Find your authentic voice
Joseph Jaffe, who blogs at Jaffe Juice and wrote the book "Life After the 30 Second Spot," says "There is so much competition/clutter right now. You need to be able to bring something unique to the table."
Through his blog, Jaffe has found speaking engagements, new business leads for his marketing consulting business, Crayon, and has been called upon for high profile media interviews, including CBS Evening News, ABC World News, Bloomberg, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fortune, Newsweek, Ad Age and Adweek.
"Join the Conversation," Jaffe's most recent book, came out two months ago, utilizing content from posts on his blog that he had written over the past two years. Edited using collaborative wiki software, the cover features photos of the many collaborators for the book and reflects the enthusiasm that Jaffe tapped into from his community and fan base of readers.
"I always was mindful of when a post could be carried over to the book, but for the most part I just went back over the hundreds of posts to find illustrations and relevant inspiration to include in the book. What I did do was not just carry over content from my posts, but also acknowledge and credit commenters who added and built on the various posts/stories."
Jaffe practices what he preaches, encouraging his clients to experiment with new and different marketing techniques. His new book is no exception. On the "Join the Conversation" wiki, he writes…
"This is an opportunity to show that even a book can be as engaging and collaborative as two people sharing a cup of coffee together or two avatars practicing a bit of synchronized flying.
- It begins with letting go of control
- It continues with trusting my community
- It ends with… no it doesn't; it never ends…"
Choose the right corporate blogger
Do you know anyone who has gotten a job through his or her blog? Jeremiah Owyang was recently hired as a senior analyst at Forrester research because of his blog. Before that, his boss at PodTech.net found him through his blog as well.
Debbie Weil, a blogging consultant who blogs at Blog Write for CEO's says, "Think of a blog as the 3D version of your expertise. It's the online version of You, Inc. It's a microsite where you can showcase your thinking and writing skills."
Among his 1,000+ posts, Owyang wrote a comprehensive list of business blogging best practices, which includes a number of good recommendations for choosing your corporate blogger. Here are some of his best recommendations.
- An ideal blogger is someone who is already online all the time, consumes mass info and exports mass info.
- Consider your official corporate blogger to be an individual that already faces customers or the public. Often individuals that do a lot of speaking to the industry on behalf of the company are ideal.
- Your corporate blogger should be interesting as well as informative. No one wants to read a boring blog, but mere entertainment only lasts a few visits.
- The blogger should be an expert on the topic at hand.
- If you have multiple [blogging] strategies, consider having multiple bloggers that focus on each of the areas.
- Only consider bloggers that have the time to commit to blogging, and can do so on a regular basis.
- If you're in a company where it may be hard to find regular bloggers, consider making a blog "pool" or a general blog site that's not attached to an individual blogger. GM Fastlane has multiple authors in its blog setting.
- Have a kickoff "best practices" and "strategy" meeting with your corporate bloggers. Have updated meetings and training later.
Who at your company would be the best blogger? And which department should manage it? Bloggers wear many hats and communicate to a number of diverse constituents as described in this article. The roles a successful blogger need to fill include: writer, editor, producer, analyst, technology expert, programmer, SEO expert, marketer, social networker, PR manager and customer relations manager. In other words, bloggers need to be publishing entrepreneurs and wear many hats.