Problogger Diary

Whether you are a large corporate organization or an independent consultant or small business owner, as you start a Business Blog, there are a number of elements that you should be looking to consider to give your blog every opportunity for success. While the exact requirements will differ according to how you intend to use your blog, there are certain questions that you will want to have answers for before you start to write it. In particular, there are three key questions which will underpin all of your blogging activity; they are:

i) What do you want to do with your Business Blog? Make sure that you have a clear vision of what you want to do with your Business Blog – are you using it as a customer service tool, as a marketing or branding method, to promote a particular product or service, as a market research or product development tool or any number of specific uses it is well suited to. Going through this process will ensure it has focus and will not become a “jack of all trades” and “master of none” - the more focused it is, the more successful it is likely to be.


ii) Who is your target audience for your Business Blog? Avoid trying to make it be “all things to all people” – it isn’t possible. Once again focus is important, so decide on your target audience and write the blog for them with content they are looking for and a style that they will warm to. If you have lots of different groups that you wish to appeal to then you might be better off setting up separate blogs to cater for each of these specific areas.

iii) What results are you looking to achieve? What goals do you have for your Business Blog and just as importantly, how are you going to measure them? There is going to be time and effort involved and you will be looking for specific results at the end of it - therefore, from the start, it’s good to know what results you are looking for. So decide on the criteria you want to work with and how you wish to measure them.

Following on from these, there are a number of other areas which are sensible to consider. Some are technical in nature while others relate to the running of the blog and its promotion.

i) What Blogging software to choose? There are a number of options available each with different benefits – by deciding what you wish to do with it, what it will be integrated with and what degree of control or customisation you require, you will be able to focus in on which would be best for your needs. The best advice is to choose one which will grow and develop with you as well as fitting with your current business and technical requirements. Free hosted software (such as Blogger) will seldom do this or give you sufficient control, so look at Wordpress (full version) or Movable Type for self hosted systems and Typepad for a hosted solution as good starter points.

ii) Should I host it on my website or on a different domain? As a general rule, if it sits comfortably alongside your website and complements the information on it, then integrate it into your website. If, on the other hand, you are looking to present an objective view on your industry or want a separate identity for branding purposes then choose a separate domain name and run it separately.

iii) What to call the Business Blog? Either let it reflect your company and branding, or make sure it contains your keywords … or preferably both. As a rule of thumb, though: choose something which you are still going to feel comfortable with in a year’s time. You might like to check some additional ideas on choosing a Business Blog name at www.betterbusinessblogging.com/blogging-basics/what-to-call-your-business-blog/.

iv) Look and Feel of the Blog. If you are using it as part of your website, then integrate the look and feel with that. There’s no need for your visitors to really know that they are on a blog - remember it’s the benefits that blogs offer that is important, not the technology. If it is on a separate domain, then design your Business Blog with the image you want to portray but don’t use the default template that the blogging software provides. Why? Default template = zero differentiation!

v) How will it integrate with your other marketing activities? Blogging is an excellent marketing tool, as well as having being strong in other areas. However, it is not a magic wand to cure all marketing ills, so it is necessary to decide how to best use it in conjunction with your other marketing, business development and customer service activities.

vi) Who will be blogging and how often? If you are a small business or individual, then the decision about who will be blogging will be a straightforward one. For a larger organisation, the decision will depend on what the blog is focused on and hence who will be the best person to write with knowledge and passion about it. As for how often you should blog, frequency isn’t as important as consistency so try to post regularly and keep your readers informed. As a caveat, however, you should be posting at least twice a week to give yourself the best chance of success.

vii) How to deal with comments? Receiving comments on a blog is one of the more satisfying aspects of blogging because it shows that you have engaged your readers enough for them to want to comment. Some companies, however, view it with dread because of possible comments being aired which are not entirely positive. While I would always recommend being open to and responding to comments, the decision ultimately is in the hands of the blogger.

If you have thought through these elements, then you will be in a much stronger position to set up your blog and concentrate on writing the posts and building your readership with a strong base in place.

Posted by Problogger Diary at Saturday, March 28, 2009