It’s come to our attention that there’s still some businesses that have blogging reservations. In the past we’ve talked about how to blog, tips and techniques on writing the perfect corporate blog and generally how to make blogging part of your social mix. So we don’t think we need to convince many of the good reasons to start a corporate blog but rather, today, we thought we’d question why it’s not happening for everyone.

First of all, let me show off a bit. blur Group produces at least three blogs a day across our network. It’s not our full-time occupation, we don’t even claim to be corporate copywriters, let alone citizen journalists or the real thing. But we produce them to give insight to those people wanting to be part of the revolution that is the Creative Services Exchange, from big brand users to creatives. So we talk about what we experience in the industry, what interests us and what we hope will interest you. Every month our page views increases significantly so we know we’re doing something right!

And that’s the crux. Too often a business will be trying to hard to find the right content, whereas, as the song goes, it’s all around. Everyone in every business is generating content regularly. It might be how they turned a difficult customer into a keen advocate. It could be trying to crack the details of an internal system and make it more widely used. So if your excuse for not writing is that there just isn’t anything new to write about, then you can dismiss that straight away. Write about your experiences. And encourage everyone to do so. Because…

There is still the idea that the corporate blog has to be, well, corporate. It is the equivalent to the opening page missive from the CEO in the annual report. As such, we get ‘policed’ blogs. They’re penned by corporate marketing; they’re approved by corporate comms, and then they get signed off and distributed. Our favourite in-house anecdote this week is of a colleague’s former employer where the turnaround from blog idea to publishing was around 4 weeks. Hardly a blog de jour mentality. And it’s hardly likely to gain the readership that’s going to push the Alexa ranking up.

In fact this is why there is still social media fear – ooh, what if the wrong message gets out? Without sounding too much like a self-help book, perhaps it is time to feel the fear and do it anyway. We’ve talked about social media bloopers in the past, but if you actually analyse it as a percentage of social media activity – it’s miniscule. So, if your reason for being conservative, or not doing it at all, is fear of the wrong sort of publicity, you need to relax and remember, that if you’re writing about what you’re knowledgeable about, you’re unlikely to hit problems. And, as we’ve said before, if a disgruntled ex-employee wants to say something dreadful, then they will find a channel to do it – but don’t base your whole comms strategy on worst-case scenarios.

So, I’ve now been on this page for 13 minutes, including some diversionary email tactics and coffee collection. Yes, the final excuse is out of the window. It doesn’t need to be time consuming. Open the page, and write. It may not be Pulitzer Prize winning, but something that flows on the page is probably the best reflection of your personality and ultimately the personality of the brand you’re representing. If it’s taking too long, it’s probably because you’re trying too hard. If you want to write a corporate brochure, then that’s what you should be doing. But if you want to create a corporate blog remember these basics:

• It’s about what’s happening to your business, today.
• You’re writing it, you’re not ghosting it (and if you are – then shame on you and the person asking for it…)
• It should reflect on the vast amounts of ‘stuff’ that’s happening where you are. Comment on the outside world, reflect on how it’s impacting on you, but write from your brand heart.
• Be yourself. Brand school tells us that brands are made up of many elements, including the people who work for them. So remember you are your brand. And your blog is the communication from this.

So, just when you’re readying your excuses. Stop. Start writing and see where you get to in 15 minutes. Take this 15-minute blog challenge and let us know what you come up with. We’ll link to it from our Twitter pages. And we guarantee that your business will start to get blogging now – and that can lead to no end of social success.

Take the challenge now!