Blogging is a great way to connect with your audience in that it allows your organization to share personal stories of success and failure. In our case at Atma, we are a reference and network for several organizations, so it’s important that we are current and up to date on the latest trends in blogging.
Different Platforms/ Different Standards
- Twitter: brief summaries and one-liners
- Facebook: conversational, relaxed, short
- LinkedIn: professional discussion that invites participation
- Google Plus: strong images that speak for themselves
- Instagram: strong images and brief summaries
The Do’s
- Create powerful stories that discuss challenges and failures within the organization.
- Change up the stories that you tell. The blog shouldn’t be a consistent narrative on the same subject, but rather should frequently change.
- Write a post with content that is useful and applicable to your readers.
- Use a catchy title because oftentimes individuals may only end up reading this.
- Proofread and double check the content before publishing.
- Use short sentences and avoid complex words. A blog is easier to read when it has a voice and sounds like a simple coversation piece.
- Use images. Pictures, graphics, and video will make your blog more exciting . Use content from others only if you have permission to do so. You can also utilize sites that offer copyright free content. It’s beneficial to use content that is original to your organization to make the blog personal.
- Be sure to cite any information, images, or examples that you use within a resource page or a hyperlink.
- Make sure that the content that you’re posting is brand appropriate.
- Use bullet points when possible.
- If it is an organizational blog have multiple people contribute to the blog so it is not just told in one voice.
- Utilize interviews and outside organizations that you work with to add in content to your articles.
- Listen to your audience, and don’t ignore comments, shares, and likes. If your audience is telling you what they want to hear more of, listen and respond!
The Don’ts
- Do not ramble with run-on sentences.
- Don’t try to cover too many topics at once. Break up content into multiple entries.
- Don’t use other people’s material without permission and give credit where it is due.
- Don’t combine too many style effects like bold, italic, or underline.
- Do not write purely for search engines. Write for the reader and your SEO will do just fine.
- Don’t spend all of your time ‘learning’ how to blog instead of actually writing for your blog. Start launching your content and then refine your skills as you go.
- Don’t use the blog for advertising, third party content, career events, internships, job adverts, surveys (thesis related), surveys (asking for student preferences/opinions), etc.
Pros
- A blog is a living component of your website.
- Search-Engine Optimization has many factors that can be increased through blogging.
- New content has been proven to increase SEO.
- The content in a blog helps to increase the searchable terms on major search engines.
- Blogs are an easy way to create links to your website. Making your organization shareable on other forms of social media is a great way to improve traffic.
- Blogs are a way for you to reshape and rethink about what your organization is really all about.
- A blog is a great way to showcase the organization's impact.
- Allowing viewers to see the personal side of the organization.
- Building awareness of your brand.
Cons
- It is a time consuming task.
- If an inactive blog is on the website then it appears to the viewer that the organization doesn’t do anything. It’s important that if you have a blog, it is updated consistently.
- If writing doesn’t come naturally or is a difficult task for you the blog can become a hindrance.
- Taking the risk that the content you’ve created may never be read by your intended audience.
Recommendations for articles
- Volunteer Spotlights: Talking about the experience from the perspective of a volunteer and how they view your organization and work culture.
- Employee Spotlights: Discusses an employee who you’ve found to be a leader within your organization, and who can speak to the impact they are currently having.
- Partner Highlights: Discusses the activities of projects you are working on. This is great to implement because it is directly talking about the beneficiaries that you are having an impact on.
- Events and activities that your organization partcipates in.
- Daily on-goings at your office from connect days to workshops.
- Resources for other organizations that may follow yours as a guide
