Corporate Blogging, Best Practices, Traditional Marketing Sunday , December 06 , 2009 by Hasnain Zaheer

A review of corporate blogging Web sites and content

Blogging and social media marketing are two of the hottest areas of interest (and anxiety) to a large number of corporate marketers. On one hand, we are excited by the potential, the novelty and a certain hype factor, and on the other, there is a lack of experience that produces doubt, stories of initiatives that mis-fired and a general apprehension of risks associated with it by people who may not share the enthusiasm.
In this article, we would like to direct a corporate marketer testing blogging waters to these seven resources: Five Web sites and two books.
Business Blog Consulting: This is one of the most useful blogs and it is laser focused on business and corporate blogging. Packed with tips, hints, interviews, examples and case studies, the blog has an impressive list of contributors. A reader might start with reading a number of their previous posts to get up to speed on the subject and subscribe for new updates and tips. This is a must-read blog before you start your business blog.
Blog Business Summit: Blog of a business blogging conference and seminar series run by Parnassus group, which is also a social media agency, it has also published a book – Publish & Prosper: Blogging for your business. It is a practical book to demonstrate how businesses are blogging and how you can use blogging technology to converse with your customers to build your brand and sell your products.
Copyblogger: One of the most successful blogs globally and a very well-known blog on blogging, content and copywriting. Brian Clark, the founder, asserts that copywriting is the key to successful online marketing. Copblogger shows you the art and science of compelling copy. This is an excellent source to learn all about writing for blogging. Resources that must be checked are Copywriting 101, writing headlines, SEO copywriting, landing pages and keyword research. Follow these resources as you pick your way through business blogging.
Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing Blog: Rohot Bhargava is a marketing strategist who has created this blog to share his ideas on social media marketing strategies. This blog can help in placing business blogging in the context of marketing strategy. While his blog has a more sweeping coverage of marketing, advertising and PR, there are several practical strategies for business blogging. Rohit Bhargava is also the author of a well-known book on how marketing is changing - Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, Foreword by Guy Kawasaki
Now for the books: The Corporate Blogging Book: A book to understand why you need an executive blog and how build a successful one. A book that straddles both the strategy and practice of blogging. Check out The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right on Amazon or the book's Web site
Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging : A book by John Cass: One of the pioneering books, practical and insightful.
Other resources of note are Dosh Dosh and Master New Media.
If you are going to start a new business blog and know nothing about blogging, I’d recommend: 1. Read The Corporate Blogging Bookto get an idea of what it is about. 2. Read Rohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing Blog 3. Read the articles on copywriting, landing page, keyword research in Copyblogger 4. Read basics of corporate blogging provided by Compendium Blogware 5. Go through the archives of Business Blog Consulting to have a complete idea of what you are attempting 6. Subscribe to updates from all the blogs mentioned in this article. Links to RSS feeds. Business Blog Consulting feed Build a Better Blog feed Blog Business Summit feed http://feeds.copyblogger.com/Copyblogger Rohit Bhargava's Influential Marketing Blog
The worst thing one can do in business blogging is to build one without working out the objectives, without getting a buy-in from all stakeholders, and without building a strategy behind it. After you and your colleagues are in sync with good background and knowledge of corporate blogging, it’s time to brainstorm, work out your own strategy and then execute the strategy with features, design, development, policies and operations.
Have you built your blog and ready to launch it? Read this useful article in Aviva Directory on how to launch your blog Keep the content flowing. Read about the 25 basic styles of blogging, authored by Rohit Bhargava.