In this digital age, most businesses understand that the internet is the best place to find customers. Every day, billions of people around the world work, play, buy and sell online. Web and Social media platforms have taken the world by storm, transforming the digital landscape into a valuable resource for business and marketing, resulting in the need for visibility, leading to blogging.
Kenya has the highest proportion of social media users in Africa, with internet penetration estimated to be at 83% of the country’s population. In other words, Internet consumption is at an all-time high since the vast majority of Kenyans have access to the internet via internet-enabled devices such as computers and mobile phones. This represents a sizable market for business opportunities.
As a result, Successful brands, corporate bodies, and businesses are capitalizing on this by implementing social media strategies such as corporate blogging.
What Is the Purpose of Creating a Corporate Blog?
Firstly, corporate blogging can be used as an effective marketing strategy to increase your company’s online visibility. There are several reasons why your company should invest in a corporate blog. Here are a few examples:
- Boosts traffic: The main benefit of having a corporate blog is that it boosts traffic to your company’s website. This is because each blog post adds indexed pages to your website, increasing its visibility in search engines.
- Converts traffic into leads: Each blog post serves as a means of generating new leads. You can accomplish this by including a lead-generating call-to-action (CTA) in each of your blog posts.
- Improves customer relations: An active blog that generates useful content assists a brand in developing a connection and trust with its customers. This increases customer loyalty and personalizes customer interactions.
- Effective marketing: Having a corporate blog is a simple way to keep current and potential customers informed about upcoming events or product releases.
Secondly, a corporate blog is more of a necessity than an option for most successful companies and brands, regardless of size. Even small businesses with corporate blogs receive 55% more traffic than those without.
Above all, most companies struggle to strike a balance between being professional and engaging in interesting conversations with their customers. It is critical to creating content that resonates with the customer base to connect with them. After all, the goal is to direct traffic toward you rather than away from you.
The following are ten essential tips to consider when using a corporate blog:
1. Establish your Blog’s Theme and Editorial Guidelines.
In contrast to personal blogs, which can write about anything, the theme of a corporate blog must be well-defined. This helps to keep your blog focused on what your company or brand stands for. As a result, your readers will know what to expect and will be able to clearly understand your line of business.
The blog’s name and theme should be appropriate for the company’s area of expertise. Moreover, your blogging team will also know what topics to cover thanks to editorial guidelines. In short, a glance at the name and the blog reveals the company’s area of interest.
2. Create your Blogging Team.
Create a team of bloggers to create content for your corporate blog for the best results. In fact, they can be edited or allowed to be published on their own. As such, you should hire skilled writers who are;
- Capable, knowledgeable- Trends are something you should be aware of.
- Able to strike a balance between providing business information and being approachable.
- Statistical- A good conversational writing style and excellent storytelling ability are also required. This is because you only have 8 seconds to capture your readers’ attention.
3. Include a Personal Touch in the Blogs.
A corporate blog should be used to get to know your customers and vice versa. As such, you should discuss the values that your company upholds. In addition, Conversations about ethics, transparency and environmental awareness are topics to which your customers will be able to relate.
For a friendlier tone, refer to your company in the first person (we) and your readers in the second person (you). However, keep in mind that the blog is the brand’s voice, so moderation is required. Avoid topics that are divisive or have strong opinions.
4. Be Receptive to Feedback and Criticism.
Your company’s blogs or websites should welcome criticism and view it as a means of gathering feedback. Besides, negative feedback is an opportunity for growth.
In that case, to avoid a PR disaster, complaints should be handled professionally and calmly, and the blogging team should avoid giving emotional responses.
5. Establish a Comment Policy.
An open policy may result in a flood of comments that are complimentary, constructive, spam, or even abusive. In addition, it is critical to developing a comment policy to assist your blogging team in determining which comments to respond to, delete, or flag for follow-up.
6. Postpone Marketing.
Corporate blogs should be written with the customer in mind first and the business in mind second. This way, you can share authoritative industry knowledge without selling yourself outright.
Combining useful content with analysis and opinions generates more trust in your brand and products than any PR pitch. For example, rather than selling yoga-inspired athletic apparel, the posts on Lululemon Athletica’s corporate blog focus on topics that their followers will be interested in.
7. Make your Content Easily Shareable.
Always ensure that your blog posts include tools for posting to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and others. The easier it is to do this, the more your content is shared on other platforms.
Include buttons, widgets, links, and URLs to your other social profiles so that readers can connect with you on multiple platforms.
8. Market Yourself.
Promote your blog by spreading the word about it on any platforms that you have control over. You can share the URL of your blog on other social media platforms(Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn), websites, business cards, advertisements, and emails. A well-executed promotion strategy will bring in the necessary audience numbers.
9. Keep an Eye on Feedback and Mentions.
Keeping track of mentions and feedback is a great way to see how much your corporate blog is helping to increase brand visibility. You can accomplish this by creating Google Alerts for your blog’s name or brand, as well as any other relevant keywords.
Custom search columns on Twitter, such as Hootsuite or CoTweet, will keep you up to date on brand or blog mentions in real-time. Social media management tools such as Radian6 can also assist you in monitoring keywords across multiple social media platforms.
10. Train, Train, Train!
The use of web analytics tools will aid in the tracking of data on your corporate blog. Google Analytics is an example of a good free analytics tool. This method of tracking traffic and data allows you to see which posts are performing well and where referrals are coming from. You will be able to adjust and improve your guidelines as a result of this.
The ultimate goal of corporate blogging is to attract readers who become customers or spread the word about your brand. Using the tips listed above will assist your company in achieving that conversion.
Take advantage of Kenya’s growing digital marketplace and Connect with your online customer base. This is a smart way to keep people interested in what you have to offer and what you can do for them.
Boost Your Visibility at the New Heights!
Are you ready to use corporate blogging to expand your reach and generate more revenue for your company? Our team of expert writers at The Feels Good Company, will handle your corporate blogging and give your brand a voice that will attract the right attention. Allow us to assist you in providing a channel for your customers to discover your company. Please contact us right away!