Idiot-Proof Corporate Blogging

B.L. Ochman posted a guide on her blog http://www.whatsnext.com on how to create a sucessful corporate blog. It was interesting to me, a relatively inexperienced blogger.

Mr. Ochman gave seven steps to idiot-proof a corporate blog.
1. Think Long Term
2. Create Engaging Content
3. Make the Blog look good
4. Invest in Good Writing
5. Keep the Writing In-house
6. Keep Posts Short
7. Love Your Readers

My own Impressions of this center around steps three and six. Step three (Make the Blog look good) boils down to eye candy. If your blog is visually stimulating, it will keep people’s attention. Mr. Ochman makes a good point near the end of his post. No one forces people to read a blog. It is their choice to stick it out to the end of the post. Give them some eye candy to hold their attention to the Blog and not move on.

Step six was also noteable. Ms. Ochman says to keep a post under 300 words. You are not writing a book, and Blogging is designed to be an informal outlet to the world. More than 300 words requires an investment on the reader’s part. This is good if your reader is very interested in what you have to say, but the reality is that you will draw more readers for longer if you split that longer post into a few shorter ones.