I’m currently working with a number of nonprofits who want to start a blog. They’ve all gone through a process on deciding whether of not a blog is right for them (Also see tomorrow’s free webinar with Charityhowto).
After we establish goals, one of the first steps is to create a blog strategy. This should not be a complicated process (hence “simple minds”).
I use a template with folks I call the “The Killer Blog Strategy Mind-Map For Simple Minds” (pdf). We use this collaborative template as a way to build the strategy together. The substance to a strategy is something you’ll also find at Start Blogging Today (which will soon launch a free webinar series – stay tuned).
The Killer Blog Strategy Mind-Map
- Content Creation – Obviously, blogs give you the ability to distribute content on the web. But what should you blog about? In general, it’s a good idea to blog about topics that will be extremely useful to your readers. In fact, you want it to be so useful, they’ll naturally tell their friends. We should mention SEO here, but let’s assume that if you’re creating great content, it will be found on Google.
- Promotion Strategy – If your blog is new, obviously you don’t have many readers. Fortunately, you can leverage other networks where you’ve already built up a presence. For nonprofits, this means using creative email marketing, and discussing your blog posts on Facebook and Twitter. Develop creative strategies to use these assets, and don’t forget to include a link to your blog in your direct mail pieces.
- Community Management – You posted a few articles on your blog and have a solid strategy in place for getting the word out. Now people are commenting (and that’s a good thing). What do you do with comments? How do you respond? Who should respond? How can you reward your most frequent commenters?
- Measurement Strategy – So, cool. You’ve got an active blog with great content (and comments). Is all this work really paying off? A measurement strategy takes into account the SMART goals you’ve established prior to developing this strategy and decides if you’re meeting them or not. You want to be able to capture a wide variety of data by using tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and Bit.Ly. A solid measuring strategy will answer two questions: Are we there yet? If not, how do we get there?
- Listening Strategy – A listening strategy ties the entire loop back to content creation (or other actions related to doing business). It will help you answer questions like “What are people asking for?”, “What are they hanging out?” and “Do they like me?” (See Debra Askanase’s post on creating a listening dashboard).
This is simply an overview – a template – for a blogging strategy. Was this useful?
