Blogging

How to Manage a Business Blog

Creating a business blog is one thing. But maintaining and managing it? That's a whole different ballgame. Stale, lifeless blogs are marketing kryptonite, so you'll need to learn how to manage your business blog like a pro -- and here's how it's done.

A business blog sounded like such a great idea.

But now that you're into it, you're realizing how hard it is to manage your blog on an ongoing basis. Sure, a blog is a grind. But at the end of the day, your company will get out of it what you and others in your company are willing to put into it.

Blog Maintenance Requirements

Most business owners don't appreciate the maintenance and management demands their blog require. Although you can waste a lot of time updating your blog, there are a handful of maintenance tasks that can't be ignored.

• Frequent updates. The most important management task is to update your blog on a regular basis. More than one update a day is unreasonable and unnecessary for most businesses. But at a minimum, plan to update your blog at least once or twice a week.
• Value-based content. Don't fill your blog with promotional fluff or an endless stream of links to valuable content other people have created. It takes more time, but blog management requires unique and useful content.
• Ongoing promotion. Blog promotion isn't a one-time thing. It's a task that needs to happen on a continuous basis. Revisit existing promotional efforts regularly and be on the lookout for new ways to attract readers to your blog.
• Industry developments. The best business blogs discuss timely topics. To be successful, you'll need to take some time out of your normal schedule to stay on top of industry developments and to surf the blogs of other industry insiders.

Blog Management Tips & Strategies

• Don't try to carry the burden of your company's blog all by yourself. Spread responsibility for posting, promotion and research across a select group of key staff members who are capable of making interesting contributions to the blog.
• In many cases, it's possible to offload research and/or promotional tasks to office assistants who have web access.
• If you simply don't have the time to update your blog with useful and unique content, consider hiring a copywriter to do it for you. Ghost bloggers are commonplace in business blogging and can be hired for between $30-$50 per post.

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