B2B Web Strategy Blog - eMagine

Best practices for starting and running a business blog

July 22nd, 2009 Posted by: Bill Gadless

We get the questions a lot from our B2B clients… “Should we start a blog?” and “What do we need to know to do it ‘right’?”  We answer “yes” to the first one in most cases, because if nothing else, a reasonably well-done blog will improve their website’s search-engine ranking and their market’s perception of their thought leadership.  And it’s likely to be a first step down the path of leveraging social media, which we know will help them build their brand(s) and tighten their relationship with their market as individuals.

Answering that second question usually takes a PowerPoint and a couple of follow-up concalls.  But now we can also refer them to Jeff Cohen’s excellent post over on Social Media B2B, “10 Business Blogging Best Practices”.

As usual, we won’t go through all 10 here …for that, you’ll want to click on over to Jeff’s post.  But we’ve picked out a few takeaways to whet your appetite:

• Your blog should begin with a strategy.  Even better, its strategy should be integrated into your overall marketing strategy.  That means defining what audience you’re trying to reach and what goals you want the blog to accomplish (brand building, thought leadership, etc.).
• Find a distinctive voice.  This should emerge naturally, since it should be reflective of your content and target audience.  It’s OK – in fact, good – to give it some personality, since one of the generic benefits of blogging is to create a human face for the company behind it.
• Create compelling content.  That basically means keeping it informative and relevant to your target audience.  For awhile, this will be easy;  after that point, read our post “Keeping your business blog vital after it stops being easy”.
• Post on a regular schedule.  Why? …because that’s the best way to build a regular readership;  they become “regular” because they see that you are.   No question, this takes both time and a serious amount of discipline;  but hopefully all that was in your plan.  One little trick is to write ahead to a “Blog Bank” during relatively slack times;  then in crunch times, you can simply pull one out of the Bank, dust it off and post it.
• Engage with your readers.  When your readers comment to your posts, that’s a good thing;  it means your blog is attracting genuine attention.  Your responses to such comments give you a chance to clarify subtleties in your logic, or actually second someone else’s original thought or spin …in the process most likely cementing that person as a fan for life.

Follow these guideposts, and your blog should be well received and build a loyal following;  although remember that its benefits will come in accretive fashion – post after post after post – so be patient.  Your Web marketing consultants can assist you with planning for and implementing your business blog.

Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy