Has social media killed the corporate website? Probably not, but it has certainly changed the way marketers should approach their online hubs. The increased need for regular engagement and a value exchange between marketers and their customers has granted new importance to company blogs, which today serve as living, breathing reflections of a brand's mission, objectives, and overall character.
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Below are some strategies we utilize at digital marketing agency 360i in order to keep our audience of clients and digital marketing enthusiasts engaged and informed via our Digital Connections blog.
Writing
1. Choose the right topics. Sometimes pinpointing a topic can be more challenging than actually writing about it. We peruse dozens of other blogs each day -- as well as trade pubs and other outlets -- to find headlines most relevant to our business and our clients.
2. Create an editorial calendar. Coverage can be added on the fly, but it's always helpful to have a rough outline of planned assignments so you can maintain a regular cadence when it comes to the frequency of your posts. On our blog, recurring features like news roundups, interviews, and POVs ensure that our readers are getting continued value -- no matter what's going on in our industry's headlines.
3. Provide value. Corporate blogs shouldn't just be about company announcements; in fact, these types of posts form a very small percentage of our content. Our goal has always been to provide value through thought leadership -- inspiring conversations instead of creating monologues around company news.
4. Pool your resources. Our agency is comprised of hundreds of individuals that span several practice groups and areas of expertise -- social marketing, creative, media, search, and more. Tap into the power of your company's collective intellect by opening up your roster of contributors to include employees of diverse backgrounds and skill sets.
5. Have a brand voice. We maintain a consistent style and voice throughout all our posts. This helps ensure a cohesive experience -- no matter which topic we are covering, or who is writing about it.
6. Keep it concise. Blog posts are much shorter than traditional news articles. We try to keep our posts at a manageable length -- and posts longer than two or three paragraphs always include a "jump" so any one article doesn't take up too much real estate on the blog homepage.
7. Be conversational. As is the case with many blogs, our tone is generally conversational. We write the way we talk.
8. Give credit where it's due. If we're borrowing stats or referencing another source, we always link to the original source of the content. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it will help you avoid any unwanted legal squabbles that may arise from failing to properly source assets or information.
9. Incorporate visuals and multimedia. Eye-catching graphics and multimedia add-ins such as embedded videos and PDFs can go a long way in terms of capturing a reader's attention. Multimedia content is easier to share than ever and can often be incorporated by copying a line of HTML embed code into the post.
360i embeds each of its reports as PDFs directly on the blog using Scribd.
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