One of the firms I’ve had contact with is about to take a leap into the wonderful world of blog marketing. Good for them. In light of that, I thought I’d share some observations based on what I’ve seen that works and what does not.
This medium requires a number of skills but the most important are persistence, personal ‘voice’ and clarity.
Persistence is important because you should not start something you can’t finish. Otherwise you’ll look a wally – as Delboy might say. And this medium requires persistence. There are plenty of ways around this, the easiest being to spread the load among partners and staff, rotating the strike as cricket fans might say. While each author has their favourite area of expertise, there isn’t always time to write about issues of the day. That isn’t a problem when others can fill the gap.
To reduce the pressure, don’t assume you need to write something every day. In some firms that might be appropriate but in most, once or twice a week should be fine.
The standard advice is to develop a ‘voice’ - in other words, introduce something of yourself into the things you write. This isn’t about telling the world and his dog about what you had for dinner last night but about the style in which you convey thoughts. The simplest way to do this is to imagine you’re explaining something really complicated to a client – Arctic Systems is a good case in point. Just how would you explain that on a website without giving your readers a headache? That should be your benchmark when writing about any technical topic.
Demonstrating your technical competence isn’t what this is about at all. It’s about communication. Stick to the practicalities while offering common sense advice. ‘Come and see us – it’s important’ is infinitely better than ‘If you think you’re in that position’ (How the heck do clients know? Even practitioners struggle at times. And it demonstrates a lack of understanding around clients)
If you write about technology you need to think carefully about the levels of expertise that exist among clients. In my experience, practitioners either use the topic as an opportunity to do a brain dump on what they know or provide incorrect advice. Just because you can crank out pivot tables in Excel doesn’t make you an expert. Just because you’ve installed Line 50 doesn’t mean it’s the best choice in all circumstances. (Note to self: there is no immutable truth in IT) So again, simple things expressed in common sense ways and without closing doors behind you is the way to go.
There is a strong case for taking first steps behind the firewall. It’s far better to make mistakes inside your environment than to make a fool of yourself in public. And I’d suggest sanity checking with others who are not subject experts. So for instance, give the tax stuff to the IT people and vice versa. Get them to tell you whether it makes sense.
In the early stages, I’d recommend having a system of ‘light’ peer review. While there is nothing wrong in being controversial, you cannot be contradictory and in this medium, that is all too easy. For people like me, that doesn’t matter because I’m writing about an evolving medium where things change. But when you’re dishing out what many will perceive as quasi-advice, it needs to be consistent.
Whatever you do, please don’t use this medium as an advertising replacement. That’s suicide. Clients can see through a pitch faster than a rat going up the proverbial drainpipe. It’s rarely pleasant and will kill credibility faster than anything else. What you are after is ‘attention trust ‘ where what you say carries authority to your target audience and encourages readers to interact.
Read other stuff and feed from it. I do that a lot because I am not usually news driven. This morning for instance, a phishing scam involving Barclays was talked about at ComputerWeekly. Clients would benefit from knowing about that so it’s worth picking up on these things and then firing out a quick post. And if you’re going to use or quote other sources, then link to them. It’s good practice and gets you respect, even if that means linking to a competitor. It show you take the idea of community seriously.
Finally, take some media training. There is a myth that anyone can write and it is just that – a myth. Plenty of people can put words on paper but it is not the same thing as writing authoritatively, clearly and efficiently. I’d recommend giving David Tebbutt a call. He’s been doing this stuff for years and what he doesn’t know about how media operates ain’t worth knowing. A day in his tender care will repay itself many times over. (Disclosure: David and I work on certain things together. Training is not one of them.)
