Blogging Strategically – Leveraging Blogs to Advance Your Corporate Brand (Part 1 of 3)
Lately, I’ve been receiving a lot of inquiries about blogs. These questions are justified as blogs become more and more popular. Blogs are the place where people are getting their news, expressing their views and releasing “behind the scenes” info. But the real questions are, “Is a blog right for you and your company?” and “How do you use a blog to advance your corporate brand?”
I’m going to make an assumption that if you are reading this post you are familiar with blogs. If not, Wikipedia offers a great definition. I like to define “blogging” as:
- An e-Marketing tactic that should be used as a part of your overall e-Marketing and web site strategy in conjunction with other tactics such as SEO, PPC, e-mail, etc.
- A tactic that should be aligned to complement your traditional media program in timing and in content.
- A PR tool that serves as a voice for a subject-matter expert.
- A form of CGM (consumer-generated media) and Web 2.0.
- A viral marketing technique.
- Finally and most importantly, an extension of your corporate brand.
Developing a Corporate Blog Strategy
Before you get out there and start writing about the latest and greatest news regarding your organization, my first recommendation, similar to any marketing tactic, is to define your target audience and develop a strategy for the blog. Ask yourself a few simple questions:
- Will a blog benefit my target audience?
- How does my audience receive information?
- Will they be receptive to a corporate blog?
- What kind of information would they expect from a blog?
- How will blogging affect my corporate brand?
- Does blogging line up with my business and marketing objectives and goals?
- Who will be blogging in my organization?
- Do I have time to blog?
- Are my competitors blogging? What are they saying?
Once you have answered these questions and defined your audience, you can start developing your corporate blog strategy. In my next blog post, I will be discussing the different types of corporate blogs to help you define which type is most suitable for your company.