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How To See Your Organization As A Content Creator

I spent a great deal of time with some of the best journalists in the world when I worked at Maclean’s and I am thankful everyday as a communicator that I had that opportunity. Creating engaging, interesting and informative content isn’t easy – and writing clearly and concisely adds additional challenge to the craft.

We have heard for many years that content is king. Your stakeholders visit your website, your blog, Facebook page, Twitter page or other social networking sites to learn, to connect, to join a conversation and to either learn something or to tell you something. What you provide is important and it either leads to the person to return to your site because you provided value, created an opportunity to participate in a dialogue or offered something they want or need – or they don’t return.

While your organization may have valuable information that you want to share, it is important to approach content creation understanding what your stakeholders expect from you. It’s not always the same thing. This doesn’t mean you can’t provide the information that you feel is important. It does mean you need to find a different way to package it or put if forward and that you need to also focus on what stakeholders are interested in, relevant to what your organization does or provides to them. It’s all about them – not all about you. If you remember that, you will be ahead of the pack.

Mitch Joel of Twist Image has a great blog post about what type of content you should produce. We’re big fans of Mitch. If you are a communicator, his blog is a regular must read!

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There is a good piece on SherpaBlog that focuses on three steps to take in order to create a good corporate blog. It’s solid information for anyone either thinking about starting a corporate blog or who needs some help maintaining their current one. Equally as valuable are the comments below this blog post. There are lots of experienced people weighing in on the topic.

AHA Take

A corporate blog is a great opportunity to connect with stakeholders. Having more than one blogger can be helpful to keeping the blog content current and engaging.

If you look at a blog much like a magazine or newspaper columnist would approach their work, you would identify the topics or subjects for each post and set a schedule to develop the content.

Making sure that there are new posts uploaded on a consistent basis is crucial. We all know what it’s like to go to a blog that hasn’t had any new content for months.

We often work with clients to develop a blog editorial schedule that helps to manage the blogging process. Depending on the blog, we often assist clients to set up interviews that will provide a different perspective for their blog. We also research stats and facts on topics. It’s easy for someone writing to make an error based on incorrect information or an assumption. If you put up something that is factually incorrect, that can hurt the credibility of your blog.

A well-written, consistent blog can provide great value for an organization both internally and externally. Approaching it like it’s a professional column is a way that we have found to ensure that new content is developed with accurate information, a focus on the reader, and there is a commitment to being accurate and consistent.

What are the key points for you when it comes to your corporate blog?

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I just read one of the best blog posts ever at lostremote.com. Before I get into that, I have to say that I just discovered lostremote.com today and love it. It is definitely on my must read list now.

The post is by Steve Safran and it is a worthwhile read for any communicator – whether in house, agency or consultant. In this piece, Steve talks about the importance for PR people to develop a good pitch: “signal not noise.” It goes on to talk about how we, as communicators, deal with the challenge of perception. If the CEO believes being on TV is a good thing, then it’s our job to get him or her on TV…or is it?

In yesterday’s post, I talked a bit about the information my friend and colleague Della Smith presented at the CPRS event this week. One of the key points she made was the value of establishing your credibility with the senior team. I think that Della’s point fits well with Steve’s. I see our role as helping to inform our clients – or if you’re in house, your CEO or senior executive – of the value of certain types of coverage from online to TV to newspaper. It’s not always an easy thing to do. Let’s face it, we’re in a shifting world, one that we’re still learning about. That makes for a challenge when you are presenting the rationale to your client or senior executive about why being profiled in a blog or doing video blogs is of value, compared to say, being profiled on the local morning news.

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Integrating social media into your communication efforts doesn’t stop when you write a strategic plan. It is an ongoing and evolving effort. We have recently had some interesting conversations with a client that we work with on a project basis. This client is someone that we have a huge amount of respect for and we want to see him succeed. His company is young and growing and he has a strong philanthropic focus. He came to us to help him build a strategic plan that included social media.

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Often when we speak with clients, we see that they have fallen into the trap of thinking that they need to use a blog in the most traditional way—external, writing everyday without fail. Depending on the objectives, you might want to set up a time-limited blog that deals with a specific topic or topics. You could also develop an ongoing blog with a range of guest bloggers that augment the lead blogger. Or you could have an internal facing blog that connects your leadership team with staff.

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