The Social Enthusiast » Corporate Blogging

David & Kat Are Headed to Blog World Expo!

KatFrench — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:28:42 +0000

… and we’re totally stoked! BlogWorldExpo is going to be a great opportunity for David and I to get inspired by the best-in-breed work going on in the world of blogging, new media and social media.

But we’re not forgetting about you guys. We set out to create The Social Enthusiast as a resource for marketers who want to build a confident social brand. So we’ll be grabbing the smart, the experienced, and the too-slow-to-outrun-us at the conference and asking them one question:

"How do you build a confident social brand?"

Our Flip cams are fired up and ready to go. Hopefully we’ll be back with some great, brief, interesting and helpful tips to post here.

You can follow our #BWE09 exploits by following @DavidFinch and/or @KatFrench on Twitter.

The Recycle Bin: Last Week’s Best Corporate Blogging Posts, Vol 1

KatFrench — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:00:24 +0000

Starting a new feature here on The Social Enthusiast. David and I have been so busy executing client work that we haven’t carved out enough time to provide the kinds of informative, engaging or otherwise valuable posts we’d like here.

So rather than letting the blog languish, we’re hereby instituting The Recycle Bin. With respect to Geoff Livingston, it’s like the Buzz Bin, but way less original. Only the best posts from the last week on the topics we cover here at TSE. So on to the link love:

Michael Martine on Getting Your Business Blog Unstuck - Aside from a somewhat disturbing photo of a guy stuck in an airless Mason jar, this is an excellent post. I like that it focuses on telling your most compelling stories. Some excellent food for thought if you’ve been tasked with managing your company’s blog.

For a related post, read David’s take on Developing an Editorial Calendar, since that’s another great way to avoid getting stuck in Bloggers Block.

We love Web Worker Daily because they provide excellent tips for streamlining your workflow, especially as it relates to blogging. Check out their latest on Creating a Procedure List for Recurring Tasks (like posting to the old corporate blog). If you’re the kind of person who eschews Cliff’s Notes in favor of actually reading War and Peace, you might want to skip ahead to Daryl Furuyama’s post that inspired theirs.

Still figuring out that whole "Finding your blogging voice while representing your company" thing? We like this post from Valerie Simon of BurrellsLuce.

Debra Askanase of CommunityOrganizer2.0 thinks that uncensored blogging is the future of corporate communications. I think she’s right if we’re talking about the same future where I get my own personal George Jetson hovercraft and send my clone to meetings instead of going myself. We’ll see.

Finally, if you’re worried that your corporate blog posts are dry as toast, you might want to check out this post from Johnny Truant over at Copybloggeron Four Ways to Be More Interesting. All of them can work within the context of a corporate blog.

So there you have it. The Recycle Bin is emptied for corporate blogging this week. What did you think? Are these posts truly helpful, or should I try harder next week?

Five Great Resources for Starting a Corporate Blog

KatFrench — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:18:27 +0000

A corporate blog is often the first step in adding social media to your marketing communications plan. It’s a good choice–there’s a relatively high level of control, a relatively low level of risk, and there are plenty of low-cost or free options from a technology perspective.

Even so, it can be pretty nerve-wracking when you’re just entering the blogosphere. Particularly if you haven’t blogged on a personal level. Or sometimes, even if you have blogged personally–if you’ve been extremely open in your personal blog, you may worry that you can’t successfully make the transition from personal to corporate blogging.

We often recommend the following resources to help neophyte corporate bloggers.

1. The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil. This is probably the original and definitive book on corporate blogging. Concise, clear and written in common business language, it’s a great resource for marketers who are new to blogging in general.

2. The New PR’s Corporate Blog List Wiki. This is certainly not a complete list of corporate blogs, but it is an excellent list of many of the best ones. Peruse, add to your RSS reader, and learn from those who are already doing it well.

3. Look at the corporate blogging policies for a few large brands. Companies like IBM, Yahoo! and many others have official policies for corporate blogging. These guidelines can be a good starting place for developing your own company’s blogging policy.

4. BNET’s White Paper on the PR Value of Corporate Blogs. Because it’s always good to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing.

5. TechRepublic’s article on 10 Ways to Be a Blogging Failure. Because it’s also always good to know what not to do.

Got any good recommendations to add to the list? Drop those hot potatoes in the comments.