Three tips for “company blogging”

This is my personal blog. I don’t run my draft posts by Google’s PR or legal team, other than maybe 2-3 times when I thought a post might have legal implications. But I have learned a few hard-won lessons. So, when someone recently asked me for tips about talking to the public, I couldn’t resist. Whether you blog for the company officially or unofficially, here are my top three rules of thumb:

  1. Don’t make hard promises about the future. One of the beauties of web-based software and services is you get to decide when to push out changes. Don’t give up that freedom by promising a feature to the outside world by a certain deadline. Maybe later you’ll decide that a different feature is a bigger win. Or you may want to hold off for a week to polish down the last rough edges on a product.
  2. Don’t trash talk a competitor. Your product should be strong enough that you don’t have to diss a competing company. Back in 2002, an article in the Boston Herald showed up about another search engine. The article claimed that “The entire XXXXXXXXX Catalog is updated every 9 to 11 days.” I knew for a fact that wasn’t true and at first I wanted to rip that claim to shreds like a bulldog. But (with the advice of some wiser Googlers), I decided to take the high road instead of picking a fight. In fact, claims like that motivated Google to be fresher and faster. Now I believe Google has the freshest index of any of the major web search engines.

    Sometimes other companies will throw dirt in your direction. In that case, the challenge is to correct any misperceptions without picking a fight. But first ask yourself: do you really need to respond at all? If not, then maybe it’s better not to get pulled into an argument where everyone involved loses a little credibility. So far I’ve written 10-15 draft posts (and who knows how many I’ve written in my head) where I was snarky about another search engine, and then not published the post. Each time when I look back after a few months, I’m glad that I didn’t post.

  3. Don’t post when you’re angry. This is probably the most important tip. If you have to write something, go ahead, but don’t press publish until you’ve slept on the situation or had a chance to calm down completely.

I’ve broken each of these rules, and regretted it almost every time. What tips would you suggest when blogging about your company?

88 Responses to Three tips for “company blogging” (Leave a comment)

  1. Don’t use make promises you don’t intend upon keeping.

    Don’t call people and say: “I work directly with Google in optimizing your website to get you on page one”

  2. panzermike, yeah–that second one doesn’t always work out well. 🙂

  3. Yeah your three golden rules does make sense. But I would like to say that in any time, in any situation, the First one will work best. I believe so …

  4. Although it is more or less a reformulation of the three tips of this post, I would add, “stay factual and neutral”. As in real life, over use of superlatives is counter-productive and kills credibility.

    One should always remember that everything written on a blog can travel fast and far (Thanks to Google among other tools). Once published, you don’t know where your words will land. Customers, past-customers, deceived customers, competitors, future competitors, investors. The range is wide. You may write for a specific target but another one may misunderstand your post…

  5. Matt,

    But you forgot an important tip:

    Don’t post when you’re drunk. 🙂

  6. I don’t blog about my company – it’s cool enough as it is.

    And yes, Harith is right – don’t post when you are drunk is the most important blogging tip of all times 🙂

  7. Two tips work for me:

    a) Type out your posting, then save it and leave it for at least a few hours. Then go back and re-read it, but in a different media format (print it out or similar).

    You’ll be surprised how different it looks to what you think you typed out.

    b) If you want to vent – type out the rant, take a pause – then delete it and type out the more appropriate commentary.

    I find typing out that “massive rant” which I can’t really say out loud still helps to calm me down a heck of a lot.

    That also works really well with internal company emails when you really want to say “what the f*** are you talking about you dimwit”, but have to say “I have some concerns about this proposal”.

  8. Good, common sense pointers Matt. However, it does make for interesting reads when people do not follow such tips! In fact, I’ve been close to doing it myself when it comes to point 2. Self control can be quite hard sometime!

  9. Yeah but the exception is that these derogatory post are best blog post (and probably the best link bait), when you want to get fired or you have been recently fired.

    In such case don’t let the moment pass. Put all that emotions into a post and let it explode all over the blogosphere.

  10. Here are some things I’d love to see more in company blogs:

    – just tell people when an approach or philosophy changed and don’t beat about the bush. Whether they’ll be understanding or not is a different issue. This somewhat ties in with your don’t-make-promises-about-the-future point, but if you did make such promises, then let people in on why you’re breaking them.

    – tell people when you’re hiding something for strategic business reasons. I found this refreshingly honest and transparent in a couple of official Google blog posts in the recent months. Like people giving a bit of insight into search but then also telling people which parts are hidden due to strategic reasons. This gives people a much better understanding without sacrificing any trade secrets. (On a related note, Google has a long way to go in terms of telling people which parts of their censorship approaches they keep secret and for what reasons — it’s hard to imagine the details are a trade secret, too, considering that competitors often work with the same blacklists and so on.)

    – be upfront about your conflicts of interest. I think it was nice recently to see Google be transparent about their self-interest in their Free the Airwaves program (it was not a blog post, but anyway): “Make no mistake: open access to this unused bandwidth would surely be good for our own bottom line (not to mention those of many of our industry peers); better access to the Internet means more people doing web searches and using our software products. … But we think the public interest here …” etc. Beyond that people should of course always be aware that a company blog by its very nature represents only one view point.

    – allow comments whereever possible. Often, someone who can’t comment on an issue in a blog post will take their (sometimes negative) comment elsewhere… like into a blog post of its own. Of course, if you do allow comments, then react to the comments and get involved by posting follow-up posts or follow-up comments in reaction to what was said.

    – if it’s a company blog which gets post approvals (like the official Google blog), then don’t pretend it’s just one person speaking when the blog post backfires. It’s not, because what is said in an official company blog — at least in Google’s official blog — mostly always has official character. When a Google employee in an official company blog says “we at Google will soon roll out a change that penalizes your website if it contains the word ‘foobar’ repeatedly” then that must be treated as official information by those reading along; it is not a “personal view point,” no matter who is listed as author.

    – tell people about negative issues, like downtimes, negative breaking news, errors that were made, and so on. I’d love to see much more of that: blogs honestly tackling the issues that are actually currently being discussed by other people in the industry, nevermind if it makes the company look bad. Not doing so won’t silence the discussion, it will just take it elsewhere, anyway.

  11. Agree with all of those. Also, I would add – make your message something that reflects the culture of the company.

  12. Matt – While some of these might seem obvious and/or repeats from the past, it’s one of the more important blog posts I’ve seen in a while. Some of thiese (#3) can be applied to e-mails, Twitter, Friendfeed and other spaces as well. While some will continue to engage in this stuff, it’s a mistake and almost always comes back around at some point. The reverse (as you know) is actually true in most cases. If you engage competitors (or ‘people you don’t think you like’) you may actually learn something. Keep ’em comin’ ! Charlie

  13. Hey Matt,

    Great tips – about #2 – *sometimes* being snarky is good on a personal blog because it creates some interest. I know that it probably isn’t the best course of action, but in the beginning it is sometimes a powerful strategy to draw a bit of attention to yourself and perhaps build some interest.

    Certainly different than company blogging though, you’re right!

    Cheers,
    Adam

  14. 1) Respect your readers.
    2) Communicate with them.
    3) Don’t start flame wars on anonymous comments you don’t like.
    4) Don’t worry, be happy!

  15. okay, i can hear u r angry now on somethng.. and itching.. LET IT OUT BUDDY… I ll not tell anyone.. promise 🙂

  16. Matt – good suggestions and the comments are excellent. Here is one thing a lot of company blogs ignore and I think if used properly can be a very good thing for your blog.

    Don’t take yourself too seriously: What I mean is feel free to post about some of the fun stuff going on at work – birthday parties, holiday parties or even sales celebration days (if you have one). It reminds your audience that you’re human but fun and enjoy your work a lot.

    My employer, AIR Marketing just had a “AIR-lympics” – office Olympics – and they posted pics on Flickr and on the AIR Marketing blog – I thought it was great!

  17. Nothing spells ‘insecurity’ more than a Blogger posting negative things about competitors.

    But sometimes, posting when one is angry can make for very compelling content. Just don’t post when you are seething with anger

  18. I definitely agree with #3 for any type of response…either by phone, email, text or whatever. Gets you in trouble almost every time to reply angry. Or as Bill Murray said to Punxsutawney Phil in Groundhog Day- “Don’t drive angry!”

  19. Matt,

    I’d like to know your opinion on an offshoot of ‘Dont trash talk competitors.’

    As far as search engines go, how would you handle or what are your thoughts on, when it is a competitor/ex-employee/ex-client trash talking your company online? The company I work for has an issue where those 3 groups of people are doing exactly that. In more than one instance it is an ex-employee turned competitor. Most of what they are saying is an outright lie or a twisted truth and some of what they are saying is true but 20 years in the past.

    So we have 30ish people constantly pushing negative information out to everywhere they can get it. Partially due to ongoing lawsuits we can’t post rebuttals. Also, they post this information anonymously so, while we know who it is in general, we don’t know who it is specifically. That means when they defame us with false information we can’t even sue them. How do you sue ‘FuzzyPinkBunny123’ that comments on some random blog? Ever try going to a Judge and asking for a court order to find out the IP information of someone ‘talking bad’ about you?

    Ok, so we can still post testimonials on our site, which we do. As a matter of fact we post a lot of them. I’ve even had to go through hundreds of hand written testimonials and retype them on the web. But due to contractual obligations we can not post identifying client information unless they give us express written permission. We’ve managed to get a dozen or so to agree and even have video testimonials of those clients online. But that still doesn’t counteract sheer volume of coming from those 30 people. They have made it a main focus in thier lives to spread this info, even though they know that a lot of it is completely false.

    I don’t blame the potential clients for backing out when they read the posts online. I started working here without seeing all of it and then when I did see it I kept waiting to see those horrible things happen. And I kept waiting and waiting and waiting. At first I stayed because I needed the job and I was out of work for the prior two+ years finishing my degree. Then I stayed because, despite the online rumors, nothing bad was happening. It’s been over 4 years and I have yet to see any of the activities that those 30 people have been posting about.

    So I know that the company is decent but I see the opposite online. What can be done to combat the negativity online when the search engines push all the negativity forward?

  20. As a person who writes a company blog, my strongest advice would be to BE REAL.

    I see corporate blogs that are basically press releases.

    A blog is a personal communication. Who the hell wants to read a press release?

  21. I don’t drink that much, so the “no drunk blogging” one didn’t occur to me, but it makes sense. 🙂

    COP, right now I’m actually pretty mellow.

    Good points, Philipp.

  22. So which of your previous posts do you regret publishing?

  23. – Human spelling and grammar check – make sure their and there are in the right place.

    – Just because you’re in the US, don’t think other countries’ laws don’t apply (eg defamation), especially if you’re a multi-national company like Google.

  24. A wise attitude. The hardest to not break is when someone is unjustifiably making nasty claims about you. I am a strong believer in Karma. Anyone that says something really bad about will get it back somehow…

  25. Here’s an easy one, don’t be spammy and post obviously for the sake of SEO. It makes you and your company look bad. Write good articles and the people will come.

  26. To add a do to the don’ts…

    Blog about what your readers (or potential readers) are interested in. If it is a company blog, what are the customers interested in? It can be outside of what the company even does!

    Example… Your company makes kid clothes. You might want to include the occassional post about a new children’s book that came out. People buy clothes for kids will probably be interested in books for kids too!

  27. learn from twitter’s blog.
    They had (still have!) huge problems and treat it with lots of transparency in their blog.

  28. great suggestions Matt. I especially like “don’t post when you’re angry”. not to be confused with “don’t go to bed angry” which sometimes is ok.

    I will sleep on a blog post for a number of days before I post something along the lines of this: http://blog.linksmanager.com/?p=74 which we published earlier today.

    I would also add if you do post something that is critical of someone or something else, make sure you know what you are talking about.

  29. Another reason for “Don’t trash talk a competitor” – You might end up there 🙂

  30. I’m not sure #2 should be a hard and fast rule. In your case, Matt, if you had reason to believe that said engine updated their full catalog less frequently, then I think there’s a fine line you can toe where you can explain something factually and logically, with of course a positive spin in your company’s favor, and still manage to get your point across. At the very least, you’ll be controversial, and Controversy Creates Cash.

    Nikhil made a good point as well. Make sure “your” using the correct homonym wherever “their” is a need to use such a word. Stuff like that drives me nuts.

  31. One tip I’d add: Don’t try to sell too hard on a company blog. The goal of the blog is to engage people in a conversation.

  32. Impressive tips, I particularly have fallen for point 3 a few times, the problem with that is that you should follow it not just while writing a post.

    When your angry, don’t let it get on with you, sleep over it like Matt said, may it be writing a post, sending a email or talking to someone, sleeping over you anger is what I am learnt from it, and believe me the next morning you would be happy that you didn’t do what your anger told you to do.

  33. When you post a message/answer/tip/blog post, typically you are answering a consumer request or posting a new edifying, informative post – related to your company.
    The easiest rule in any post (purpose) is to give the consumer what they seek, whether it be their answer, a new innovated tip, or something that is relevant and “on topic” related to your business. It may not be possible in all industries, but it is a simple concept that if followed it will make your blog more popular and more valuable.

    What is the main purpose of a company blog?

  34. Dave (original)

    Don’t use a Blog as look and feel cheap, pay someone to design a real site and save blogs for personal stuff.

  35. Dave (original)

    Stand for *something* else you will end up falling for everything.

  36. If only you had a preview function on your blog comments – then maybe I wouldn’t say so many insane things!

    I usually post when I’m angry, but not the other 99% of the time when Google works great!

  37. Also, don’t blog about stuff you don’t really understand. Big companies are terrible for this (#1 culprit = iPhone)

  38. Always write blog posts/comments which have meaning, and are researched.

    Use blog posting to give essential research time to the Junior Members of your team

    Never be afraid of posting about the same topic multiple times from differing perspectives, and promotes learning on both an internal and external front

    Dont make every post a link bait – people start to expect it and stop reading

  39. very Good post Matt

    Though I think #3 ought to be number 1

  40. oh i forgot if a big name journalist messes up and mistakenly slags of your prpduct/company because they cocked up installing somthing else.

    Just chill and dont post a rant on the internet (well it might have bben uk.telecom) still water under the bridge eh jack 🙂

  41. This is a great list, thanks so much for sharing this information.

    It is very true that many company blogs attack other organizations. What the marketing people or top level management who write the posts often forget is that the post will often contribute toward their online reputation in the engines.

    The advice I always share with clients is a company blog must almost be like a news, press release or about us section of their site…keep it accurate and the message positive.

  42. Don’t lie.

    I believe that’s very important especially if you’re maintaining a company blog. Although I understand that it’s hard to remain unbiased if you’re writing about your own products or services, but people can easily spot the lies. It will just hurt your reputation more.

  43. Mr. Cutts,

    I know that this is a little off topic, but I’ve been in a debate with some individuals regarding the power of PageRank and the how the PageRank assigned to the domain and the pagerank of inner pages is handled.

    These people say that if a company obtains a link from a PR10 domain, even if it is on a PR0 page, that the value passed to this link will be a PR10. I’m saying that isn’t true, that while it’s still a backlink, and probably from a quality site, the PR10 won’t factor into it for signifying the importance of this link.

    Is there any documentation or guidance that can be give, URL, site, etc that would shed some light on this …. Even your own thoughts would be appreciated.

    Barry Wheeler
    Corner Brook, NL
    Canada

  44. – Keep it interesting to people outside the industry

    Although not wholly appropriate for me personally in my blog writing, I soon get put off with other’s blogs when they get techy or complicated (especially with the over-use of abbreviations).

    I have one personal and one related work blog (both inevitably end up being about work though) the personal one I can get angry while the work one I keep pretty reflective.

  45. When You Blog For Your Company
    In addition to your three, don’t waste peoples time, don’t blog unless you have something to say, then say it with the authority of experience, eliminate unnecessary words, use good English and spelling,

  46. Don’t sell in your blog…but instead just share your experience. Like minded people will find you and follow your lead. The rest will respect you for being succinct on to the point.

    Great tips Matt.

  47. Absolutely amazing tips …

    My personal quote : Blog only if u are passionate about the blogging …

    Thanks matt wonderful work ..Keep going

  48. Matt, at the risk of appearing to kiss butt, I mod an industry forum and when admonishing members (business owners) for their behaviour, I write to them using yourself as an example of online “brand management”.

    Inevitably, Google takes its kicks and whether right or wrong, you (and others) have done a remarkable job at responding without employing the malice intended by the original author.

    I always thought that perhaps you took a post, pasted it into Notepad (or wherever), stripped it of all its ill feeling, and responded to what’s left (the relevant points).

    I guess you probably don’t do that but it’s something I pass on to members in addition to your other tips above.

    PS… whilst I’m sure your butt is worthy of kissing, I can assure you that I’d much prefer to kick it first, ahem 😉

  49. Matt it was nice to see you at SES. I hope you do a summary post, esp. your thoughts on the popular “black hat / white hat” SEO session:
    http://flickr.com/photos/joeduck/2785656735/in/set-72157606847454707/?editedcomment=1#comment72157606966827790

  50. Matt it was nice to see you at SES. I hope you do a summary post, esp. your thoughts on the popular “black hat / white hat” SEO session:

  51. Totally agree with don’t post when you are angry
    In fact don’t do anything important when you are angry is a good guide to run your life by

  52. Don’t post when angry if invaluable advice. Also don’t email when angry. In fact if you are angry after reading something on the web or an email, don’t ever respond via the web.

    Call the person and get what they were meaning to say. You will be surprised.

  53. ThePost, I appreciate that–I think. 🙂 It’s true that even in the least rational anti-Google rant there’s often of kernel of something that we could do better that would nip the problem in the bud. I think the trick to have thick skin and to look for the point that the other person is trying to make.

    “So which of your previous posts do you regret publishing?”

    I can’t think of any right now, Chris, which I guess is a good thing. Hmmm. Now that I think about it, I think I was rude in this post: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ie7-promo-page/ . I regret taking going with “Oh yeah? Well, Yahoo’s not perfect either!” in that post. It came across as poor form and defensive when I should have just said “That’s bad. We’re sorry. We’ll try not to let it happen again.”

  54. @matt:

    The fact you take your time and WANT to address things that piss users off, is truly amazing bro. Not even Yahoo! does that!

  55. Dave (original)

    Matt,

    RE: “Oh yeah? Well, Yahoo’s not perfect either!”

    I consider that a human response. I hate it sooooooooooooooo much when humans reply with canned/unemotional responses. Humans should correspond as humans and not robots.

  56. Matt,

    I agree on your three tips, especially the third one.

    Having said that, I think your “ie7-promo-page” post was great because it was funny. There’s a delicate line between being plump or being gentle, and I think one of the methods to stay on the right side of that line is using humor without being sarkastic.

  57. Matt,

    If you haven’t seen it, take a look at the sort-of final blog post of WIlliam Patry, Google’s Intellectual Property counsel. He gave up on posting to what was the most popular blog about copyright and IP after several years because he felt:

    http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2008/08/end-of-blog.html

    Don’t see you falling into the same trap, but there are commonalities.

    Morris

  58. Your rule number three is that one that I need to pay the most attention to. I have made the mistake of posting or sending an angry email to many times that I ought to have learnt the lesson by now. Not once did it do me any good.

  59. Thank you for the informative post.

    I agree with all three tips but would recommend that when posting about a certain company project or new item, make sure all your facts are correct and inline. There have been instances where I posted about a new item or gadget and had all the features and facts mixed up.

    Just another tip! 🙂

    Again, Thanks for the post – hope everyone is doing well!

  60. So, it seems to me that #2 and #3 are hallmarks of any community participation. I ran some CompuServe forums way back when, and we all learned that – usually the hard way.

    Also reminds me of the “email oops avoider” principle – don’t put anything in an email that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of your favorite (or worst-nightmare) newspaper, because it might get forwarded. Heck, I lost a job once by hitting Reply All instead of Forward then writing something snarky. 🙂

    It’s all social, except that online it’s non-reversible toothpaste because there are recorders running all the time.

  61. Don’t post when angry is so right on the money. Should also include moody and grumpy. At least for me, there’s really an open time frame of 2 hours of my day which I can actually focus on writing anything.

  62. I think the scariest moment I ever had was admitting I wasn’t the best in the world and my boss got wind of that. Somehow. I just got excited about my first ever left on my own project, and a little defeatist about it.

    Never downplay your achievements or capabilities, but never claim you have the worlds shiniest shoes, because when people come round to look and you get them out of the wardrobe covered in mud… you’re in the poop!

  63. I read,no comment.
    Thank you,Matt.

  64. Rule #3 I can’t avoid this, sometimes its the reason why I am posting something. I agree with you on promises sometimes they expect too much and then get frustrated so you’re the one to blame when fails. Cheer up man! 🙂

  65. I think that connecting to people/customers should be as important as promoting your products. Reading & commenting on their feedback shows them that their opinions count.

  66. Above all these rules, I’d say that: Be personal, and make sure that the readers know that it’s your personal blog. I’m closely related to the libraries of Copenhagen, so if I write something, let’s call it controversial, I’d rather not that this would be taken for my company’s opinion, but as my personal views. Further, I’d like the readers to know that any company consists of ‘humans’, with their own opinions, free will and right to speak their own opinions. As such, the company can benefit from even those controversial articles, in the sense that they with any right can claim that their employees are not manipulated ‘robots’, but people who can think for themselves.

  67. Matt… good article
    Philipp… good comment
    🙂

  68. Nice guidelines for blogging 😀 .

    Promoting the sites, it’s products and services along with the potential customers are equally important for me.

    But the 3rd point which you mentioned cant be maintained all time when the bloggers are blogging just to say a big “Hiiiiii…” or just a “nice post”.

  69. Matt, I once was invited to play golf with 3 other people. One of the individuals seemed to be nice enough. I learned that he had a business that could have benefitted greatly from my expertise. I was going to approach him about perhaps sitting down and talking when he decided to start wisecracking about everything and everyone. I lost some respect for him right there, but it did not stop. He then started to make fun ona personal level of everyone playing. Not only did I lose respect for him, I became very very angry. I kept it together but went home and immediately blogged about what a jerk and what an ass this person was. I then made sure that this blog post hit all corners of the blogosphere. I average about 10 to 15,000 uniques per month and I was angry. Did I mention his name? No. But my blog provided me a great outlet to vent my anger. The lesson? We all need to realize the possibility that every relationship, or chance encounter. If he would have taken the time to learn something about me and my company, I guarantee you he would not have said half of the things he would have said. So in this case, I trash talked a potential customer because he had it coming and I was angry. And in both situations, I show zero remorse. Does he know about the blog post? No. If I ever see him again, I’ll be sure to let him know that over 150,000 people now know he’s a jerk.

  70. The biggest tip I can give may seem trite, but it really is one that must be considered.

    Be passionate!

    No, that doesn’t mean lurid video content, but you absolutely must be passionate about what you do, and why you do it. The number of blogs are growing constantly, as more and more companies jump on the band wagon, thinking that blogging is some magic bullet. Thing is, most manage to jump on the BLAND-wagon.

    We admire passion. We like to see (and deal with) people who are passionate about thier lives and interests. That is no less true in business than outside it. Let your passion show and people will notice it. They will be far more interested in a product or company that seems to inspire passion, or have been inspired by passion.

    Blandness just leads to blindness.

  71. I totally agree with those three tips . I guess when blogging for a company, be honest and transparent as this reflects also to who you work for.
    Great article Matt.

    Monica

  72. Talking about the trashing of competitors – an interesting thought is how easy it is to mess your competitors up – posting on forums, spamming blogs etc.. With a little time this is easily done – it begs the question how on earth can Google decide if a business is misbehaving or if a competitor is out to get them banned?

    I would expect google to ignore a lot of the spammy stuff but I guess it depends on the continual occurrence of certain links maybe?

  73. I totally agree about these tips. The last one is valid not only when you are angry. It is always good to leave post to wait for other day, after is being written. Tomorrow, when you read it again, it sounds like you are reading somebody’s else post, so you can give some critics and maybe change a few things in your blog.

  74. Hi,

    I find important to transmit to our customers that in the future we’ll be here to help them with anything they need.

    Kind regards,

    José

  75. We plan do start blogging on our company site, but confused as rather it should be about company and its work or people behind the company and respective thinking.

    But yeah in either case rules apply for sure.

  76. I’d say that regular posting is essential. It may be useful to create a schedule detailing exactly when you are going to produce new content. A blog thrives on new content, as we all know and users expect there to be new posts every time they visit.

  77. @ SEO Geeza

    A very interesting point… It has certainly become far too easy to tarnish the reputation of competing businesses online. No company is safe, which begs the question, should Google even be considering Blog & Forum Posts. The answer is of course yes, the key point is that the majority of the time these posts are infact accurate and are an excellent way to gauge the quality & trustworthiness of a company. I just think Google needs a better way to detect inaccurate posts. Any new news on this Matt?

    Nick

  78. I never blog about my company (anymore) I did a few years back and well, let’s just say that it turned out to cause me more harm than good. Yes I got exposure but I also got a lot of pushy sales people…not cool lol.

  79. Represent what your company can offer really not i.e be yourself then everything will go well if your blog is well optimized according to seo point of view and have easy navigation.

  80. I manage our company’s blog, what I have learned is Keep it professional! regardless what comments araises be courtous and professional!

  81. Matt,
    Great points about company Blogs. Many corporate companies have stopped fighting web 2.0, social media marketing (twitter, facebook, blogs and such) and have started accepting it.

    I like your point about not writing Blogs when you are engry because clearly we are emotional creatures. I’d simply just walk away from computer and refrain from writing when I’m mad because last thing I would want to do is get into pissing blog comments/posts match with someone because they said something about my work or my creditiability.

    Here are some addtional ideas for Company blogging.
    1. Posting regularly is a must. Since this is a company blog, idea is to get in touch with your audience and stay in touch with them. Let them know what products are being worked on etc.
    2. Don’t ramble on when writing a post.
    3. Make sure the look of your blog correlates with your company website.
    4. Have entertaining material. Yes even companies can do that. At the end of the day, keep your audience as your focus and write for them. You can’t go wrong.

  82. Thinking of launching a blog. What is more attractive for readers frequent posts or posts that actually are worth reading, obviously answers could be it’s a balance. I ask because little organizations that do not have the bandwidth don’t have the time to post every day. I have read best practices on frequency and length of blog posts etc… I believe that being an information resource is key but if you can’t update regularly is it worth it? My focus is around building links for SEO but truly being valuable to my client base and potentially new clients. I think I know the answer but curious what everyone else thinks, if in fact people are still reading this post!

  83. Hi

    I would agree with the third i have done it myself many times!

    Jez

  84. It looks bad when you are too negative on your company blog. I think you can’t go wrong talking about company products, services, & anything related to making your clients lives easier.

  85. Pose questions and solutions for your readers, we find these make for engaging blog posts. Or just tell a good story, Matt your blogs seem to be good stories!

    Zach

  86. These 3 rules are equally useful just in everyday life.

  87. @ Harith, great point! Dont’ drink and blog! Also don’t drink and Facebook, usually these all end with disastrous but often equally funny results.

    I’ll also suggest mixing up blogging on your company, and also more relevant or personal issues to keep the blog interesting.

  88. I like what you said about having a strong enough brand, whether it be products, services, or just plain info… that you do not have to “trash talk” your competitors. Too many times I see this happening all over the Web, and even in Politics. First off I think you lose right off the bat, because chances are most people haven’t heard of you or your competitor (if your a local business) so when people reading your posts think “hey, I wonder who he/she is talking about?” then they end up leaving your site to go check them out. As we all know,people have a short attention span these days, so chances are they won’t come back to your site. Way to go, you just lost a visitor. Focusing your energy on building an honest, valuable brand is the best PR you can acquire. People still notice, and appreciate authenticity.

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