Business blogging: Meeting the Post-a-Week challenge

As a freelance writer, I have been involved with several different clients’ corporate blogging efforts. Consistently, the most challenging part of the blogging effort has been ‘feeding the beast’—posting frequently.  An abandoned blog lingering on your corporate website is like an abandoned car in the driveway of a nice home—an eyesore that makes you wonder about the occupants.

So, in the category of “eating my own dog food,” I am accepting the WordPress Post-a-Week challenge for 2011.  I had already resolved to do this on my own blog, but the public commitment adds inspiration and impetus.

Why weekly? Ideal frequency is different for every blog. People blogging about personal experience might want to post daily. In my case, I’m trying to create practical and content-rich postings, and the blog isn’t my core business, so weekly seems about right.

If your business has a blog that has been neglected in the past months, I’d challenge you to try a similar resolution yourself. Come up with a frequency and make a commitment to meet it.

Not sure how to go about getting enough content for regular posts?

• Engage many people in your company to write posts, even assigning responsibility for a number of posts a month or quarter.
• For people not comfortable writing their own posts, have a short conversation over lunch and see how many topics you can spin into posts.
• Scan the news for items relevant to your business, and write briefly about your opinions on the news.
• Highlight new customer wins or product/service features.
• Invite partners or customers to contribute posts.
• Create blog postings from your other content efforts: webinars, press releases, etc.
• Think beyond the written word to podcasts, videos, graphics, etc.

Freelance bloggers can help with many of these tasks, but a corporate blog needs across-the-board buy-in from the business to be successful. Maintaining an editorial calendar is a great idea.

What’s in it for your business?  Organic search ranking, thought leadership, engagement with your customers and prospects … all kinds of benefits. But they only come with consistent effort. That’s why you need to make a commitment, at least within your own business.

If you’ve decided to take up the challenge, I’d love to hear from you on how you do as the year goes by!  As for me, you should be able to see the results right here. Weekly, I hope.