PR Moment: How to create a great blog for your brand

Business blogging remains an underused and underrated tactic. It’s the subject of my chapter in Share This: The Social Media Handbook for PR Professionals and is an issue that PR Moment has examined recently, quoting me. As PR industry author and blogger Stephen Waddington says, “Blogging was going to change how organisations communicated with their audiences forever. A revolution was set to sweep through corporate communications. PR and communication teams would cease to exist as business leaders and use the web to communicate directly with their audiences.”

“Blogs promised to fundamentally change the relationship between a company and its staff, customers, suppliers and the media. Websites would be overhauled, the press release would cease to exist and the PR industry itself faced revolution."

But Waddington then points out: “We’re still waiting. It’s an overstatement of the case of course, but there are very few examples of large organisations – outside the media, information and technology industries – that have successfully used a blog as part of their communication strategy.”

Waddington believes that one of the reasons that there are few examples of good corporate blogs is because of the clash between personal and corporate communication. The typical life-cycle starts with an initial burst of two or three posts per week, dropping to one a week, then one a month before drying-up completely.

He says: “Blogging isn’t a short-term marketing tactic. It takes time to establish a blog, develop a tone of voice and build an audience. There are fundamental differences between how people communicate and how companies communicate – and few corporate organisations have managed to bridge that gap.

“Then there is the issue of ownership. Should a blog be the pet project of a senior executive or fall within the communications or PR team, product marketing, customer relations or human resources? And legal will almost certainly want to get involved and pass judgement on blog posts and comments.”

Head over to PR Moment to read the article in full.