Blogging
Give Your Corporate Blog a Compelling Voice
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 MoreIs Video Content Really As Important As Everybody Says?
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 MoreThe Problem with “Corporate Blogs”
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 More9 Tips: Building a Great Business Blog
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 MoreHow Often Should You Blog?
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 MoreMe, Myself, and I
Leave it to my alumni magazine (The University of Texas at Austin) to offer an insightful look into a major pet peeve of professional writers: Over-use of the word “I.” In years of editing thousands of works of film criticism, this has been perhaps my biggest pet peeve. (And yes, I’m aware that I’m breaking…
Read MoreBe Helpful
We’ve said it before but we’ll say it again: The way you get people to pay attention to you in the blog world is not by writing about yourself but about writing about what people are interested in. The Intuit Small Business Blog recently published an interview with Chris Brogan, who puts it in simpler…
Read MoreWhy Your Business Needs Editorial Content
Today’s consumers are smart, savvy, and more sophisticated than ever when it comes to buying things. The internet has made comparison shopping trivially easy — but it’s also opened the floodgates for all kinds of hazards: Spam websites, shady fly-by-night merchants, and shoddy knockoff products galore. The result is that if you’re lucky enough to…
Read MoreBest Practices for Business Blogging
Recently I did a little math and calculated that I had written or edited some 15,000 blog posts in my career to date. That’s a mammoth number… and it’s taught me more than a few lessons about what to do and what not to do when writing a blog post for your business. Today I’m…
Read More3 Ways to Humanize Your Brand Online
Dale Carnegie said it best: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” Attracting new customers and retaining existing ones requires more than simply pushing out marketing messages and waiting for results. Consumers are…
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