Starting and/or maintaining a company blog can be daunting. While readers expect regular updates, you and other contributors are most likely writing posts in addition to your regular job duties. And you may be have a tough time coming up with a compelling and interesting content.
One way to overcome these obstacles is to firmly understand who you’re talking to and what you want to tell them. For instance on my social media series on the Symantec Partners Community blog, I focus on social media and social media marketing for Symantec Partners. I try not to stray far from that subject. Similarly, on your blog, it is a good idea to find a topic that lines up with your business strategy and stay focused on that topic.
Who are you talking to?
Before you can decide what your readers want to hear from you and grow your blog, first, you need to establish who you are trying to reach—who your audience is. Are you speaking to peers in your industry or potential or existing customers? Do your readers need technical information, or are they looking to make sense of complicated IT problem or technology? Understanding your audience will go a long way in helping you successfully start or restart your blog.
Once you’ve determined who your readers are, you want to decide what they want to hear from you. To do that, it can help to think about the things you and your organization are uniquely positioned to talk about and/or offer—whether that is your focus within your industry, challenges addressed by your services or the overarching trends dictating the future of your business—whatever sets your business apart from all the others is a great place to start. Try and narrow in on a topic area where your blog will have a piece of territory that your company alone can own—one not owned by anyone else. Then, come up with a list of potential topics to cover on your blog—a content calendar—that reflect that unique position.
For instance, suppose you resell Symantec Archiving and eDiscovery products to companies in a regulated industry like financial services. Rather than talking about the general subject of storage and archiving as a whole (too broad of a topic), think about what unique perspective your firm offers customers (and even more specifically—IT purchase decision makers at your customer companies). Perhaps you are versed at helping navigate tricky regulatory issues or integrating complicated technologies—focusing your blog on these topic areas can help make it unique and a place where customers come back repeatedly to learn more.
Planning your content calendar
Once you have established a focus for your blog, map out eight or ten subjects that come to mind in that area. This will give you the basis for a content calendar that can be helpful in planning upcoming posts, and prevent writer’s block. Also consider having a recurring meeting with all of your blog’s contributors and stakeholders, if applicable, to discuss new ideas for posts in keeping with your focus.
With these steps pointing the way, you will be creating new blog posts at a regular schedule and generating interesting discussions with customers and prospects in no time.
What topics do you focus on in your company blog? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to follow Symantec Partners on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn!
Find the complete social media series on the Symantec Connect Partners Community.
