Your blog can be a valuable tool for promoting your organization and communicating with your customers. But you'll want to follow a few best practices to help ensure that your blog is a success. Here are a few tips:
Focus your topic. The topic of your blog should be focused narrowly enough that people have a clear idea of what types of information they can expect to find there. Choosing a topic carefully will also help your blog authors focus their efforts.
If you have a variety of topics that are blog-worthy, you can create more than one blog.
Post regularly. Regular posts will help you build readership and keep people engaged. Daily posts are great if possible. But posting at least weekly is a must. Waiting more than a week between blog posts could discourage repeat visitors and make your blog appear outdated or irrelevant.
Choose good authors. Blog entries should be produced by people who can write well and who have the time to post often. The writing on a blog should be personal and authentic—don’t ghostwrite for another person or use stilted corporate speak. Think of a blog post as the beginning of a conversation that will be continued through the comments section.
It's a good idea to create guidelines for your authors that help them know what to post about and how often to post.
Don't fear comments—but do moderate them. The comments section of your blog is where you can really reap the benefits of blogging by seeing your readers' thoughts on your posts and engaging them in a conversation. So it's important to monitor and respond to comments regularly.
It’s a good idea to post a clear comments policy on the blog so that your contributors understand what is appropriate. And, of course, you’ll need to have moderators to ensure that your posting policy is followed and that responses are given when necessary.
You might be tempted to disable comments for your blog to save yourself the time of monitoring them. But beware: A blog that doesn’t encourage readers to actively participate likely won’t be read well.
Promote your efforts. To make sure people find your blog, you’ll need to promote it. You can do this by featuring it prominently on your website and in print and e-newsletter promotions. You can also promote your blog by actively participating in the blogging community. Look for other blogs that cover similar topics and post comments on them when appropriate.