Our Blog: where do you stand?

Corporate Blogging 101: Bagels and Blogging

By: Amber Morris | 12/10/2008

I'm at the office eating a bagel. Today's bagel is a carrot really ... a carrot to incent a behavior. I'm blogging about it because I think it addresses a challenge many people face with blogs and other social media vehicles ... the time commitment they require. You see, today's carrot (the bagel) was an incentive to motivate Standing team members into creating posts for Where Do You Stand?  Even we, as communicators who understand the importance and impact of blogging and digital communications, struggle to make time for the task.

While the bagel is a nice incentive, the main point of our Blogging Breakfast is to block time on our calendars to make it a priority. Personally, I've found the key to blogging is just getting started ... once I carve a few minutes out of my schedule, I discover that I really enjoy putting my thoughts into words.  

Here are a few additional tips for the time challenged:

• Consider a collaborative blog, like Where Do You Stand? You should post three to five times per week and spreading the wealth really helps.
• Use content already being generated for newsletters and e-mails for your blog (Susan's post on monitoring comments was actually modified from a client e-mail).
• Keep it brief ... posts do not need to be 500-word essays.
• Get some help ... busy executives can phone in posts to an assistant or e-mail a post for an assistant to format.

When all else fails ... try a bagel.

Posted in Digital Communications