Many of our clients have been asking for help in starting up their blog plans so what better way to go about this than blogging a response. I’ve formed strategies for short & long term blog campaigns and let me tell you, every blog is and should be different. Duplicate content is not well received by the Internet major search engines, so why not keep things fresh when posting?Before jumping into how to start a blog plan I’d like to share a source of inspiration for my blogging efforts. I recently attended a meetup with Howard Lindzon, the founder of StockTwits where he shared some if his ideas around effective use of social media. His company concept was great but it was some subtle advise that really kicked me in the face.
“A corporate blog is for your corporate story”
This advice not only inspired me to start blogging for our company, but started to bring light to the benefits of blogging with a purpose. The following list is what convinced me to restart blogging…
- It will help me and our company stay current in our industry,
- It will help our clients understand and optimize their systems,
- It create more information leading to exposure/promotion,
- It will help us understand our clients,
- It will help our client understand what technologies to invest in for greater returns,
- It will communicate our mission & vision,
- It will demonstrate our work process,
…I quickly started to realize the true value of our blog and was uber excited to start building a stronger presence. Before jumping the gun, lets walk through the blog plan I like to follow these days.
Blog Plan Template
Open an excel spread sheet and create space for 7 columns and as many rows as you’d like (feel free to download our template to save a minute or two). Label these columns Goals, Audience, Tools, Research, Messages, Timeline, Resources. And that’s my super fancy template. I work with this template for a few reasons:
- Excel/Numbers provides a simple way to lay things out with complex functions,
- I can export this data into several formats for reuse,
- I can simply create presentations rich with tables and charts to rally support for my blogging efforts to be.
From time to time I add different variables to this template such as Competition, Services, Networks, etc. to account for more specific needs. Now you’ve got a blank blog plan sitting on your computer, lets start filling that sucker out.
1. The 3 Goals of Blogging
It’s time to choose the overall goal of your blog. The three core reasons for creating a blog are generating revenue, building a following and, hobby writing. Take a moment to ask yourself the following questions:
- Are you going to be advertising on your blog?
- If so, are you promoting your company products/services or are you promoting external products/services?
- What outcome do you need to have a successful blog campaign?
If it’s money your after then chase it hard and setup plenty of sales funnels. If it’s people you’re after then listen to what they want and cater to their needs. If you’re the hobby writer, you really won’t need much of a plan unless your a neat freak. Deciding the goal of your blog will determine how to measure your blogs return on investment.
2. Audience
This is the first column to be filled in and it should be the most simple. If you don’t exactly know who it is that you’re writing for why not ask your company owner, or your companies marketing team for some advice. If you’re a sole proprietor or just blogging for the heck of it, I’ve crafted the following questions to ask yourself to help identify your target audience:
- Where does our target audience congregate online?
- What is your target audience looking for? What are their interests?
- What is your target audience talking about?
- What are your target audiences largest problems?
- What are your target audiences biggest success stories?
Answer these questions and record them in your blog plan and start drawing high-level conclusions about what posts will satisfy your readers hunger. If you’re proper stumped, why don’t you search for blogs in your industry and learn from what they do well, and where they fall short. Be sure to make note of blog post topics, keywords being used, blog comments, blog features, etc.
Once you understand your market, it’s time to plan the tools you’ll be using to produce blog posts.
3. Tools
This is more a work-flow symantic however the goal here is to build a benchmark sheet for everyone contributing blog posts. This benchmark should include (but never limit yourself):
- How updates are to be made,
- How to work with your blogging platform,
- What functionality does your blog require?
- Will you be collaborating the development blog posts or will a single person be in-charge?
- Who is responsible for what blog posts?
Again it’s time to list your answers within your blog plan. Do this with your company in mind so everyone (young and old) can understands how your blog platform works, and how everyone is expected to help. When it comes to our company, my team is my most valuable asset so we chose that each of us would blog about our interests and area of expertise. The content (copy) for blog posts are created in Google Docs where any of us can contribute, sharing the load of writing/editing posts. Speaking features, we’re looking to create a mobile optimized version of our blog, easier navigation for accessing different blog posts, and integrate sales funnels for linking our blog posts directly to services/products RANDOMTYPE offers. We’re happy with our side-bar offerings such as Last Ten Articles and, Popular Tags but it’s time to listen to our users.
Enough about me… If you’re cozy with the tools you’ll be blogging with, it’s time to figure out how you’ll be preforming research.
4. Research
Solid research makes all the different in properly crafting a blog posts. To get an idea of what you’ll need to research its time to address the following questions:
- How do your competitors blog?
- What is your target audience hungry for?
- Where does your target audience rely on information from?
- What information does your target audience not receive well?
- What is the source(s) of credible information within your industry?
I like to brainstorm ideas on my own then bringing them to our team, ask for their input. Be sure to hear out all criticism offered and try to check your ego at the door. My purpose here isn’t selling my team that I’m coming up with great ways to research information, it’s to show them what makes the most sense to me while seeing if they have anything to further evolve my thoughts. After talking with my team, I’ll then make any tweaks to the research column within my blog plan and move onto crafting messages.
5. Message
This is going to be the meat and potatoes of your blog. There is no golden ticket for the messages you communicate in blog posts though there is a strategy behind any great blogger. When planning blog campaigns I follow a very fluid model where I map out each of the messages I plan to craft throughout a few months (and up to a year) and connect each post with synergies. Just imagine a huge connect the dot mind map of my posts to come.
For example lets assume I’ll be blogging the following messages:
- Best blogging platforms,
- Setting up new features on your blog,
- How to start a blog plan,
- Top ten features for blogs.
I’ll take a look at all these blog posts to be and decide what the most logical flow for crafting and releasing these posts would be. The order I would blog these posts would look as followed:
- How to start a blog plan,
- Best blogging platforms,
- Top ten features for blogs,
- How to setup new features within your blog.
I chose this order because my readers will first see how to plan, followed with how to start blogging, moving onto popular features, and summed up with how to integrate these features. If information flows well, and your posts are of quality, you’ll receive well deserved subscribers to your blog. If your information is scattered, expect varying levels of traffic and varying time spent on your site from users.
Speaking of time, you’re now ready to start putting deadlines to each of your posts.
6. Timeline
In order to meet your blog goals it’s important to tie each of your posts to a timeline. This is done for a few reasons:
- To allow your users to understand when they can expect a new post,
- To keep you accountable for producing new posts and,
- To keep your blog promoters in sync with when a new post is ready to receive traffic.
At RANDOMTYPE we use Google Calendar to share our timeline for publishing blog articles. This keeps everyone on the same page while spacing our posts to keep a balance of information flow.
With a timeline for publishing new blog posts you’re ready to lay out the resources at your disposal for blogging.
7. Resources
This is a fairly broad column within your blog plan yet crucial for understanding your approach in creating, publishing and sharing blog posts. Take a moment to explore the following questions:
- What section of your blog are you able to post to?
- What social networking sites will you use to promote your post?
- Do you have any staff to help you create blog posts?
- Do you have staff to help market your blog posts?
- Do you have a budget for out-sourcing the writing for blogs?
Though you don’t need to answer all of these questions, it’s good to know the resources you have at your disposal. Continually planning, writing and marketing blog posts can be a time consuming job which is why it’s a great practice to leverage all resources to accomplish your goal.
Great Success
You’ll now have a more or less complete plan for blogging. Let this plan be your road map for building your blog and be sure to update it as you start to learn about your users. A plan like this should be great ammunition to bring to executives in your company to convince them to adopt new, low cost initiatives for communicating with your clients, users and the rest of the world. As you start blogging remember to keep up with user comments, constantly review your blogs usage metrics and, start talking with the people visiting your blog.
I don’t have time for this!
If you’re too busy around the office, feel free contact us by email or phone to explore how RANDOMTYPE can help you plan and execute your blog campaign. We don’t mind if you’re experienced or brand new to blogging, we’re friendly folk passionate about most things online!
Feedback
I would love to hear what you have to say about forming blog plans. Leave a comment, and I’ll get back to you however needed.