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Eight steps to launching a bang-up blog

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COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE

My earlier feature Growing your revenues - and reputation – with social software presented several "success stories" of companies that have accomplished incredible things with social media software - everything from improving interaction with customers and employees, to dramatically enhancing their corporate brand, from saving marketing costs, to boosting sales and revenues.

This article focuses on corporate blogging, arguably the most popular of the social media tools, among enterprises at least.

It offers an eight-step program for launching an effective corporate blog.

Both features are based on a seminar by communications expert Michael O'Connor Clarke at the IT360 event in Toronto – as well as other sources.

Step 1 – Define your goals

"Why?"

Every three-year-old's favourite question is also one you should pose if your firm's VP of marketing strolls in one morning and asks you to spearhead a corporate blog project.

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In other words, "don’t do it unless there is a problem or an opportunity to address it," is Clarke's advice.

He – and other experts – submit that three fundamental questions must be satisfactorily answered before moving forward with a blog (or any social software) project.

These include:

• What business problem are you trying to solve?

• How will blogs – or other social media - help you address this problem?

• Who's going to be driving the project?: Marketing, HR, C-Suite, Product management?