In this line of work you come across ambitious people all the time.
When it comes to starting blogs people always seem ambitious. There are always big plans to start a blog whether for business or personal reasons, but after a few initial posts things calm down. The blogger loses interest and now you have another abandoned blog out there on the Internet.
Blogger disinterest happens with personal blogs and it happens with business blogs. You could think that business bloggers would have a little more incentive to write, but it’s not really the case.
If you’re wondering why your employees won’t blog here are the main reasons I’ve seen. And to help you out I’ve included some ways to get the most out of your future bloggers.
Reason #1: No Understanding of Blogging
When people don’t have knowledge of something they tend to back off. If you expect your employees, even those that work in an Internet department, to understand blogging you’re fighting a difficult battle to get them to blog.
Few people have the urge to start blogging on their own. Even fewer have the urge to keep blogging for the long-term beyond the initial excitement phase.
This means you’ll have to help build the blogging expertise of those you want to blog. It’s good if they have interest at first, but if you send them to a blogging class or a blogging conference they’ll come back with a better understanding.
Once they have that they’re more likely to blog and combined with the next two areas you can implement a long-term blogging plan.
Reason #2: No Support or Feedback
Something that happens within companies is that when there isn’t an understanding of something people push back against it. This happens with those that aren’t involved in blogging. They don’t understand it and they wonder why the company is supporting such a venture.
It’s up to the executive team to get buy-in from all in the company. This will create a support system within the company so the bloggers on the team feel like they have support from the executive team and their peers within the company as well.
It’s also an issue for the bloggers not to get feedback. Bloggers can follow the plan and make adjustments based on what they’re seeing, but it’s important to get feedback so they can improve and make changes.
If your company doesn’t have the right people on the team to provide good feedback then bring in someone from outside to look at the blogging strategy. Find a trusted partner or colleague with experience in blogging and just have them provide some feedback. Have them share what they like and what they think could be altered.
This usually revives interest in the blog and gives additional direction to the writers on your team, which they need.
Reason #3: Wrong Expectations
This is the biggest reason I see that blogs are abandoned.
There is a lot of discussion about how great blogging is, but the truth is that it’s usually more work and a longer timeframe for payoff than most think. These wrong expectations set you up for failure.
In most cases you won’t get much traffic or any interaction at all on your blog for months or even years.
I’ll tell you that a business blog that posts once a week will not see much results for at least six months and probably more like a year. If you can do more frequency you might get response sooner.
It’s just like when you started your business. It takes time to build an audience. It takes time to build connections.
But over time you get a good word of mouth going and it kind of snowballs from there.
Talk to people you know that have had business blogs for a few years. Ask them about their blogging timelines and you’ll get a better picture of what your blog will look like.
Then setup the plan with a series of small milestones. This will keep your staff on track with the right expectations. They won’t get frustrated when the traffic doesn’t fly in on the first post.
Conclusion
Bloggers will often give the reason of “not having enough time” as the biggest reason for not blogging, but in my experience it’s all about expectations, communication and understanding. When you have those in line from the start you’ll give your business blog a much better chance of succeeding.
Set things up right with a plan that includes expected results. Also give your bloggers credit when they do great things. If they write a great post make sure to acknowledge it because it might not get notice outside of the company right away. Keep them encouraged and it’ll help keep the content coming.