Corporate Blogging Guide (3): Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning

So, did you ask yourself if a blog is the right thing for your company? Is it a solution that will boost your business instead of being a resource consumer? If so, it’s time to find out what options are there in terms of positioning a corporate blog.

Each company has its specific communication needs. Based on said needs and other established targets, a newly launched company blog can help achieve specific goals, such as:

• Becoming an alternative, and dynamic method to publish content;
• Positioning employees as thought leaders and experts in their respective fields;
• Building a community around a company, product or service;
• Boosting sales;
• Encouraging customers to send their feedback;
• Speeding up customer service;
• Gaining you exposure through both new and traditional (print press, radio, TV) media;
• Positioning you as a trendy company that keeps up with new technologies;
• Becoming and effective channel for crisis communication;
• Supporting your HR efforts by offering an “alternative” look at your team and thus attracting new job applications;
• Helping your company rank higher for specific search phrases and attracting new backlinks.

It’s highly recommended to establish a set of complementary goals. If a company manages to focus on and reach its main goals, the adjacent targets will also be achieved at the same time.

Here are a couple of examples of complementary goal sets:

• Building a community + boosting sales + attracting feedback
• Positioning yourself as a thought leader + building a community + gaining media exposure

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning (current)
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Blogger in Chief – You Call the Shots

For me, the best thing about blogging is that it stands for who I am, it’s a part of me, and I get to call the shots. I’ve always enjoyed writing, but my career has led me in another direction. Even so, when blogs showed up, it became clear that it was my chance to run an online publication. And since it’s a one man show, I like to think of myself as a Blogger in Chief.

Over what, you might ask, since there’s no editorial team? Over my blog, my templates, my plugins, my ideas, decisions have to be made daily in order to achieve the goals I’ve set for myself.

Opportunity rising

The toughest challenge for a blogger is to keep up, especially when doing it part-time, besides having a day job and also a social life. Staying updated with such a huge volume of information circulating the blogosphere and most important, filtering it, it’s not the easiest thing to do, yet it must be done in order to give yourself the chance to spot every opportunity that rises.
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You Don’t Want to Make Money Blogging!

Seriously, you don’t want to make money blogging, not from the start. If this is the goal that you’ve set for your blog, then it should be your ultimate goal; not your first, not your second, but last!

What you need is a step by step strategy.
What you want is to set goals that are realistic, tangible. Goals that are not only meant to get you closer to your ultimate goal, but also help you become better, become a PRO.

Start by looking at the source

Money does not fall out of the sky. Money comes from your readers, through clicks and affiliate programs, through reviews, through advertising, which you won’t get without a strong readership / traffic.

So, your primary goals should be about making yourself heard, making a name for yourself, becoming an authority.
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