An article in USA Today says RIP Corporate Blogging. According to a study by UMASS fewer companies in the Fortune 100 and INC 500 are maintaining their blogs.
I hope that these companies don’t have any women customers. The recent BlogHer survey of 2000 women in the US found that women regard blogs as their most trustworthy source of information and advice. Blogs beat out Facebook and Twitter by a big margin. In fact Facebook was in a distant third place for the general US female population.
“Blogging requires more investment. You need content regularly,” said Nora Ganim Barnes, who wrote the UMASS report. Yes, it does. A blog is a publication. It’s not a quick conversation at the water cooler. It’s not a news feed.
A blog requires good writers and editors. It needs images and graphics. It needs an editorial calendar. The content has to be timely, relevant, interesting and worth sharing. Oh, and did I mention that it’s a publication?
A BofA spokesman said the bank dropped its blog because its social media strategy is focused on Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and Twitter are completely different methods of communication and should not mean that you don’t blog. And since BofA has many female customers (I know, I am one of them and I see many women in the bank) looking at the BlogHer figures, I can only say ‘Good luck with that”. If you are not going to maintain your corporate blog, best plan you should embark on a blogger outreach program and build relationships with other women bloggers.
I agree that the reason companies don’t blog is more likely to be a lack of resources or insight into how to blog and the value of a blog.
“Companies often underestimate the amount of work a blog requires” Pete Stegee, director of marketing communications and Web strategy for digital storage device maker Rimage.
“Many corporate blogs fail to attract readers because they exist solely to pitch products and are badly written.” Lou Hoffman, PR veteran.
If you have a blog and are struggling to fill it with good content read these tips from Darren Rowse at ProBlogger
And stick these tips on your wall.
- Hire a great writer
- Create an Editorial Calendar
- Set up news alerts for phrases you often cover
- Get stories from other employees and execs
- Post regularly
- Link to other stories and blogs
- Optimize all content for search
- Make it easy to share the content
- Use original, interesting images
- Make it a news blog – write like a journalist.
Your blog should be the hub of your brand journalism.
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