Bad, Bad Business Blogging Practices - The Short List
(businessandblogging.com) The Internet is filled with advice on what to do and what not to do with your blog. Some of that advice applies specifically to personal blogs, or to hobby blogs, but much of it applies to business blogs as well.
Tomorrow Liz will be listing some of the attributes of good business blogs. Today, however, I want to take a look at some mistakes that you can make with a business blog.
Although there are a lot of tips out there, I came up with a short list of what not to do with corporate blog. In fact, bad blogging practices can pretty much kill your business blog.
Here’s the short list:
1. Duplicating your press releases onto your blog.
Your business blog should have a conversational tone that sets it apart from your marketing material. Your customers come to your blog to interact, not to get more of the same old marketing pitch. You started the blog to build a relationship with your customers, not to pitch to them.
2. Failing to participate in the conversation.
I’ve been lurking about corporate blogs likely, and it amazes me how little actual conversation goes on. I see comments being posted, but typically, the corporate blogger doesn’t respond. A corporate blog is supposed to engage your customers. Interact with them. Acknowledge them. When they comment, you reply.
3. Getting overly defensive on your corporate blog.
It’s easy to see how this can happen. You start a blog to generate conversation, and all of the sudden the conversation doesn’t seem to be going your way. However, firing off an angry response is the last thing that you want to do. This is your chance to be professional. This is your chance to defuse the situation by addressing concerns and complaints calmly and professionally - and that is exactly what you should do.
4. Not posting regularly.
Okay, you’ve started your business blog. You’ve posted a couple of times, but now you are busy - very busy. You just don’t have time to post, let alone answer comments. The fact is that you’re MIA (missing-in-action) on your own business blog. With a little planning and a little organization (and possibly some delegation), you can avoid this problem and use your blog to create a very real Internet presence for your company.
5. Lying on your blog (and other unethical stuff).
Honestly, if you do business this way, then why bother blogging at all? The purpose of a business blog is to generate real relationships with your customers by letting them get to know you better. That certainly can’t happen without a certain degree of transparency and honesty.
Here are some other business blogging “don’ts” from around the web:
- From Business Blogwire, a “ginormous” (Easton’s word, not mine) list of things not to do
- Common sense (or what would seem to be common sense) from Marketing.fm.
- Don’t annoy your readers. This list from Online Marketing Blog tells you what not to do.
- This post from Behind the Buzz is really about social media, but a lot of it applies to blogging too.
What’s the worst thing that you’ve seen on a corporate blog?
Tags: Bad-Blogging, Blogging-Practices, business-blogging, corporate-blogging, Ruining-Your-BlogRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Blogging, Corporate, Skills, Small Business
0 opinions for Bad, Bad Business Blogging Practices - The Short List
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: