5. Finding Topics to Write About

Writing Blogs for the Wider World

When creating content on a public blog, the goal is to attract readers and appeal to a wider audience. By making your content interesting and then searchable, readers not only find your blog but they will stick around to see what else you have to share. The following sections explore how to write your blog to gain exposure and a wider audience.

Creating an Industry Resource Blog

Blog topics can cover everything from your own company news to industry updates and information. By supplying a wide scope of reading material and multimedia, your blog can become a one-stop shop for those seeking news and updates for content that pertains to your entire industry. Readers shouldn’t need to go anywhere else if they’ve subscribed to your feed that is complete with a wide range of topics.

An example of an industry resource blog is a winery with a blog that updates its readers about varietals, seasonal offerings, and wine-making processes. By peppering in posts that include tips on wine making, maintaining vineyards, growing grapes, and profiling wine regions, the site becomes much more than a wine blog. Readership expands to those seeking material about wine in general, which you provide, and in turn, readers discover your business and product offerings. This concept can be applied to any business or industry.

By providing industrywide information, and not just specifics about your own company, you can gain an audience perfectly tailored to your business. With your blog being an online hub, it connects you with current and potential customers by being a true all-in-one resource for your field.

This also shows that your company is in touch with its industry and is keeping up with the latest news and trends. It fits in with the concept of opening up the floor for discussion with your customers and potential clients while catering to their need for information.

Blogging about the world outside your company (but still within your industry) can turn one-time readers into subscribers. Audiences are repeatedly drawn to blogs if they know they can get regular updates that are not only about a favorite company, but paired with practical tips and industry insights each time they visit.

This is not to say you need to spend exorbitant amounts of time and effort writing in-depth articles about the past, present, and future of your market. However, by providing useful information, data, facts, and links to other articles, you can help build your profile and presence online.

Whole Foods Markets, a leader in the natural and organic foods industry, operates several online and social network presences and maintains a blog, called The Whole Story. The blog features in-store events, offerings from the company such as recipes and coupon books, and highlights of partner growers. The blog also talks about food in general (see Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1 “Summer’s Best Soft Fruits” from The Whole Story, the official Whole Foods Market blog.

You can essentially go to any grocery store or market to purchase your ripe summer fruit; however, with an informative blog to remind you of seasonal treats, how to make your selection, and highlights of varieties, you may be more likely to visit the local Whole Foods. Nowhere in the blog post does it mention that Whole Foods has the best fruit. Instead, it simply features the product (which is available at Whole Foods Market). Readers may conclude that if a market knows so much about fruit and other foods (enough to write about it and inform the world online), it would be worth a trip to one of its stores to check out these offerings.

By branching out and covering all things pertaining to your industry, your blog can bridge any physical distance between you and your customers and even answer questions before they’re asked. For example, if you’re in the clothing business and your customer service department receives several calls about how to water-treat the jackets you sell, you could write a blog post about the process. In a written post or even a video, you can provide tools and tips for product care. By doing this, you provide interesting content for readers and an added value service.

Public relations firm Hill & Knowlton operates a group blog with contributions from several staff members (see Figure 5.2). They also aggregate or republish content from other blogs that they find informative. Their spin on having a company blog introduces their client base to new elements of public relations. Each author from the company is given a biography page, and their content includes information, links, and interviews about how about to use social media in the public relations industry.

Figure 5.2 Hill & Knowlton’s Collective Conversation Bandwidth blog.

Helpful and useful information you share in blog posts provides content for a specific audience of customers and clients and an entire world of potential connections who might just stumble across your post online. By having this content on your blog, it will come up in Internet search results. Perhaps someone will search for “water treating jackets.” Chances are, they may just stumble across the blog post you published. By writing the post, using the proper keywords, and providing this extra content for your readers, a whole new audience may discover your business through searches.

Create an Online Community

Although a blog is a part of your company’s home on the Internet, the best way to grow your audience is to give your audience a sense of ownership of the space. You do this by being open to discussions and hosting interactive content on your blog to create a strong online community.

In some cases, Internet users will create groups, fan pages, or their own blogs dedicated to various products or services they like. Opening up similar access and playgrounds for discussion in your own online space can work to your advantage. By having a community of readers, supporters, and individuals who share your links and content, you can amplify your message. The community might not necessarily be an actual page, forum, or comments section but you’ll find that your readers will become your blog (and your company’s) evangelists. Through that connection, they create a sense of community.

You can help nurture this community by having a blog that promotes conversation with comments, where the author is also engaged. You also need to share what you’ve posted by allowing readers to copy and paste your latest link to their social networking accounts, by bookmarking it, or by e-mailing it to their colleagues. If your blog generates its own community, it can also reach out to online spaces or social networks where other communities lie.

To branch out and encourage this cross-pollination of content, you can arm your community with the following blog-sharing tools:

• Have the tools available. Provide links and “submit this” or “share this” buttons on your blog posts (see the AddThis service in Figure 5.3). Encourage readers to pass along your link through social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Newsvine, and Facebook.

• Twitter also has several plug-ins and widgets (such as Tweetmeme) that cut long blog post URLs into easy-to-share links that are short enough for the service’s 140-character limit.

• Readers can also share content through their own blogs, should they also be online content producers. There are no other steps to provide should they want to link back to your post. However, be on the lookout for the trackback so that their link is visible from your site.

Providing your readers with these online sharing tools so that they can help spread your brand for you is a great way to expand your reach and draw others into your online community.

As evangelists for your blog, through sharing and promoting your content, your readers also become ambassadors of your brand. Arming these loyal followers can involve anything from providing the online space in which they can hold discussions (such as comment forms) to supplying promotional items (perhaps offering them a discount code). Your blog in some ways act like a loyalty program, rewarding readers and the audience for stopping by through a coupon code or contest giveaways.

Figure 5.3 Add This bookmarking and sharing service for blogs.

You can also give your brand ambassadors tools such as logo badges for their own site so they can indicate that they read or are a fan of your blog. You could also make your content easily shareable (for example, by posting your videos to YouTube or by using the previously mentioned bookmarking tools).

With your blog as the home base of conversations and content for your company, people can find the most accurate information they seek right from the source. As your links and posts are shared, you will draw a bigger and expanded audience to your community. And even though you might not have a profile on other networks where your links, posts, or images are being shared, if a reader submits your story to these services, the audiences there will be drawn back to your site to read the article.

According to a 2009 report by the social bookmarking website AddToAny.com, Facebook has replaced e-mail as the number one way people share links to content online. According to the poll, 24% of the time someone passed along a link, it was through Facebook, while 11% of the time it was by e-mail, and Twitter link sharing accounted for 10.8%.

Case Study: Canucks Fan Zone

It’s hard to find a professional sports team that doesn’t already have an audience or a large fan base, but it is a challenge to make that audience feel connected. In the fall of 2007, Jamie Ollivier and Bruce Warren of Anton Sledgehammer Creative were brought in by the Vancouver Canucks National Hockey League team to boost its community, both on and offline.

With the Canucks, it was a matter of connecting the 18,000 people in the stands at games with those at home, in pubs, and across the world who wanted to support the team in any way they could. Working together with the organization, they came up with the Canucks Fan Zone, the first of its kind in the NHL. It engages fans online by hosting forums, allowing for user-generated content, blog posts, and linking out to other Canucks bloggers and podcasters. According to Warren, Anton Sledgehammer Creative wanted to make sure there was an arena to allow the fans to cover the team and get the recognition they deserved as loyal Canucks followers.

The Fan Zone is different from the main site, Canucks.com. As Ollivier explains, “One is where people can express themselves, and the other is where people get paid to write.” The Fan Zone has an entire page dedicated to linking to other Canucks blogs and podcasts while welcoming commentary and feedback from what Warren calls the “nonwriting” fans. The goal is to extend the online audience from the bloggers themselves (who often follow other bloggers) to those who would just want to consume and appreciate the content that is published.

The duo understood from the start that things would still need to be authentic and transparent by fans and for the fans. “We understand that if things are not organic, people will reject them,” said Ollivier. “We’re a bit like gardeners. We look at what’s working and what things are catching on, and then we can feed and water those things. Because you have a million plants going, only a few are really going to hit… whatever’s going to be the most effective is what we’re going to be pouring our efforts into.”

The efforts paid off as fans from New Zealand, China, and across the globe now had a place online to gather all their Canucks information and to share how they feel about the team. As a result of their online engagement, in the spring of 2009 the Canucks had as many Facebook fans (in its group and page) as the entire NHL. The Fan Zone also bumped up Canucks.com to being the number one team site in the league. The difference made by the Fan Zone was noticeable as Warren compared the statistics chart (fittingly) to a hockey stick.

Anton Sledgehammer Creative could not have achieved all of this without the forward-thinking nature of those in the Canucks organization such as president and CEO, Chris Zimmerman, who they say really understood the potential of the entire campaign.

“The thing about the Fan Zone is that it allows the Canucks to acknowledge that the fans are really important and that the fans are what power the team. Without them, the team is nothing,” said Ollivier. “By empowering the fans, you’re basically filling up your gas tank.”

Ollivier also noted that the Fan Zone gives a new venue in which fans can express themselves other than cheering. “That’s really been the big difference because then people feel like they’re a part of something because they have been acknowledged by the brand that they are a part of something—a part of the tribe.”

The Fan Zone concept not only engages bloggers and contributors but also opens up the entire platform for regular fans who would like to watch, connect, or share their own thoughts. With the success they’ve seen in the 2009 season, it’s a concept that is now being duplicated and replicated across the league.

Creating an Internal Blog (or Blogs) for Your Company

The ease of publishing content to a blog makes it an attractive platform for information sharing, whether in the public realm or privately on a closed intranet within a company. Users can add content, share links, and provide updates even if they are not shared with the public. Having this outlet can improve communications within a company and perhaps raise morale by promoting a job well done.

There are several ways that an internal or inward-facing company blog can benefit your company including boosting communications, getting feedback, and helping promote the great work the employees carry out each day.

Keep People Informed

Blogs are public platforms that are highly visible and searchable. However, they can also serve an internal, private purpose. In the same way that business blogs can help share and build a community between the company and its customers, a company blog can also bridge gaps within the organization.

Keeping your employees up-to-date on projects and events helps to promote a healthy team environment. Currently, the standard communication tool for companies is e-mail, along with internal memos, or perhaps proprietary messaging systems. By taking the information that might go into a mass e-mail and publishing it for the group in a closed online system, the data is more searchable while still reaching its intended audience.

Allowing employees to showcase their accomplishments, triumphs, and milestones with their peers is also a great morale booster. Promotions in companies are certainly something worth blogging and sharing with other team members. If a salesperson has a client success story to share or receives a recommendation or client testimonial, the blog is a great way to profile these achievements.

You can also use the blog to profile departments by posting company photos and biographies of new hires or long-standing employees. With large corporations, some departments rarely interact. This could leave you wondering what role the dozen other people in the lunchroom with you play in their daily life with the company. Having an internal blog can put names to faces more effectively than the annual company picnic.

Communications from all branches can include the following:

• Notes from HR about company policies or social events such as birthdays

• A message from the CEO about company changes, updates, or even a holiday greeting

• A posting from administration about things happening in the company’s building, such as a monthly fire drill

• Updates on projects to keep everyone in the loop

• Hosting contests for employees or an online poll such as, “name the new product” or “help us choose the new logo”

Departments can also be featured with photo galleries and biographies, should that information be free to share. Those involved with specific projects can also use the blog to not only post updates but to also ask questions of their team. The comments section can be used to brainstorm and provide feedback, while the blog post publishing platform can share text, images, and links that may prove useful to the team.

Internal Blogs for Project Management

As with a regular business blog, an internal site must still remain professional and have the main goal of building your business, only from the inside out. It won’t replace water-cooler chat, but it can give employees a safe, comfortable, team-oriented environment online where they can keep themselves current on the inner workings of their nine-to-five.

Be sure to create a set of guidelines for the blog (for example, what is acceptable content to share and rules for commenting). Assign a team member to moderate the blog, looking for comments, content to update, and making sure the site runs smoothly for all. You will also want the IT department on your side to ensure the internal site is not accessible from outside the company, especially if content pertains to sensitive or private product information.

An internal company blog is not a chat room and should not impede anyone’s daily workflow. It is simply a resource on which professional information is shared within a department or companywide.

This blog could also help others collaborate on projects. For example, an image (design spec, potential logo, and so forth) could be shared, and employees could comment and leave constructive feedback. This would be quicker than e-mailing the image around, and all feedback would be in the same place (in the blog comments). The blog should be open to include all departments, and after it has been set up, communications should be sent around as an introduction and encourage others to participate. For example, if marketing begins an internal blog, this should be communicated to other departments and other teams should feel welcome to contribute as well.

Internally, a project blog helps track updates, tasks, and progress of a team effort. Various members can post content, comment, and provide input instantly. Issues can be tracked and searched, and the entire project can be documented in a simple, easy-to-read format that enables for multimedia.

Multimedia that can be published on blog posts includes photos and videos, and most video-sharing services offer an embedding code. This piece of text can be copied and pasted into a blog post to display a video player. If the video is not to be shared publicly, teams can upload video files through the blogging platform. The subject of these videos could be demonstrations, interviews, or product-related promotional content.

Internal blogs provide communication solutions for developers, sales teams, management, and all other employees of a company. Even though the platform itself is meant to be public and searchable, these same features can benefit your company in terms of productivity.

Departments can publish and track updates on projects and even employee news and announcements. Sharing information in real time and providing updates enables an entire workgroup or company to increase productivity through communication. Feedback can be provided in a secure environment that all can see, without flooding e-mail inboxes, and your company can have fully chronicled project notes.

Internal blogs with multiple authors (perhaps one from each department, with a central moderator) can keep everyone informed, promote projects, feature work, and showcase your valued employees.

Product Blog (External)

Having either an internal or external blog for a specific project or product enables you to showcase exciting developments, partnerships, and announcements with the world. Publicly, if privacy issues allow, you can essentially go from documenting the development stage of a product to building buzz about its progress and announcing its launch for your audience on your blog.

This is also a great way to reach your audience and use your blog for market research. Depending on the level of engagement you’d like to see from your audience for the project, you can create polls, ask for input, or even run contests to name the items or select features. The Eastman Kodak Company provides an online photo-sharing and photo-editing service through Ofoto.com. The Ofoto website has a blog (http://ofoto.typepad.com/) that keeps users informed about service updates and enhanced features (see Figure 5.4).

Figure 5.4 The Eastman Kodak Company’s Ofoto blog.

Blog posts for Ofoto include updates, known issues, and upgrade announcements. Users can leave comments to provide feedback, say if the information was useful, or to suggest new features they would like to see provided with the service.

Because the service is public, it’s only natural that they keep the public informed of upgrade and updates. They also welcome suggestions and respond to feedback in the comments section of the blog.

If committing to following and tracking the specific project or product on your blog, be sure to keep the content fresh by updating when there are new discoveries, updates, or changes. Be dedicated to following the entire life cycle.

Public project blogs should also not go dormant after a project is complete. You’ll often see campaigns that use campaign-specific slogans as domain names. After the specific promotion has run its course, however, readers and customers do not have a reason to return to that site. To avoid this instant burnout, you can use your blogging platform’s tags or category systems to classify all posts pertaining to the project (instead of creating a distinct domain).

When publishing a blog post, you can provide the author several options. You enter a title, content for the post, perhaps add an image, and also select tags or categories. By using these classification systems, the blog platform sorts your content, which makes it easy for readers to search archives and helps it get picked up in search engine results. Tags and categories are created by the author and saved so that later the author can simply check the box next to an existing tag and add the post to that classification.

For example, a blog post about a new vehicle could be tagged using the words convertible, roadsters, performance. In the future, whenever another post is written about this vehicle or a similar vehicle, the tags and categories can be checked so that the post is classified within the same searchable directory. Most blog platforms also create specific URLs for tags and categories. This way you can go to http://yourcompanyblog.com/tag/convertible to see all posts tagged as “convertible.”

Tags and categories are a way of classifying your blog posts. Each tag and category receives its own link (for example, http://yourblog/category/umbrellas). Thus, readers can follow posts about a product that interest them, and they can also see all archived content for this item.

Tags and categories can also be assigned their own RSS feeds so that readers can subscribe to all of your content that is specifically tagged with a topic they want to follow. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way of subscribing to a blog or specific post categories. Readers can obtain this special link by clicking an RSS icon or “subscribe” link. Readers can then input this link into a feed reader, such as Google Reader, through which they can be instantly notified of news on the blogs they are following. The idea is that updates come to your feed reader inbox like unread e-mails so that you don’t have to go out to each site and check whether there is new content.

Summary

In blogging, content is king. You can have great search terms that draw people in from search engines, but the key is to have content that keeps the reader captivated and motivated to return to your site or subscribe. The way in which you present your content helps engage your audience and encourage them to participate or become a part of your project. In this regard, blogs can be used internally for company use or they can be public-facing to promote and get exposure for your products, projects, and content.

With so many options for blog content and with so many individuals or departments potentially involved, it then becomes a question of who will write the content. The next chapter provides options for and examples of author contributions.