There used to be a time when corporate communications weren’t made with clients, customers, or the public in mind. Prior to the advent of web-based blogging software, most companies limited their interactions with consumers and clients through impersonal channels such as public relations, marketing, and customer service.
Although blogging started in the mid-1990s, it took several years for the business world to catch on to this important media channel. It wasn’t until after platforms like Live Journal and Blogger took hold that magazines and newspapers launched the first blogs for commercial purposes.
The first business blog was a sales-driven affair that largely missed the mark in terms of what the public wanted to see, namely interesting, candid, casual, and smart communication from the company. People don’t want to deal with faceless corporations anymore.
We live in an era of meaningful engagement; customers want to know more about the companies from which they obtain goods and services, and they want to learn from people closely associated with these business entities.
Business blogging can straddle the line between diary and marketing. Producing quality content that your clients and customers want can be achieved with the help of your staff, but getting your team members to contribute to the company’s blogging efforts can be challenging at the start.
Whatever your company’s industry or line of business, your clients and customers deserve quality content, and the best people who can accomplish this task are your executives, managers, supervisors, and associates. If you or your team isn’t experienced blogging, getting started can be a challenge in terms of coming up with ideas and producing content; However, the return on investment from this activity is worth every effort.
Here are six tips to help you engage your staff in content creation:
1 – Choosing a Blog Topic
If your company has never blogged before, the first step is to choose a blogging platform. To this effect, you should evaluate a blog-oriented content management system (CMS) such as WordPress or Drupal. The next step is to formulate content marketing strategy; this is something you can do with your PR, marketing or SEO personnel.
The next step involves choosing the right topic to present your team. This aspect of blogging may seem a little intimidating to those not used to creating content; after all, there are millions of topics your competitors have tested and developed over the years.
You can start getting ideas by covering topics that other companies are discussing on their blogs and social media platforms. Once you’ve found potential topics, present them to your team and ask them to come up with a few of their own. You want to discuss lots of ideas with your team so a long list can be made; The next step is to ask your team members to sign up for the topics they will create blog posts on.
2 – Encourage Creativity
After presenting your team with the blog topics they will write about, your next step is to motivate your team members to get creative. You’re likely to get objections from some team members who feel that writing isn’t their forte; One way you can motivate them is to assign someone a blog editor to keep their writing polished. You can even use the services of a professional content writer or marketing expert for this purpose.
Be sure to give your potential blogger time to work on their posts. You should also think about offering incentives to reward your blogging and team’s efforts, especially when they produce blog posts that resonate with your intended audience.
3 – Identifying Blog Authors
If you find a particular employee whose writing you find easy to read and interesting, you can approach them personally with a blog proposal. The ideal business blogger is someone who is passionate about what he does for a living, or at least someone who shows an interest in providing meaningful comments to clients.
Some of the best business blog writers are those who directly benefit from creating posts. For example, if you own a used car dealer and one of your dealers is a huge Ford Mustang fan, you might encourage him to write a short memoir about his first experience with one of these classic sports cars.
4 – Standing Ready to Be a Guide
you should also become familiar with blogging strategy or keep a content producer to work with your team and provide support with outlines, templates, ideas, and edits.
Most content outlines define the intended number of words, tone, topic, narrative flow, paragraphs, and call-to-action. If you’re working with an SEO expert, the outline or template can also include keywords and other elements that will optimize the page, but you should only mention these when your blog writer feels comfortable enough.
5 – Offering Incentives
Be sure to mention the goals the company has in mind with regards to blogging; You should also explain how the company will benefit from this activity. Plus, you want to go one step further by introducing an incentive plan for awesome bloggers, and there are several ways to do that.
Monetary incentives tend to be effective; You can offer bonuses for blog posts that your team judges to be of the highest quality. Another incentive is to allow blog writers a day off so they can concentrate on their blog; You can ask them to write blog posts Work from home or bring them into the office for review after the three day weekend.
6 – Provide Results and Feedback
If you work with an SEO or content marketing professional, ask them to provide an analytical report showing the impact of business blogging. This is a very important step that you should share with your team because it is one of the best tools when it comes to feedback.
Feedback sessions using analytics reports can be augmented with gamification elements attached to specific metrics such as lead generation, sales, and social media engagement. Showing your team the results of blogging efforts is a natural way to empower them and make them feel like a more important part of the team.
Ultimately, you should approach business blogging as a part of Theory Y of managementwhere employees feel that their work is part of something bigger. If you can get your team members to become proficient blog writers, your company is sure to reap the benefits of this self-marketing effort while your employees reap the personal rewards that make them feel a better connection to their work..
