In my job I receive requests every day from colleagues that ask me how much time and effort it will take to start a blog. Most of them are surprised to hear that starting a blog is actually a piece of cake. In our webteam we have all the skills and resources available to set-up a business blog in a wink of an eye.
We have hosting capacitity, so we can start an installation right away. We have a standard WordPress installation and template with all the necessary plug-ins, so no direct need for tweaking. We have some designers in the team who can easily give a blog its own look-and-feel within the restrictions of our corporate identity guidelines. For the rest of the company starting a blog is really a piece of cake , as we can have them up and running before they know it.
Blogs are like dogs
Getting a dog is very easy. Go to the animal shelter or a dog breeder and you can take your new best friend home instantly. But that is where it starts! You’ll have to feed your dog, wash him, bring him to the vet and you’ll have to walk him several times a day. It’s a daily job. The shelters are full 0f dogs of which the original owners did not realize how much effort it would take just to have a dog. The internet is full of abondoned blogs from people who after two months realized that also having a blog takes quite some time every day.
If you ask me, the question ‘could you please create a blog for me?’ should step 10 in the process of setting up a blog.There are 9 other things to think about before setting up a blog:
1. Think about the bigger picture
Social media in general and blogs in particular are just ways of communicating and engaging with your audience. The use of social media should always be part of a bigger plan. Therefore, always look at the bigger picture, your company strategy and your business goals, before looking exclusively at the benefits of a blog. How does a blog fit your marketing communication plans?
2. Think about the goals you want to reach
Why do you want to have a blog? How do you think a blog is going to help you reach your business goals? Aren’t there other ways to reach the same goals in an easier way? When do you consider a blog to be successful?
3. Think about your target audience
Who is you audience? Is your audience reading blogs? Do they use RSS-readers? Will they be coming back to your blog many times and are they going to join the conversation? When your audience is not web-savvy, they’ll just not visit your blog nor comment on your posts.
4. Think about appealing content
You don’t have to think about what you want to write: that is totally not important. When you want your blog to be successful, you better think about what your audience wants to read. It’s like writing a news paper: you have to know your readers and you have to know what they find interesting. What are they looking for? What are their issues? What would really help them?
5. Think about your main message and tone of voice
What is the message you want to get accross with your blog and what is the feeling your readers should get when reading your content? What should be their takeaway? And of course: what will make your blog different from all these other blogs? One hint about business blogs: don’t try to sell anything through a blog. If you give your audience one hint that they are looking at the digital equivalent of your brochure and you’ll never see them again.
6. Think about your call-to-action
What do you want your readers to do when they are on your blog? Do you want them to react to your opinions and questions? Do you want them to spread your information? Do you want them to start thinking differently about you and your company? Think about how you are going to get your audience in the direction you want them to go.
7. Think about your editorial team
Who is going to create fabulous content for your blog? You should realize that for an interesting business blog for a large audience, you’ll need to add several fresh postings a week. And these postings should be clever, appealing, interesting. It will take someone probably several hours a week to keep the blog going. Who is going to do that? And who is going to do it when that person is on a holiday? Creating and posting content is not the only thing: moderating comments, participating in the conversations and creating a content calender is all part of the job.
8. Think about promotion
Just writing your first blog post will not attract many visitors to your blog. You have to think about promotional activities: including your blogposts in your e-mail newsletters, getting links from important websites to your blog, inviting guestbloggers, organizing competitions on your blog, resyndicating your content in social networks etcetera. Success doesn’t come easy.
9. Think about 1 ’till 2 years from now
The last thing before you start is to think about the coming 1 or 2 years. What do you expect that your blog contributes by then? Realize that making a successful blog requires at least a year, in most cases. Be perseverant! Don’t expect big successes on a short notice, but take your time to grow your blog and to attract your audience. Are you willing to invest your time?
10. Think about setting up a blog
When you have really thought about questions 1 to 9, of course you can call guys like me to ask: ‘Could you please create a blog for me’? I am more than willing to help my colleagues with setting up a blog, as long as they now what it takes to make a blog succesful.
Picture credit: Annie Mole
