So, I recently finished a workshop at web 2.0 that covered some best practices about blogging (slides). A lot of questions from the audience centered around how businesses or organizations could improve their blogs. We looked at a couple live blogs, including Perket PR, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and The Next Web (from the makers of Fleck).
We gave some substantial advice to each of these blogs about how to improve. However, that avoided the larger question of why you should have a blog. The answer is that not every company should.
Blogging is one of many publishing tools for disseminating your company’s message, not a panacea for customer acquisition. Jason Calacanis just had a great post on other social media methods. And since they take a lot of time to maintain and do well, you need to think of what ROI you can get out of it.
Blogs are good for businesses with a focused user base. SocialMedia’s target audience isn’t in the millions, it’s in the thousands, so maintaining a blog makes sense. But the blog is only one part of the strategy of reaching those people. We can get our message out by attending events and engaging with several blogs already in the space. So, I’m currently going to a lot of social networking related events and doing some guest posting for some of the stellar blogs in the space. Granted, from my time at TechCrunch it’s a bit easier for me.
However, a lot of other interest categories are filled with part time bloggers that could use a coordinating force. The conservationist category seems like an ideal example. There are many passionate part time or amateur bloggers out there, but they don’t have a unifying node to centralize the conversation in that space. This opens an opportunity for a great organization like the Monterey Bay Aquarium to come along and give those part timers a place to contribute and have their voices heard.
