There was an interesting article in Marketing this week about blogging in marketing. I am a strong believer in the power of good writing. I think this extends to blogs and it extends to corporate blogs. I wrote to the editor about it and if the letter is published I may post it.
In the meantime, I made some notes about marketing blogs – pros and cons. Warning: these are provisional thoughts and I may revisit them in the future. For example, I’m just reading Naked Conversations and that may shed some new light.
I’m also interested in what people say about these thoughts – please comment.
- Play by the rules. Don’t Cilit Bang. That’s just spam.
- Keep it human. Get real people to write a real blogs. Scobelizer and Darren Strange‘s sites are good for Microsoft, for example.
- In the blogosphere, everyone knows you’re a dog. Don’t misrepresent yourself. Don’t ghost blog (although it’s probably okay for a writer to interview an executive and turn it into bloggable, readable prose and it’s okay to write a blog using the ‘voice of the company’).
- Make it useful, informative or entertaining. Otherwise, why will people read it.
- Not another website. It’s more than just another kind of website – participate in the blogosphere. Comment (if you have something to say), use trackbacks (if you refer to other people), use the community websites (Technorati, for example).
- Play well with others. Participation, respect and contribution is the way to earn the respect of bloggers. Don’t treat them like journalists (unless they are).
- Multiple authors are okay. If it’s a strictly corporate site, give different employees access so that you get a variety of opinions and make sure everyone is identified with name and title. The Google press blog is an excellent example.
- Hands off. Keep PR and marketing’s grubby little hands off it. A blog of press releases isn’t a blog.
- Use the right technology. The ability to syndicate a blog through another website or through your favourite newsreader is critical.
- Follow blog conventions. Post regularly. One theme per blog. Get proper blog software on a proper domain. A vertical column of articles. Something that looks like a marketing site or an online newsletter isn’t a blog.
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