Corporate Blog: Splog or Community?
SPLOG: Spam Blog.
Business is business, right? It’s all about the duckets, the dollars, the bottom line. Period.
Right?
Well, sort of. Because sometimes corporate blogs and the bloggers that write them are very short sighted. Writing every blog post as a sales pitch for a product or service. Ultimately becoming one big spam blog. Which does just the opposite of what it’s supposed to do for your readers. Instead of turning them into loyal customers, it sends them back to the search engines to look for what they really came for.
A community. A resource. Real people.
But the corporate mindset often misses the mark completely because there is so much focus on sales and advertising. Take a look within your company. If you have a blog, what department is in charge of it? In most cases the blog is managed by the advertising department, rather than customer service, which is probably where it belongs. At the very least it should probably be overseen by the PR department rather than some advertising exec who’s only concern is making a sale wherever possible.
Understand, the blog magic is not going to happen overnight. Even if you do everything right. It’s going to take time to build the company blog into a real resource for your customers. But if done correctly, they’ll find value in your blog and return that value with brand loyalty.
You just have to build the basis for that trust. With a real community.
Don’t get cuaght up in the SPLOG trap. Don’t make every post with the intent of creating a sale or a customer. Write about real things that benefit them and become that resource they are looking for. If they find it, they’ll buy from you. Maybe not today, but soon.
Tags: blog coaching, Blog Content, Community, corporate blogging