"Most corporate blogs are ghost towns, in terms of both content and reader engagement," writes Ian Greenleigh at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog. "Abandoned blogs litter the web, making the businesses that own them look lazy, uncommitted and anything but current." A well-executed blog sets your content marketing apart from the competition—and will enhance your lead-generation efforts. To get the best results, Greenleigh has this advice:

Pace your publication schedule. Don't post at breakneck speed when you first launch, only to slow down once your initial passion wears off. Rather, maintain a steady pace with a consistent number of posts per week. "Like any good publisher, you'll need an editorial calendar," he says. "Plan several weeks in advance, but realize that you'll also need the flexibility to blog about business-relevant hot topics as they come up."

Vet your sources. You might accept contributions from a variety of sources with a variety of voices—but posts should conform to general standards of quality and tone. It's OK to reject submissions that don't fit. "Establish official content guidelines and an approval process that your employees can reference during content creation," notes Greenleigh, "and use this to inform and explain your approval decisions."

Edit your content. Sloppy typos undermine your credibility, so make copyediting an important part of the publication process. "[Microsoft] Word or another word processer [sic] should be used until the post is ready to go up," he says. "[N]ot only do you then have backup copies, but Word's editing features are more robust than those of WordPress and most other platforms."

The Po!nt: Blogs have become serious business—and though they're still less formal than many content-marketing channels, they still need your careful and consistent attention.

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