Organizing a blog that has a number of contributors is not an easy task. There are a few keys you need to have in place before you can be truly successful.

When I first was assigned the task of organizing employees to write content for a blog it reminded me a lot of coaching. As with coaching, you must be organized, have a plan, and bring energy to the task at hand. It isn’t easy writing each week for your employer, and one tip is to really align your team with their passions. It will be so much easier  for you to do your job around creating content if you employees are excited to write. Here is a list of organizational “must-haves”!

List of Topics - I have seen the most success when the blog team meets and builds this together at … Read More »

Ross Furlong of blogstar.co.uk, recently posted a great infographic about business blogging in one of the LinkedIn groups that I follow. With the post, he asked a good question: are corporate blogs an inward facing vanity project or a marketing powerhouse for customer engagement?

*Original infographic posted here: http://www.blogstar.co.uk/our-blog/

Why Do Businesses Blog?
In answer to his question, I reflected on the stats concerning “why” a business blogs. Seventy percent of the responders said that they blog to share expertise, in comparison to the 52% who said that they blog to attract new customers. While sharing expertise is a definite draw for people to read your blog, if this is your ultimate goal for blogging, you haven’t yet internalized the purpose of a corporate blog.
While sharing expertise is what we are doing when we write for … Read More »

Last week at the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center (DEC) our monthly blogging roundtable group explored possible blog topics for small business owners.

Finding a suitable topic to write about can be a big stressor for bloggers. In fact, I received an email from one of my clients who gave up trying to write a blog post for today, “I went down one road and it just didn’t work …”

Even a writer on my team started a blog post on a topic last night that he hadn’t researched, and didn’t appear passionate about, and he ended up at a dead end.

My advice? It’s better not to post than to post something you don’t like and doesn’t move you closer to your marketing goals.

Here are 10 content ideas for your business blog:

1. Review an event, blog, App, website, movie, book or song. … Read More »

Every time I read about a content management system, I inevitably see the value proposition of creating an unlimited number of blogs. On the surface that seems great right?  However, in terms of business blogs – is it?

Let me ask you this – who wants to create an unlimited number of blogs? Most of us can’t even get one business blog to work effectively. Instead of creating a lot of blogs that don’t work, focus on creating one blog that does work. Here are a few things your blogging software should do for you:

Make the content strategy clear to all writers
Suggest topics of interest
Permit many writers while maintaining control
Enable real Search Engine Optimization (on the keywords YOU are trying to own)
Take care of the heavy lifting in terms of cross … Read More »

When was the last time you went to a restaurant and ordered a casserole? Well, if you wouldn’t order it for your table, why do you serve it to your readers?

Blog casserole is what happens when you lack strategy and don’t know what to write… so you just write stuff. It’s not necessarily meaningful or intriguing or even funny – it’s just stuff.  It’s blog casserole. The problem with blog casserole is that no one really likes it. Your readers will eat it but they won’t like it, and they may be less likely to return for another meal.

Instead of blog casserole, treat your customers reading your business blog the same way a chef treats his or her customers to delicious food with variety and spice! In our next post, we’ll teach you how to serve up delicious blogs that … Read More »

“I want you to take the leadership position, Kent!” That was the buzzword laden phrase uttered by one of the worst managers ever. We’ll call him Pete. In this situation, Pete wanted Kent to sign up for more work with no additional pay. Kent was about 65 years old and was disgusted by the request. Kent wanted to spend time with his grandchildren, not taking the “leadership position” whatever that meant.

Pete was trying to do the right thing but he was going about it the wrong way. Pete had additional work that needed to get done and he went after the person with the most experience, Kent. Kent, however, did not want to sign up for more hours. He wasn’t climbing the corporate ladder; he was buying time until retirement. Kent just … Read More »

I was recently asked to lecture on Content Marketing and Business Blogging at Sinclair College in Dayton Ohio. What I love about presenting at conferences and colleges is it always makes me take a big step back and look at the information through fresh eyes.

This time I added a new classification to content channels. I had always talked about the “home base” (websites and blogs) and social “outposts” (facebook, twitter, linkedin…) but I never had a good description for channels that you control but that don’t really “live” on a Home base or an outpost. Channels such as Webinars, Email Marketing, Podcasts, Whitepapers…etc.

You’ll have to check out my presentation on slideshare below to find out what new bucket I created for these media channels! I know it’s always hard to view a presentation without the verbal commentary so if you … Read More »

I traded emails with a woman recently who runs one of the best (manual) collaborative blogs I have seen.  They have 6-7 content authors and their blogs are timely and relevant. That is no small undertaking when you are using a free blog product and the vast majority of businesses can’t sustain that long term.

The main problem I saw with their blog was that it was not set up to convert readers to customers. It was just pushing info. When I reached out to her, she said that they were in the middle of fixing their website as it was not converting either, and to follow up in about a year as they could not justify spending any money on the blog while fixing the website.

Although I certainly sympathize with cashflow, I see another problem here – how the … Read More »

It’s official.  InnoGage is powering up the big boys with our business blogging software, InnoBlogs.

In conjunction with our good friends at Crown Partners, InnoGage launched ST-Ericsson’s Technology Blog at the Mobile World Congress to help drive ST-Ericsson’s corporate strategy of increased communication and engagement with the mobile technology world.

ST-Ericsson, a joint venture between STMicroelectronics and Ericsson is a $3.6B company that produces cutting edge technologies focused heavily on the mobile computing industry.  Most people don’t know that some of the most critical components inside their mobile phone or Android device come from ST-Ericsson.  If the phone is the chassis, ST-Ericsson is the v-8 engine.

ST-Ericsson’s Technology blog was created to produce real high tech content that is focused on the mobile tech community.  Most recently, … Read More »

I read a blog post today by Lee Odden on his Top Rank Online Marketing Blog and I felt compelled to post about it.  It’s not often that I agree with everything in a blog post but Lee really nailed it with his post called 5 Tips on Business Blogging With Minimal Resources.

One reason I got so excited when I read Lee’s post – it validates the functionality we have worked hard to put into InnoBlogs.  Lee wrote this post because blog management is NOT easy.  It takes work and strategic focus and dedication and a team – which is then hard to manage and control… With each of Lee’s points about business blogging, I immediately recognized functionality we built into InnoBlogs to assist with or relieve each challenge.  Here are the Five points Lee makes … Read More »