Post by Guest Blogger Dawn Foster
Many corporate blogs, Twitter accounts, and other social media efforts are neglected, dull, and unimaginative while filled with press release content, marketing fluff, and outdated content. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Your content can be interesting and useful with a little focus and time devoted to it. Here are a few tips to help turn your boring corporate social media efforts into something successful.
Content Roadmap
Most companies should create and maintain some type of content roadmap. The content roadmap will usually map out the next 4 weeks of blog posts with an author identified for each post. This helps to ensure that the blog topics are strategically aligned with corporate goals, varied across topics and types of content, and frequent enough to keep the blog active. The person responsible for the blog can work with authors to help identify topics and then make sure that the author has access to everything needed to complete the post (data, technical assistance, etc.) I tend to focus on blog posts in the content roadmap, but you can also include other social media content in the roadmap to make sure that your Twitter account, Facebook page, online community, and more stay up to date and are not forgotten.
Spontaneous Posts
Now that you have a content roadmap, you should also diverge from it frequently to allow for serendipitous blogging and other posts on hot topics or new ideas that people are passionate enough about to want to talk about them immediately. Monitor popular blogs, news sources, and events in your industry and respond to what others are saying. Join the conversation without waiting for the topic to come up on the content roadmap.
Use the Language of the Medium
Social media is not the place to post marketing messages or use other corporate sounding language. Blogs, Twitter and other online communities are more conversational in nature with a focus on person to person interaction and two-way interactions where the company is part of the community. I have a set of social media and social networking best practices with more details on how to participate without embarrassing yourself or your company.
Thought Leadership
The best blogs and other posts have content that focuses on thought leadership. Talk about the things in your industry where your employees have expertise that can be shared with the world. Don’t just talk about your products; focus on your entire industry. Get people to discuss a variety of topics and new ideas. Don’t get stuck in a rut where all of your posts have essentially the same or similar content. You are not a thought leader if all of your posts are simply variations on a single idea. Chime in with your thoughts on a variety of topics across your industry.
Conversations
Always monitor and respond to comments. People get frustrated when they ask questions or provide feedback without any response or acknowledgment. Even worse are those companies that moderate every comment and delete anything that they do not agree with. Let people comment and disagree with your ideas. Some of the most interesting conversations happen in the comments of a blog post. You should also monitor what people are saying about you on other blogs, forums, Twitter, etc. and respond where appropriate.
Blogs are Fun
Have fun with your blog and other social media, and don’t be so serious all of the time. You can include interesting things that are happening within your company that aren’t necessarily work related (photos from a company ski trip). Admit it; you would rather read a post with great content and some humor mixed in, instead of something with great content that drones on and on like an old, boring college lecture. Make the content interesting and fun enough that people will look forward to reading your posts.
You can read more of Dawn Foster's blog posts or learn more about her consulting services by visiting Fast Wonder. http://fastwonderblog.com
The best blogs and other posts have content that focuses on thought leadership. Talk about the things in your industry where your employees have expertise that can be shared with the world. Don’t just talk about your products; focus on your entire industry. Get people to discuss a variety of topics and new ideas. Don’t get stuck in a rut where all of your posts have essentially the same or similar content. You are not a thought leader if all of your posts are simply variations on a single idea. Chime in with your thoughts on a variety of topics across your industry.
Conversations
Always monitor and respond to comments. People get frustrated when they ask questions or provide feedback without any response or acknowledgment. Even worse are those companies that moderate every comment and delete anything that they do not agree with. Let people comment and disagree with your ideas. Some of the most interesting conversations happen in the comments of a blog post. You should also monitor what people are saying about you on other blogs, forums, Twitter, etc. and respond where appropriate.
Blogs are Fun
Have fun with your blog and other social media, and don’t be so serious all of the time. You can include interesting things that are happening within your company that aren’t necessarily work related (photos from a company ski trip). Admit it; you would rather read a post with great content and some humor mixed in, instead of something with great content that drones on and on like an old, boring college lecture. Make the content interesting and fun enough that people will look forward to reading your posts.
You can read more of Dawn Foster's blog posts or learn more about her consulting services by visiting Fast Wonder. http://fastwonderblog.com
