I’m a fan of blogs [she wrote, in her blog post about blogs …]. Sure, they can have their quirks—especially depending on the writer(s)—and the word itself isn’t the most lyrical. Yes, they were the marketing darling of the early 2000s. All fair enough. But as I’ve argued before, a blog is really just a content platform which, depending on how well-utilized, can help build a business’s brand and reputation as an industry expert. This doesn’t mean, however, that every business needs or should have a blog—it’s worth thinking through some practical considerations before committing.
Most new endeavors wisely start with an assessment of the “why”—why do you think the business should consider launching a blog? What would the aim be? Customer communication and retention? Prospect pipeline building? Brand building? Something else? But before digging into the “why,” in a blog’s case, it’s worth starting with who the intended audience is. If you don’t have a good handle on who you think you’ll be writing to, the why doesn’t much matter—a blog without an audience won’t achieve any goals, no matter how modest. Further, identifying your audience first will help you answer many of the ensuing questions and will shape other decisions—like who will be writing, what kind of content will be posted, what tone and voice the blog will take, etc.
What resources (both from a human capital and a technology perspective) can or will you dedicate to the blog? Do you have an in-house web designer who can oversee the blog’s building and the subsequent posting process? Or is posting straightforward enough that the writers can handle it (these days, it often is)? Do you have writers? Critically, do you have an editor, or someone who can serve as a second set of eyes before publishing? Will written content require a specific level of internal scrutiny—perhaps from a legal or compliance department? If so, do those folks have the capacity to ensure posts can be reviewed in a timely manner?
What are your writers and editor currently doing? Are they already in writing-related roles? If not, and if they’re primarily subject matter experts (SMEs) with “day jobs,” how will you help free sufficient capacity that they can write occasional posts? Or are you going to hire writers? In which case, what’s your budget and what are your headcount goals? Hiring writers—depending on how specialized the industry—can be a long process, so be sure to factor that into any launch timelines.
It’s also worth considering what kind of content you want to create and how often. What expectations do you have for an editorial calendar? Who will lead the content-creation and brainstorming processes? Your editor? Or someone else? Do those employees have sufficient time and willingness to participate? Or will this new endeavor further stretch already busy employees? I know I’ve alluded to this already, but it’s worth emphasizing: Leaning too heavily on employees already at or beyond capacity increases significantly the likelihood the blog will die a premature death. This isn’t intended as a condemnation of your intentions, but rather as a warning about the heavy lift launching and maintaining a blog represents.
Which leads to this: Do you have enough to say? Ideas can come from all over—but rather than assume you have ample content to feed a blog, take the time to lay out a list of potential categories and topics ahead of time. Maybe you’ll find you’re light in an area you’d like to discuss. Maybe you need some support and content from employees you know will require long deadlines—what will you publish in the meantime? Writing enough to maintain a blog is a big job. And writing takes time and space—posts won’t materialize from thin air, particularly if they’re coming from employees with other primary responsibilities.
Finally, where will the blog buck stop? Every well-run project needs a decider. A blog needs an editor and a decider (ideally, one and the same)—the arbiter of what will be published and what won’t, of what voice and tone posts will be written in, and so on. Without a decider-in-chief, chances are the blog won’t survive past post one or two—or, worse, you will run at some point into internal dissension on what should or shouldn’t be posted and how it should or shouldn’t be written.
There is admittedly a lot of overlap among these questions, and they don’t have to be answered in this order, but they should all receive some consideration—ideally, from all the relevant stakeholders and involved parties—before launching. Otherwise, you risk a languishing blog, which isn’t a good look for anyone, no matter how creative your first and only handful of posts may be. Though even if you end up guilty of a false-start, don’t despair—there’s always hope for a revival.
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