Last Updated on March 2, 2024
Corporate blogging is vastly different from the usual concept of ‘personal’ blogging. According to Wikipedia, “a corporate blog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals”. Thus, corporate blogs are of two kinds – internal blogs and external blogs.
The internal blogs are meant for its employees and management. Whatever happens within it is not revealed outside. External blogs are public blogs where a team is usually assigned to communicate with the outside world, that is, their targeted consumer base. Amazon, Facebook, Delta Airlines, Red Cross, BMW and Starbucks have some of the best corporate blogs. You can read about them and more here.
Corporate blogging is not easy. One has to follow certain rules and regulations to make the blog a success. In this article, I will share some corporate blogging tips with you.
1. Corporate Blog Training
If you are working for a comapny and wish to become part of their blogging team, you need training. This training is less about the technicalities of pure blogging but more about the things you may or may not reveal on the external company blog.
The company will train you regarding the things you are not supposed to talk about such as a pending product launch; you will be trained about how to handle comments or visitor queries and more. After all, the corporate company will not want to come across as vulnerable. If any of their employees reveal something which they are not supposed to, it will not only hamper the employee’s career but the corporate repute too.
2. Corporate Blog Marketing
Just because it is a corporate blog doesn’t mean it will be successful on its own. Consumers, new and old, have to know about it so promotion is necessary. Free classified ads posting, classified business listing, guest blogging, organizing giveaways, holding contests are some of the suitable methods. While classifieds will help to create free online ads for promotion across multiple classifieds ads channels, other methods like the giveaways and contests will bring in repeat visitors. Whatever the promotion method, the purpose is to take corporate blogging seriously and use it for brand extension.
3. Do Not Go Behind their Back
It is not too surprising to find disgruntled employees opening their separate blog under anonymous names and banter against it to give the corporate negative press. Corporate companies should remember that nothing goes unnoticed online. Something even remotely small can go viral easily. Therefore, it is a must to gain employee confidence, especially those on the blogging team because they are the ones writing and publishing.
Nevertheless, in any case, it is stupid to go behind the back and cry wolf. If the management catches you, they can file a legal suit. Are you ready for this?
4. Tracking Software
Elaborating on the previous point, the corporate company should ensure that it has effective tracking devices in place to monitor what all things are being posted about the company. Since it is a company brand, it is possible that other people who do not have any relation with the company as staff may be blogging about it and thus, it is necessary to monitor such content.
There are various tracking software available but if necessary, the corporate IT team can develop their custom software for this purpose. Tracking and monitoring is a necessity.
5. Editorial Control
There should be an editor-in-chief who monitors the content. Every piece of content should run through the chief editor and be published only after prior approval. In short, quality control shouldn’t be compromised. As a corporate, it is their collective responsibility to avoid any untoward happenings. The corporate should remember that it is a brand name and there is a certain reputation attached with the brand name.
Enough quality control procedures should be applied to maintain a neat and clean external corporate blogging image.
6. It’s Harmful to Outsource
I believe that corporate blogging should not be outsourced. Outsourcing will make the company vulnerable because the third-party agency or individual bloggers will get access to a lot of insider information and this information can and will be used against the corporate entity. Therefore, create a team of bloggers internally who will have the responsibility to manage the corporate entity’s online repute.
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Running a corporate blog has its own challenges. It is necessary to identify and assess the challenges, and come up with a practical solution before going ‘live’ A dedicated internal blogging team is a per-requirement. What do you think?
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