The more corporate blogs change, the more they stay the same.
A 2016 post on Amendola’s blog lists the primary benefits a corporate blog can deliver, which all ring true three-and-a-half years later. Those advantages include: building SEO and attracting visitors to your site, providing a platform to exchange ideas with prospects and customers, strengthening your brand, serving as the
hub of your content marketing efforts, and establishing you as thought leaders in the industry.
Likewise, the author’s assessment of the most likely factor to derail a corporate blog remains spot-on: “The number one barrier I have encountered to establishing thought leadership through a corporate blog is a lack of commitment. A blog will die a slow (or sometimes not-so-slow) death when an organization fails to develop a culture committed to establishing thought leadership through content marketing.”
This observation matches up with my own experience. Too often, corporate blogs are launched without a detailed plan and content calendar that organize and map out the content the blog is planned to cover.
There is one piece of advice from the author, however, that I believe doesn’t fully capture the idea of how to maintain a sustainable blog: “The executive team must lead the way.” Certainly, that is true in regard to the need for executives to champion the blog internally to generate interest within the company.
However, this advice ignores the role the marketing and communications teams must play in developing potential content for the blog. While an organization’s top executives are certainly its most prominent thought leaders, they generally are reluctant to spend time sitting in front of a blank Word document brainstorming ideas for corporate blog posts. That’s why the organization’s marketing and communications professionals must first take the lead in establishing a content plan for a blog.
How is this accomplished? Start by reviewing any recent content your company has produced that is still relevant, which may include white papers, guest editorials, marketing collateral, website copy, interview transcriptions and more. This pre-existing content can be a gold mine of ideas to repurpose for blog posts.
Take your preparation a step further by performing Google and Twitter searches for news items relevant to your company that provide a jumping-off point for other blog posts. For example, if your company works with provider organizations to help address social determinants of health issues in their communities, a simple search of “social determinants of health” may yield information about a trove of articles and studies that can provide engaging content for blog posts.
Use this research to fuel a running list of corporate blog post ideas that you update periodically and share with your thought leaders. By doing this, you’ll likely have saved executives lots of time and even have taken on the appearance of a thought leader a bit yourself.