In my last post I discussed Mark Schaefer’s presentation at the 2011 Social Media Masters conference. The first part of his presentation dealt with ten reasons you should have a blog, even if no one reads it. This post I will delve into Mr. Schaefer’s ten ways to keep your blog from sucking.
1) Go in With a Gameplan. From a marketing standpoint, blogging is all about SEO. Try to think about your strategy for content, keywords and linking before going in with guns blazing.
2) Make it Entertaining. This can’t be stressed enough. If you want people to come back, make them laugh, pique their interest, keep them entertained. Keep if professional, but fun. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to a client at a party, but let your personality show.
3) Show Your Culture. We’re not talking about blogging about wine and the theatre. That’s cultured, with a “D” at the end. We’re talking about letting people see who you are as an organization. A blog is a good place to really let the personality of your organization and your people shine. Again, keep it professional, but make it fun.
4) Go Ahead and Sell. And why not? You are proud of your organization and of your work. There’s no reason not to brag a little. Just remember, be confident, but don’t be cocky.
5) Get Some Social Validation. An unfortunate reality of social media integration is that people judge your blog’s significance based the number of on retweets, “Likes”, and so forth. Get your employees involved. Ask your spouse, your kids, your mom, your dad, you get the idea. All it takes is a couple of seconds to click that button. Retweets might not work so well, but Facebook Likes and Google +1s are anonymous to the web at large. So get going. Fake it ‘till you make it.
6) Engage Your Leadership. Get the big guys involved. Folks like to see that the leadership is involved and have their fingers on the pulse.
7) Deputize. Remember how when Barney left Mayberry, Andy had to get Goober involved? Well, this is kind of like that. Hand out those badges and unloaded guns. Get everybody on board. All of your Goobers.
8 ) Leverage your content. I believe it was Bill & Ted who once said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Or maybe it was Solomon, I can’t remember. Regardless of who said it, chances are, someone in your organization has already written about it or worked on it. Blog about it. Someone out there somewhere is looking for it right now.
9) Five Steps to a Perfect Post
- Come up with a compelling headline. (See what I did there?)
- Present an original point of view.
- Have the courage to be imperfect.Don’t worry about writing the perfect post. If you do you’ll end up like me and never get it done.
- Don’t write, rewrite. Again, it’s already out there. No need to recreate the wheel.
- Be timely. Don’t write about old news.
10) Lower your expectations. Don’t set unrealistic goals you know will be very difficult to achieve. Work your way up to the big stuff. Even Shakespeare started by writing dirty limericks on the bathroom wall at the Globe Theatre. Or so I hear.
