I have had many instances of clients asking to install a blog as their Corporate website. Caught by the ‘blogging craze’ it became the fashion to share thoughts and such on the Internet. While that may promise business to me considering I often offer free blog installation on a new hosting account, I often have misgivings.
First, Realize That Blogging Is Not A Tech Issue
Of course there is a technical aspect ie. the blog software itself. There is also the hosting service and domain registration. But for the most part, blogging is a CONTENT issue, with a completely different set of risks and rewards separate from that of the tech part. I say that because while you may have the best software, and the best hosting, this does not necessarily mean your corporate blog is going to succeed automatically.
Why Is Realizing This Important?
The tech issue is the easy part. With minimal tech know – how you can have a blog ready to go in a few minutes. The tricky part is maintaining it, as producing content for it on a periodical basis has proven to be the more difficult task.
Here are a few quick tips I’ve thought of to help you decide if it’s a good idea or not.
Establish Your Goal.
The underlying goal with using a blog as a corporate site is to promote your company’s products and services.
That is always the goal and would apply whether you are going to use a static ‘brochure’ website, featuring your company exactly the way a brochure would. The reason why you would want it to be a blog is because you want to establish a more personable approach with customers, almost as if to say ‘hey we are real human beings!’ behind the company facade.
The best way to do this is by providing a ‘sneak – peek’ into what goes into running the biz. Topics can vary greatly, from day to day operations to telling stories of how your logo turned out to look the way it does. In other words, information you would have otherwise put into your brochure website but told in a more personable way – as if the owner wrote it themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for copy writing such as when producing product blurbs. However a blog can provide that special venue of communication that helps customers really connect with the company.
So while a brochure – like website can serve to provide information about your company in a formal tone, a blog can be the ‘human voice’ behind the brochure, the person customers would want to talk to to get a better grasp at what that company is about beyond what their brochure or advertisement says. Sometimes also serving as the ‘voice’ that answers just those few more questions they need to ask before finally making a purchase.
Next post, Is A Blog Always Better Than A Brochure – Like Website?
