10 Commandments of the Blogosphere

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I get a lot of questions from people running or starting business blogs about what the general rules or guidelines should be for being successful with your own blog - here are ten tips for blogging.

1. Make it conversational.  Don’t try to make your blog anything but what it is—an informal, and hopefully informative, conversation between you and your market. No clever marketing copy needed.
2. Publish regularly.  If you want to keep a loyal reader base, you have to deliver content on a regular basis. Depending on the resources you have available, make a commitment to post and respond to comments, at least, one to three times a week. Daily is great if you have the resources to see it through.
3. Know your audience.  “Duh! I’m a marketer—knowing my audience is tattooed on my forehead.”  But knowing your audience well enough to blog for them is different than knowing your audience well enough to write a brochure for them. Remember the first commandment, a blog is a conversation. If you don’t know what you’re talking about or whom you are talking to, you’re not going to be talking to anyone.
4. Know your voice.  The obvious example of this commandment is to let your humor shine through. The flip side of that commandment is don’t force humor if it’s not a natural conversational tone for you. Your voice is your voice—don’t fake it or force it. If your blog is a company blog with multiple contributors, let them keep their authentic voice, but feel free to edit their postings so that they remain consistent with your company’s blogging guidelines and standards.
5. Offer an ‘About Me’ page.  Regular readers will come to know you through reading your blog; but, it doesn’t hurt to offer up a bit from the get go. An ‘About Me’ page provides new readers a quick glimpse into your background and will establish credibility. Nothing more than a brief professional summary and a few personal details are necessary.
6. Talk to other blogs.  The best way to stay relevant and find fresh material is to read and comment on other blogs in your industry. It’s a conversation. If you’re only reading and writing your blog, then you’re blogging in a vacuum.
7. Don’t get yourself in trouble.  Yes, it’s an informal conversation, but it’s still a conversation happening on a professional level. Do not publish anything online that you wouldn’t want future employers and/or colleagues to read. Absolutely nothing will kill a career faster than a Google search on your name that turns up negative, unprofessional comments you made in a past career life. Just like with email, don’t write anything in the heat of the moment. Think through what you’re going to write.
8. Don’t get your company in trouble.  It’s one thing to endanger your career, but to put your company in a bad light puts everyone at risk. Responsible blogging falls on the shoulders of every corporate blogger. To learn more about responsible blogging, start with Daniel Scocco’s 10 Rules for Responsible Blogging.
9. Write well.  No one is trying to write a Pulitzer in the corporate blogosphere, but there is still a certain amount of grammatical decorum needed if you want readers to continue reading. Sara Christensen’s 9 Grammar Rules all Bloggers Need to Know is a great reference sheet for starters.
10. Be passionate.  The easiest way to comply with the ten commandments is to have an authentic passion for your topic. As your company’s primary blogger, you have to be the evangelist for your company and/or the product you represent. That’s the key: Love what you blog about and the words (and audience) are more likely to follow.

Find these guidelines useful?  Any other advice you have based on your experience?  Leave a comment below.

Posted by Mike Volpe on Mon, Jan 21, 2008 @ 12:20 PM