Stop. If your organization has a blog or has an interest in starting one, you might want to swing by the InVision Chesterfield eventin mid-May. Uberblogger Kate Hall of Richmondmom.com and I will be speaking at the Greater Richmond Chamber-sponsored event about the payoffs and perils of business blogging. (The free event takes place in the cafeteria at Johnston-Willis Hos pital bright and early the morning of Tuesday, May 18. Details are here.)
Kate and I will be getting together to share and compare notes before the event, but my emphasis will be on three specific areas – strategy, voice and consistency.
If you’re going to blog for your organization – or start a Twitter campaign, or launch a Facebook page – you need to have a strategy. In the olden days, they called that a marketing strategy, or a corporate communications plan. Whatever you do online should drive the broader strategic needs of your organization, which means creating a plan and sticking to it.
Easier said than done.
As important as the strategy is the voice of your blog – the style and tone and content of your writing should reflect the culture and brand of your organization. Sometimes that is driven by the personality of a senior executive. Sometimes voice emerges as a composite of several individuals, or your team’s best sense of the organizational personality.
Your customers and business partners should recognize your organization when it reads your blog.
I mentioned sticking to it. That’s essential. Consistency rules the best blogs. That means posting on a regular schedule, and posting predictable content.
If you’re a fan of Richmondmom.com, you know that Kate will bring more colorful advice to the InVision session. But we’ll also both share great stories about the trials and errors of promoting and celebrating your business through a blog, and we’ll have some solid advice for newcomers to the mix.
You can register for the InVision session at the Greater Richmond Chamber’s website.