A 28 Point Check List – hell, don’t knock me, this stuff works!
Does it help? Damn right.
Is it prescriptive? If you follow it to the letter I know it yields results – yes, I can prove it. So here you go:
1. Never direct sell your products
2. Feature your customers
3. Give useful advice away for free, demonstrate your knowledge
4. Keep it business like, but not boring
5. Give credit where it’s due
6. Tell a story
7. Plan your posts; make a note of topics covered
8. Add value to material you quote or link to
9. Blog news articles about your staff, area and clients
10. Host it on dedicated hosting (Blog obviously)
11. Think about the audience you wish to attract
12. Break it up with images and video
13. Keep it professional; don’t ruin it with constant product plugging
14. Keep it a 2 way affair, read other blogs / Tweets and leave comments
15. Match the appearance with the company website
16. Feature events you attend
17. Talk about problems your business has solved for your clients or visitors
18. Grammar
19. Use attractive or fun blog titles
20. Space out your posts and blog regularly
21. Stop emailing PDF newsletters – register them to the blog
22. Measure and review your blog popularity / traffic and ‘click-through’ rates
23. Cross reference your posts with previous ones
24. Include key search phrases, SEO is always part of the goal
25. Get everyone in the company involved (no really)
26. Cross fertilise with Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn… be sure it is contextually appropriate
27. Socialise offline – i.e. mention it when you meet people.
28. Give it time
Weekly blog activity, there needs to be a rota system that embraces any and all activity going on in and around the business. The blog will be the voice of the business offering opportunities for staff, management, suppliers, distributors, volunteers, retailers and other friends of the business to suggest and supply content or provide incentives to entice and grow a loyal fan base.
In general the activity will be at the very least be two posts a week and can be as little as 300 words (2000 absolute max).
The blog will always have two articles in hand – in other words – three will be written, with the first being posted, the other 2 posted in intervals thereafter – the idea being that we create consistency allowing for holiday cover and or illness.
There will be a central administrator who will drive and or be responsible for collecting (and sometimes writing) the content. It is essential that articles are written by a named person and not “the business”. The reason we become emotionally loyal to a brand or product is through association and when copy has personality (and is written from the heart) it is considerably easier to gain fans for the organisation.
Seeding (leaving comments)
One of the essential parts of running a Blog is managing the flow of discussion and linking to other blogs / pictures / videos… you are looking for other bloggers with a large amount of followers in your field.