Best Practices in Blogging

Online "Manners"

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

I ran across a GREAT video today on YouTube, and wanted to share, as most everyone out there is on or at least knows about Facebook.

At Compendium, we get frequent questions here in the Client Success department about "blogging manners" and what's okay to do, or not to do in a blog post. The easy answer is that if you wouldn't write it in an email to a client, probably not best to put it on your corporate blog either.

Other than that feel free to have all the fun you want with your blogging, while keeping in mind that you're blogging for business. So you want to talk about your company, industry, clients, and how you can help solve their question or problem!

For more information on how a corporate blog can integrate into your marketing strategy, download our Considering Blogging Whitepaper.

Comments for Online "Manners"

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 by Sherrie Mersdorf:: Everyone at Compendium seems to spend a lot of time talking about content and content is king. But even if you're writing a corporate blog, it's important to become part of the CONVERSATION as well. It's important to be reading other blogs and posting comments (and by all means include some links to RELEVANT posts you've written). Even when the format of the comment is terrible (ahem, Compendium - I think you're letting on too much that you don't about comments with these terrible boxes that dont even support line breaks). Blogging is about more than just SEO rankings. To become a true trusted source and have people come to you to help solve problems, you need to participate in the conversation and not always be talking about yourself.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 by Chris Baggott:: You are exactly right Sherrie, A huge part of managing your online presence is keeping track of what others are saying about you specifically as well as in your industry. That's all about being a good citizen and a leader. And one of the reasons we introduced the news feed into the bloggers UI. Now you have the ability to easily engage other bloggers as well as blog on the topics that others deem important. And you are right about being a true and trusted resource...blogs are about stories after all. Those stories a company tells should focus on how they solve problems for their customers. We call them similar situation stories. People come to your blog seeking help. Stories of how you help others like them are the best way to solve the new visitors problem and move your business forward. What can't be denied is that almost all blog traffic comes from first time visitors (in your case about 90%) A big myth in corporate blogging is that you are going to get a lot of comments or a lot of people who are repeat visitors. You will get some...and obviously they are important. But the most important benefit of corporate blogging is the opportunity to credibly introduce yourself and your solutions to people who have a problem that you can solve. This is what makes search so powerful and blogging such a great tool for engagement and conversion. Again the vast majority of blog traffic is coming from first time visitors...what do they want? Why are they there? They want to solve their problem. Leveraging Compendium to increase the reach of your content helps you solve more problems....which is great. (btw...totally agree on the comment formatting thing. We'll get that straightened out)
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 by Sherrie Mersdorf:: Chris - I'm glad you agree about the comment box! It seems like about half the time we suggest something, we get no response back! It'd be great if as part of the comment enhancement there was an option to receive emails when someone comments on a post you also commented on so you can keep up with the conversation without having to just randomly check to see if your post was approved (or responded to)

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