"We blog so you don't have to!"
When working on an editorial strategy for their blogs, clients often ask me about “guest posts.” Why write our own content, the argument goes, when there are numerous industry luminaries willing to write content for our blog for free? If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is, and I generally advise against … Read more
Online, the old adage that “anything goes” may be true, but on your business blog, you need to think about your posting strategy before you write a blog post. What should you write about? Well, it depends on your business. These tips should serve as a guide to help you get started. 1. The Industry … Read more
Check out a few blogs online — even A-list blogs or blogs published by major news outlets — and you’ll quickly start to notice something: No one seems to be editing this stuff. They’re riddled with grammatical errors, typos, dead links, and more. Why is this? The quick answer is that, yeah, no one is … Read more
Early in my journalism career (more years ago than I care to mention), someone asked me whether I was a better writer or reporter. Without much hesitation, I chose Option A, because I knew I was way too polite to be a real newshound. There were plenty of great reporters on the staff of that … Read more
In 2011, IBM’s work-at-home program saved about 6.4 million gallons of fuel and over 50,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions. A Stanford study found work-at-home employees were 13 percent more productive than working in-house. Marissa Mayer’s recent decision to end work-from-home arrangements came under a lot of scrutiny as it implied a negative connotation to … Read more
Businesses get more business when they blog. We’ve already established that. But more and more, video content’s been being trotted out as the next big thing in customer communications. Is video really as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be? Rather than relying on clichés like “Pictures are worth a thousand words,” … Read more
I’m constantly thinking about how we can help improve the state of corporate blogging in the world, and it’s a tough challenge. I think the main problem is the word corporate. Much as a “corporate suit” doesn’t inspire confidence and a “corporate office park” doesn’t make you want to hang out for the day, a … Read more
Want to build a great business blog but don’t know where to start? Consider these nine tips to help get you on your way. 1. Blog daily if possible, or at least a few times a week. 2. Understand your reader/audience. When preparing every post, think about who you want to read it and what … Read more
When we’re bringing a new client onboard, this is a question that invariably comes up early in the conversation: “I know my company should be blogging, but how often should we blog?” The easy answer is this: As much and as often as you possibly can. For most companies, even a “heavy” blog posting schedule … Read more
Just ran across this statistic from Hubspot: How much business blogging is best? To answer to those questions, I looked at data from 1,531 HubSpot customers (mostly small- and medium-sized businesses). 795 of the businesses in my sample blogged, 736 didn’t. The data was crystal clear: Companies that blog have far better marketing results. Specifically, the … Read more