Your Business Blog Sucks, Pt. 2 - Pitfalls

Your Business Blog Sucks, Pt. 2 – Pitfalls

Last week we talked about how much your business blog sucks. It’s definitely not a hopeless case, but you’re embarking on dangerous ground and just need to watch your step.

No matter if it sucks or not at first, a lot of work goes into creating and running a quality business blog for your brand or company. Watching your step comes into play because there are a lot of pitfalls that become dangers as you traverse this Mordor of business blogging.

Here are the ones I’ve seen most often that are waiting with pointy teeth and poisonous scorpion tails for you in the Internet woods.

Got A Minute?

The decision to pick up and write your company blog is not one that should be taken lightly. It’s not a one-time thing of a short spell that you’re doing, it’s a long term commitment to the ongoing conversation and information sharing between your business and your customers, employees, prospects and the press.

Blogging takes a considerable amount of time outside of simply writing the content (i.e. coming up with posting schedules, governance policies, finding people to write, figuring out the editing chain of command and training the website editor to name a few).

There’s definitely a time of resplendent joy when starting a company blog. Where you’re so happy to be getting it off the ground and you just feel like you’re on your honeymooon, but that feeling goes away and then all you’re left with is the work. All you’re left with, as Steven Pressfield would say, is to Do The Work. It’s also really easy to figure out things to write about when you first start out. It seems like there’s an ever-flowing cave of content that will never end.

Eventually it does and you have a harder and harder time finding that content as writers start to miss deadlines and the other stresses of your life and job set it. If you’re not prepared for the time commitment up front, it may just smother you before you have time to get it in front of people.

The problem comes in the perception of your blog. A poorly-managed blog looks lazy to people who may stumble across it and the SEO benefits will start to dwindle as well. Eventually, you start looking worse for having a blog than if you didn’t have anything at all.

Sell, Sell, Sell

Here’s one that trips a lot of companies up. It’s a business blog, so you should always be selling on it, right?

Wrong.

You can mention your stuff and even hype new products/offers you have coming out, but if all you do it hock your crap at people, rest assured that they will stop reading. If they want commercials, there are plenty of other places to see those. Spend you time telling stories, answering questions, relating cool facts, and the like to make sure you’re connecting in ways your audience will respond positively to.

You’re already going to build call to actions built into your blog page and at the end of some posts, so don’t waste your and your readers’ time by making all your posts targeted sales pitches.

You’re Stupid

You can’t please all of the people all of the time. If you’ve done your research on some other blogs in your vertical, I’m sure you’ve noticed some negative comments here and there. It’s normal. Don’t freak out.

Instead of fearing negativity directed at your brand or blog, have a plan in place beforehand on how you’re going to handle negative comments. That way you come off less like a babbling buffoon and more like Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting”. You need to react quickly, decisively, rationally and logically to all negative comments and having a plan in place before they show up will help you out a ton.

A good way to start building that plan is to see what negative comments other blogs in your vertical receive regularly because there’s a good chance those issues will find their way to your home as well.

All Point, No Piñata

This is a business blog, but that doesn’t mean you can’t and shouldn’t have fun. You want your readers to have fun reading your blog? Have fun writing it. Define the voice of the brand and blog and then own that voice. Become that voice. It should be natural and fun and it will come off that way to your readers as well.

Your readers will react more favorably to a humanized voice than one that seems to come from HAL 9000, so have fun writing your post and don’t try to sound too “businessy”. Also, don’t stick purely to stodgy old posts if you have fun office videos or comics to share. Have fun with it.

So you have your rope and you’re ready to run past all those business blogging pitfalls. There’s treasure to be found out in those woods, but it’s up to you, your persistance and your plan to find it.

Happy hunting!

Thoughts?

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Chris Sutton

Hi Joey,

Thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated. Quick question, we tend to write all industry related blogs, what are your thoughts about off topic blogs that might be a little more personal than our usual fare. Does that add value or is it just a distraction for readers?

Cheers
Chris

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Joey Strawn

I honestly never think it's a bad idea to show the human side of your brand and company.

Think of it this way, of the blogs you read, are you put off or offended when the bloggers share personal stories or experiences or does it open up a new avenue of understanding and appreciation?

Hi Joey, I was relieved to read that it's normal for more time to be spent preparing for a blog than writing it. While we've blogged occasionally over the last 18 months or so, we've made a commitment to write regularly this year and it's already clear that most of the time required will be spent on research and planning rather than the actual writing.

It wouldn't actually be that hard to just write about what we do as a business, but I agree with your comment that's there's no point in just trying to hock your crap to people, so we're trying to write generically about our industry rather than our business and provide blogs that are useful to our readers rather than just being SEO generators.

I'd have to say that our low traffic volumes at this stage aren't great for motivation but we'll keep at it and hopefully get some traction.

Hey Chris,

I'm glad you liked that post and found it helpful. I've found a lot of preparation goes into truly well-done blogs. Don't give up hope. Try some of the other tips to see if that helps with traffic, but never give up if you feel it's important to your business or brand. : )

Cheers!

Shelley Pringle

Hi Joey, great points. I especially love your suggestion to have fun with your blog. It makes such a difference in engaging your readers. The other point I want to add is that it can be hard to keep a blog going, especially at the beginning if no one is stopping by and commenting. I started my blog last September and it's just starting to attract a community now. I really enjoy writing the blog so the time commitment wasn't a concern for me, but it was getting kind of lonely writing every week when it seemed as though no one was listening.

Shelley, that's a great point for people to remember when starting a blog. You have to be prepared for the time it takes to ramp everything up. It's easy to remember that it's all worth it once you get that community, but that community takes time to build.

Thanks!

Maranda Gibson

Awesome tips - as always! I always enjoy reading your take on blogging in the business world, Joey. As a business blogger myself, I freely admit it's taken me a long time to learn exactly what my voice will be, but I've come to the conclusion that more of "me" is always best. I am lucky enough to work in an industry that is applicable in most scenarios, so no matter what I'm reading about, I can generally find a way to tie it into what would fit for my blog.

If I may, I'd like to add a tip here too. The most important thing I have learned about business blogging is to not do it if you're just not feeling it that day. So many times, I have had other things on my to-do list that hindered my ability create something I was proud of. Never, ever force yourself to write when you don't feel like you're enjoying it. It shows in the words.

Thanks Maranda, I appreciate you leaving the comment and adding your thought as well. The only dangerous thing I would add about sticking to the "only write when you feel like it" plan is that it's incredibly easy to fall behind when you do it that way. You're never assured that you're going to feel like writing something and so by sticking to an editorial calendar and schedule in the beginning pretty rigidly you train yourself to be able to produce quality writing.

Having said that, I also don't think you just push out schlock if you don't have anything good. Another good tactic is to build up a stockpile of "evergreen" posts that you write when you're "feeling it" and have ready to go whenever you can't get the creative juices flowing one day.

Thanks for furthering this conversation!