The Company Blog – Why You Should Participate
Published: January 9, 2014
Author: Ian Lopuch
Happy holidays, everyone! PPC Ian here… I’m thrilled to contribute a guest post to the 3Q Digitial Blog, and have been extremely fortunate to contribute a few guest posts here, including my geo targeting tips. I’m a digital marketing professional and also a passionate blogger, just like my good friend Hillary Read who runs this amazing blog here at 3Q Digital.
Blogging has helped my career immensely. I have learned so much about digital marketing, and marketing in general, by getting involved. While I happen to run my own blog, today’s tips do not require owning your own blog. In fact, it’s probably easier and more scalable to start out a different way… My tip: For all digital marketing professionals who don’t have day-to-day responsibility with your employer’s blog, reach out to the owner and get involved! Following are the benefits of doing so, and also suggestions on how you can get started.
Benefits of getting involved with your company’s blog:
1. Visibility: Many/most people in the digital marketing career path are career-minded professionals looking to grow their responsibility. Gaining more responsibility often involves overall leadership and visibility. How can you emerge as a leader at your company? My suggestion: Get involved in the blog! Writing quality blog posts requires true understanding of your business, and moreover gets your name out there. It’s likely your C-level team (and others) will see your blog posts on your company’s blog. There’s a cool chain reaction here: Your name gets out there as a leader, and others will seek you out for future opportunities and increased guest posts over time.
2. Perfect Your Writing: Growing your career in marketing requires impeccable writing skill. The challenge for many digital marketers (especially those running performance-driven programs): Our backgrounds often tend to be rooted in engineering, computer science, math, and economics. How do we expand our skill set and become well-rounded marketers? Practice, practice, practice. Dedicate time so you can perfect your own writing skills. What better way than to write for your employer’s blog?
3. Learn WordPress: In a nutshell, WordPress is amazing. Every digital marketing professional should have at least some hands-on exposure to WordPress. It’s likely your company’s blog is powered by WordPress. Get involved and learn! You may even find that WordPress can gain you leverage outside of your company’s core blog. Example: WordPress is an incredibly flexible platform that can be leveraged to create landing pages for your paid search, display, and email campaigns. You can even leverage WordPress to develop microsite experiences.
4. Get Creative: The best results in marketing come from creativity. The challenge for many digital marketers: We get so involved in technical details and numbers that the creativity sometimes can fall into second place. Look at your company’s blog as your time to get creative. When you start writing, more and more creative ideas will come your way. Break up your day and uncover valuable insights by focusing on your creative skills. This creative time will translate into results for your own core digital programs. Example: When writing your blog post, you may come up with great ideas for new ad copy and display creative.
So, I’ve convinced you, right? Now, how do you get involved in your company’s blog? It’s easy, here are a few quick tips to get started right away:
1. Just Ask: You’d be surprised… Ask anyone running a blog: They are always thrilled with the opportunity of gaining a quality (big focus on the word quality) guest contributor. Content is king in the world of blogging, and you can never have too much quality content. Many corporate blogs do not have posts every single day. Offering great content is usually greeted with a smile and a huge “thank you” from your blog’s owner.
2. Leverage Case Studies: Are you a big digital advertiser? If so, it’s likely you participate in case studies with your partners from time-to-time. Why not leverage your case study for a blog article? Take that case and chat with your blogging team. Perhaps you can highlight excerpts from the case and link to it. This is a great way to exposure your readers to your marketing thought leadership and world-class digital marketing. Of course, this may work better for certain blogs, especially those in the B2B space.
3. Go Above And Beyond: This goes without saying in everything you do. Put 110% into this effort. Write amazing content. Get a second opinion. Have your peers review your post before it goes to your blogging team. You want to do a great job to get invited back. Make sure you add substantial value and take the task at hand seriously. Consider including infographics and visual elements, even if you need your marketing agency to help (at your own team’s expense).
4. Get Your Feet Wet With Commentating: Every blog gets comments, which need to be (1) moderated and (2) responded to. This offers an amazing opportunity to interact with your customers. If you’re not quite ready to write a full post, perhaps consider getting your feet wet with some commentating. Just make sure to follow all legal/policies at your company. Make sure you get authorization and approval before you post anything.
5. Connect Your Blogging Team With Opportunities: These days, digital marketing is so well-rounded. The best marketers need to have a comprehensive skill set across all disciplines (the underlying theme of this post). Because of the interconnected nature of the trade, and the fact that most search engines have deep integration with social elements, your support teams likely now offer social media support. Connect your blogging team with your social media contacts at the search engines and other partners. It’s all about the people. The more you can help, the more opportunity you will receive!
Right now, I know many of you are planning your 2014 goals, both for your own career and your team. Consider including a goal about contributing to your employer’s blog. Thanks for reading, everyone!
