RSS and PR: My presentation at the Bulldog Reporter events this month
The first session is about blogs.
Corporate Blogging Basics is a good reference. It’s a guide to the basics and getting started.
I believe there are gradients to engaging in the blog world and the most important first step is to have a strategy before you begin.
The ‘just do it’ approach may work well in many other fields, but I am not so sure it’s the best advice when it comes to corporate blogging.
If you don’t have specific goals in mind you’ll never be able to measure the effectiveness of your blog.
Here are some questions you should ask yourself before you rush in where angels fear to tread.
- Have we identified which key journalists in our field who use RSS feeds?
- Do we know which key journalists are blogging?
- Do we know which keywords or phrases we want to be found for in the news engines and news sites?
- Do we know which keywords, in which news engines and new sites, bring us the most qualified traffic?
- Does our business depend on building relationships with customers?
- Do they need to have a strong interaction and trust level with our brand?
- Does our company have a strong point of view and/or opinions that we’d like to have heard in the public conversation?
- Are we ready to participate in the public conversation and deal with public feedback?
- Is our company is prepared to be open and transparent?
- Would we be comfortable if our employees were to speak about the company in blogs?
- Do we have definite, measurable goals we believe can be achieved by blogging?
- Do we have the resources to achieve this – time, writing talent, enthusiasm, new content on a regular basis, understanding of the blogosphere and the search engines?
- Have we thought through the pros and cons of hiring a full time blogger – or engaging a blog consultant?
How to get started
Using these questions as a starting point, hold a strategy session and identify
· The goals you want to achieve with blogger relations and corporate blogging.
· Who the key influencers are
· Who your target audience is
· What content would hold their interest
· How many blogs or feeds you will need to meet these content requirements
· What keywords do your audience use to find this kind of content – and think about journalists doing researchonline for a story, as well as other stakeholders
· What keywords and phrases you’d like to dominate in the search engines
· What keywords and phrases you’d like to be found for in the news engines
· Resources in terms of time, money, content, talent and enthusiasm
· Top management buy-in for the project.
First steps
Assign one person on your team to become familiar with the blogosphere. Get an RSS reader. Identify the key bloggers in your industry or field. Subscribe to their RSS feeds.
Track mentions of your industry, your competitors and your company. Read these feeds every day. Follow the conversations in the blogosphere.
Learn to use tools like Blog Pulse.
RSS enable key content on your own website. Inform the key bloggers (and key journalists) that you have a feed.
Learn how to post comments intelligently for best results. Prepare responses for any incorrect statements or issues that may arise.
Blogger Relations
Start to build relationships with the key influencers you identified above. Include them in all your media relations. Invite them to events and launches. Identify executives and experts in your company who could be interviewed by these bloggers.
Crack open the door
Create corporate employee blogging guidelines. Involve your employees in the process. Read up on how IBM did their guidelines. Encourage your employees to blog.
Become a blog star
With all the above in place, start a corporate blog. Post interesting and useful information. Build up an audience. Learn how to do podcasting. Create interesting podcasts with new information and executive interviews.
Get your CEO to make comments in the blog or blog when there is a special event or occasion.
Be a Feed Leader
Identify and RSS enable several different types of content on your site.
“Even if it’s something as simple as putting press releases in an RSS feed marketers will benefit from early exposure to distributing information via RSS — and receive valuable feedback from key constituents on what types of content they would like to have.”
Using RSS As A Marketing Tool Forrester Research July 2005
You can put all kinds of content into feeds: press releases, industry news articles, tech updates. Use RSS feeds in your online pressroom.
Set up an RSS page on your website with multiple feeds so that visitors can choose which content they want to receive. Generate good, interesting and useful content on a regular basis in all feeds.
Offer a page of web feed education and a place to get a free reader so your visitors can get started right away.
