The New Social Norm: How to Make the Most of Your Corporate Bloggers

By Lou Hoffman CEO The Hoffman Agency February 5, 2011 The New Social Norm: How to Make the Most Of Corporate Blogging

If you build it, generally they won’t come.

Why?
No time
“Muscle memory”
Difficult to differentiate from thousands of information sources

Humbling Personal Experience

Content is Not King.

It Takes a Village (+ SEO) To Build a Blog’s Readership.

Today’s Discussion Flow
Fundamentals
What Makes for Compelling Content
The Quest for Readers
Loose Ends
Questions

Fundamentals: Who’s the Audience?

Fundamentals: Defining Success

Fundamentals: Length

Fundamentals: Frequency

Fundamentals: Timing

Fundamentals: Looks Count

Fundamentals: Looks Count
Typography
Break up text
Photographs (post on 25 free stock photo sites )
Subheads
Readability

What Makes for Compelling Content?

Me vs. You

Show Your Humanity Story Tip #6 from Kurt Vonnegut Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them – in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

Offer a Point of View

Distinct Voice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjS4XpFZBqU

Be the Media
Play journalist
Interview individuals with fresh takes (ideally, “connectors”)
Interview customers
Structure interview in Q&A format
Talk to attendees at industry events
Arm yourself with a flip cam and videotape interviews

Be the Media

Compelling Content “ I try to write a blog post that only I could write.” Mark Schaefer Marketing Consultant Blog: Grow

Work backwards
How do you want people to find your blog?
Establish primary phrase
Establish secondary phrase(s)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The Quest for Readers: SEO Google AdWords Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

The Quest for Readers: SEO Google Insights Tool: www.google.com/insights/research

The Quest for Readers: SEO
URL
Title tag <title>
Post title
Description tag
Post content
Post tags
Applying Your Keyword Phrase(s)

The Quest for Readers: SEO Applying Your Keyword Phrase(s): Back to the Dairy Queen blog

The Quest for Readers: SEO Applying Your Keyword Phrase(s): Ishmael’s Corner

The Quest for Readers: SEO Applying Your Keyword Phrase(s): Ishmael’s Corner Top Keywords (Jan. 1 – Jun. 30, 2010) Top Keywords (Oct. 1 – Dec. 31, 2010) #storytelling 10 toyota customer letter 10 effective business communications 9 lou hoffman 9 best pr campaigns 8 #storytelling 8 dolly freed 7 toyota crisis 7 david and goliath 6 lou hoffman blog 6 lou hoffman 5 toyota letter to customers 5 ishmael’s corner 4 “ lou hoffman” 4 storytelling techniques 3 toyota crisis pr 3 steve jobs son 2 ishmaels corner 2 ishmaels corner 1 ishmael’s corner 1

The Quest for Readers Leverage High-profile News

The Quest for Readers: Leveraging High-profile News Online Properties That Showcase Backlinks

The Quest for Readers: Leverage High-profile News Guest Posts (and the Power of Backlinks)

The Quest for Readers: Leverage High-profile News Search on “Google CEO PR”

Post comments on relevant blogs
Respond to posted comments
Don’t be stingy with backlinks
Engagement

The Quest for Readers: Engagement
The #444PR Series
Questions
Is Ghost Blogging Ethical?
To Stay Relevant, How Do Communications Professionals Need to Evolve?
What Role Should a Communications Agency Plan in a Client’s Social Media?
The Top 5 Smart Communications Practices Companies Need to Implement Right Now
Experiment

The Quest for Readers: Engagement Experiment

The Quest for Readers: Engagement “ Marry Up”

The Quest for Readers: Engagement
Same “me vs. you” rule on content
Serve your community
And tweets become another channel to bring readers to your blog
What about Twitter?

The Quest for Readers: Twitter

The Quest for Readers: Twitter @ McCallSmith Will you permit me one adjective? http.l7/g1OJVG 26 Jan

The Quest for Readers: Twitter

Not Everything is Going to Work

Loose Ends LinkedIn
Blog post pulled into LinkedIn will look like this.

Loose Ends E-mail: Another Analog Touch Point for Your Blog

Loose Ends Top Rank Maintains Comprehensive List Of Blog Directories http:// www.toprankblog.com/rss -blog-directories/

Loose Ends Google Analytics

Loose Ends
Weekly conversation on a different blogging topic starting at 9 p.m. Eastern Time
Facilitated by @MackCollier
#Blogchat

Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. Oscar Wilde

Lou Hoffman [email_address] @LouHoffman www.Hoffman.com www.IshmaelsCorner.com

http://www.ishmaelscorner.com	417
http://sustainablejournalism.org	36
http://www.bulldogreporter.com	3
http://webnoggins.com	1
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The New Social Norm: How to Make the Most of Your Corporate Bloggers

by Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University

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