statistics daily, most popular articles, most popular search terms, search engine links and visit durations – everything is important to properly monitor and direct the company blog.
Another important step is to have the company bloggers read and comment other people’s and companies' blogs. Identify yourself and your company blog to the world by making other people’s efforts and achievements worthwhile.
The content available in the Cyberspace is vast, the Blogosphere is growing rapidly. Content creation on your blog will not be important unless it is specific, focused, precise and has a personal touch.
You have to know first that Google and Yahoo have different indexing mechanisms and this brings different results to both search engines. You also have to know that usually the blogging software you are using and especially our system will automatically ping the main blog search engines but each corporate blog’s administrator will have to help too. For example: manual submission to Blogpulse is required and creating a corporate or personal profile at Technorati will help significantly. The easy part of it ends here - that is what I have always told all corporate bloggers, not only our own customers.
You have to blog guys! It is a blog! It needs attention, or you can say – it is a company, it needs work, it needs attention and care. Debbie Weil says: “Corporations do not blog, individuals do”. I could not agree more. My interpretation with the same meaning for quite some time now has been: “It is up to the people in one company, the employees and owners that care, that have to get organized and blog, communicate and discuss with customers, vendors, and last but not the least - between themselves. The company will not blog, it is the people inside that will”. Debbie Weil has worded it better and more precisely.
So, in order to really use the company blog as a tool you have to blog, you have to share your thoughts, worries and achievements with the world. That is the key.
One of the first issues is to create company blog guidelines. Another step is to select a team within your company or hire professionals to do it for you. My personal opinion is that an insider will do a better and faster job while the “hired guns” will take some time to step up properly. On the other hand the hired pros will not need time to learn what a corporate blog is and how to keep it alive. The CEO or any other member of the management is good to blog but this is not obligatory. Quite often regular employees or PR and Marketing Department members would do a better job.
Once this is in place - get the hot topics off the charts and the business plan, get the initial customer feedback and start writing about it. I can not stop repeating that you have to blog often; you have to keep the blog alive. It will be a mistake if you just put text in there and post for the sake of the daily obligation. Blog wisely! Choose the topics properly and have your own opinion in there. I think that if 3-5 posts a week appear on your company blog per blogger – that will be something. Check blog statistics daily, most popular articles, most popular search terms, search engine links and visit durations – everything is important to properly monitor and direct the company blog.
Another important step is to have the company bloggers read and comment other people’s and companies' blogs. Identify yourself and your company blog to the world by making other people’s efforts and achievements worthwhile.
The content available in the Cyberspace is vast, the Blogosphere is growing rapidly. Content creation on your blog will not be important unless it is specific, focused, precise and has a personal touch.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil - this is a must-have book for the corporate blogging community members, and not only! The book is great!
After Tanya spotted the book on a bookshop window I got it about 10 days ago. Since we were releasing a couple of new customers and pilot testers I was kind of busy and managed to look at the book just last night. I have to say that BY now it is already read and remarks are done both on the book (sorry Debbie, I sometimes make small comments with a pencil) and on a couple of sheets. I am also getting another copy from the local Barnes and Noble store to bring to our European office as this is not available in Europe yet.
Guys and girls, you have to read The Corporate Blogging Book - you will find basic information about the blogs initially, about the corporate blogs, answers of the most common issues standing in front of anyone planning to enter the corporate blogosphere and perfect examples... Then more and more profound and detailed info and research materials about corporate blogging and business networking. The book has very nice comments on some of the CEO's blogs, examples of some prominent corporate bloggers and comments on large and small corporate blogs.
The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil also has examples and comments for corporate blogging guidelines and other legal issues to consider as well as some nice and very probable direction where the corporate blogging will head. I definately recommend this book for everyone.
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