Outreach Fuels Corporate Blogging Success
December 28, 2009
Instead of thinking of your blog as a publishing tool, think of your corporate blog as a communications device.
Even better imagine that your blog is part of a large disconnected forum or bulletin board.
I think everyone can easily understand the value of community management when it comes to working within a forum. You can identify every community member and their level of participation within a single website community, and companies can understand who to encourage members within a community because everyone is easily found within a forum.
In blogging communities, the members of that community are not all located on one website; instead the community is made up of many individual blogs. Just as you use a forum to converse with community members in a blogging community bloggers use their blogs to conduct conversations with blogging community members either on their blog or between blogs.
To be successful in blogging you have to have a plan for outreach to other bloggers, read their blogs, comment or write posts that focus on their ideas and opinions. If you do, you will have a good conversation, and the quality of the conversation is important to building relationships with other community blog members. Those relationships are important because then blog community members will start to read your blog, engage you on a more regular basis when you do comment on their blog, or even reference your ideas in their blog posts.
If you want your blog posts shared with the rest of the community, the path to success is not purely good content, rather you have to build and maintain relationships with members of your blogging community. Develop an outreach program to keep you on track to becoming part of the community and see the results from that investment.
Even better imagine that your blog is part of a large disconnected forum or bulletin board.
I think everyone can easily understand the value of community management when it comes to working within a forum. You can identify every community member and their level of participation within a single website community, and companies can understand who to encourage members within a community because everyone is easily found within a forum.
In blogging communities, the members of that community are not all located on one website; instead the community is made up of many individual blogs. Just as you use a forum to converse with community members in a blogging community bloggers use their blogs to conduct conversations with blogging community members either on their blog or between blogs.
To be successful in blogging you have to have a plan for outreach to other bloggers, read their blogs, comment or write posts that focus on their ideas and opinions. If you do, you will have a good conversation, and the quality of the conversation is important to building relationships with other community blog members. Those relationships are important because then blog community members will start to read your blog, engage you on a more regular basis when you do comment on their blog, or even reference your ideas in their blog posts.
If you want your blog posts shared with the rest of the community, the path to success is not purely good content, rather you have to build and maintain relationships with members of your blogging community. Develop an outreach program to keep you on track to becoming part of the community and see the results from that investment.