10 Rules for Your Corporate Blogging Success

Corporate blogging is about building relationships with your customers and potential business prospects. Using blogs for media to create conversations about events affecting your industry, as part of an overall public relations strategy, also gives you a cost-effective reputation management tool. But blogging is different from top-down marketing, where the message is controlled. Most people discredit traditional marketing speak; they find it suspect. Using a corporate blog to create a conversation is the idea -- it's a trust-building dialog. That's good strategic communication. But how? Here are ten suggestions to consider:

Be original
Have you heard successful blogging requires an original voice? So you want to invite customers into a conversation. While there are five basic writing styles (voices) most writers gravitate toward, stay clear of being purely informational. If you're not careful, that will lead you into a corporate-speak trap. Being a wise-ass, humorous, emotional, or conversational are better styles to entertain and connect with readers. You want my honest opinion? Writing conversationally is probably better (and safer) than trying your hand at humor or being a wise-ass. Leave that to the Dave Berry's of the world.

Be an authority
This goes without much explanation. But you won't believe some of the crap on the Internet. Because anyone can start a blog and pontificate about whatever they want, some just get it wrong all the time. For example, I am a public relations counselor and a social media expert, so I write about -- yes, public relations and social media. Brilliant, I know. What you won't find me writing about is, financial planning, foreign affairs, or knitting. The idea is to write about what you know best. Take my colleague Cindy Dashnaw, for example. She writes for a living. So she writes about writing on her blog, Writing for Reading.

When you start, don't stop
Here's some food for thought. (Sorry about the cliché). As of May 2008, 77 percent of active Internet users read blogs the Technorati State of the Blogosphere reports. Once you start putting yourself out there, it's almost suicide to pull out. It's like a marriage, a long-term relationship where commitment is paramount and trust is golden.

Make your content timely
Not only should you be an authority in a subject, but make the content timely and valuable. I had the hardest time wrapping my mind around making content valuable, but then it clicked one day. Think about the problems people have and provide solutions. That's value. Like this post, you will find that your corporate blog will be better because you trust my advice and use it.

Measure what you do
This isn't metaphysics, and there's no value in blogging for blogging's sake. Your blog should have a clearly defined purpose. And you need to measure whether that is being met. Conversion should be your ultimate goal, by the way.

Join the conversation
This goes without saying. The Internet has change dramatically in a short time. It's becoming a conversational tool, so join in. Comment on blogs in your industry. Create conversations, build a tribe with your blog.

Trust your employees
 A few years ago, I read that Macromedia let its software engineers start blogs to connect with product users. The idea was to being their customers into the development of new applications. Apparently it worked. You can do the same, no matter what business you work in. Your employees are experts too. Armed with the correct information, they can engage in conversations and build relationships with customers like you could only dream of. Remember, your employees work for you because they like what they do. Let them express that and watch the brand skyrocket and your sales too.

Share knowledge with your blog
This is where you can add value for your customers. Be open and honest about solutions to their most pressing problems. And write it to be read by an average person. Here's an example: Mayo Clinic. More than providing solutions, comment on the news that's happening in your industry. Put it in perspective. Give your customers a reason to trust you. When I worked for one company, the CEO didn't listen to me. Before the economy turned sour, I told him to calm his client's nerves by putting the stock market news in perspective. He didn't, and we paid for it.

Encourage customer collaboration
 This is the conversation, which is so important to the marketing paradigm social media has changed. No longer is marketing a speak-from-the-top exercise, but a conversation that develops trust and relationships between business and customer. You'll find better relationships equal more money. And customers who trust your organization will stay with it in troubled times too.

Develop a consistent communication strategy
You really need a professional to do this. However, there are a few things to keep in mind. Communicate your mission, product and service information consistently between print and online material. Also, communicate your values all the time, in every message.

Using these strategies to strengthen your corporate blog will have several benefits. By engaging customers in real conversation, that builds stronger brand awareness and better reputation management. It can take some sociological gymnastics to measure your brand awareness, but consistently examining your conversion rate should be a good yard stick to understanding your corporate blogging ROI.