Blogging is all about communicating, although not in the same manner advertising or press relation efforts communicate with consumers. With blogs, the idea is to initiate a conversation with the reader – who could be an existing customer or a potential client. This is not a platform to extend your marketing efforts into social media – instead you should focus on striking up conversation with your target market; not shout at them as traditional marketing is likely to do.

Before you or your brand engages in blogging, you need to assess your objectives. Blogging seems like an extremely easy task, but it actually requires a lot of effort. Once you get used to the strategy and the technology of the whole process, everything becomes easier. First, you need to consider two things: your audience and your objective. If you know who you want to talk to and what you want to achieve by talking to them, you are more likely to succeed in your endeavor.

Also, you need to get someone who wants to talk to your market. Ideally, you are blogging because you want to engage in dialogue with your readers. As in any dialogue or conversation, the speaker has to be passionate and enthusiastic if he or she wants to convince other people. Writing the entries or the content for the blog should not be viewed as a job or a task; rather, it should be something the writer wants to do. This is because blogging, even in a corporate setting, is very personal. If the task of creating content is randomly or mindlessly delegated, the results won’t be encouraging; and the entries in the blog will seem forced.

Here are some suggestions to create and maintain an effective and successful blog.

1.    Listen. Before you do anything, you should start this blogging endeavor by listening to the existing buzz online. Remember that blogging is engaging in a conversation. It is not a one-way conversation where you do all the talking; it is a dialogue, not a monologue. And in an actual conversation, before you talk to other people who are already conversing with each other, you need to know first what they are talking about; otherwise, you will end up out of place and left completely in the dark. Check out the blogs from other authors in your target market and even your competitors – pay special attention to the influential authors in the blogosphere related to your industry. Start up your own in house conversation monitoring system – or hire the services of brand-monitoring companies such as Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

2.    Plan. You may think that blogging is simply about writing any content regarding your company or your brand. Unfortunately, this is not true. You need a comprehensive plan before you start blogging. For starters, what would be the goal of your blog? Will you simply be posting news about the latest develops in your company? Will the blog simply be a repository of press releases? Or do you want it to be something more? Do you want your blog to support your customers? Do you want it to serve as the main base of your marketing tactics? Do you want the writers of your blog to make your brand and your company more human? These goals can be achieved simply by writing and posting the correct content. Without a plan, your blog will look like a mishmash of uncoordinated content. You also need to plan early on how the writing of the entries will be done. Will you have just one writer, or will your blog have a team of writers?

3.    Process. In order to make your blog work, besides deciding what your goal is and how many writers your blog should have, you need to set up an editorial process. Remember that a blog is like any other publication, traditional or otherwise. You will need an editor, someone who will obviously edit and approve the articles and content to be published in the blog. In turn, the editor has to come up with a schedule or a system, such as deadlines, publishing schedule, among others. The editorial schedule of a blog should be lighter compared to a print publication, since a blog should be prompt with updates and timely when it comes to presenting new issues. Your updates have to be fast, without sacrificing quality. In line with this, the people behind the process should know who will serve as the replacement when the head or main editor is not present. This is especially necessary when the blog will have more then one writer, and will tackle more diverse issues. A blog which would serve as a place for press releases or news should not be much trouble to set up, since most of these articles should be already pre-approved.

4.    Rehearse. Before you go live, practice. Do not go live without knowing if your editorial process will or will not work. One rule in blogging is to update regularly - the writers of your blog should be able to write quickly and efficiently. Many experts say that your team should produce at least have five to ten practice posts before allowing the blog to go live. This will give you enough leeway to create more content, as well as think of other topics to write for the succeeding blog entries. If your team cannot create at least five practice posts, they are obviously not ready to blog – make adjustments.

5.    Design. After deciding how you will go about with the posts, you need to decide how you are going to position your blog on your main website. Ideally, it should be incorporated in your main company website. How you feature the blog will play a huge part in its future role in your brand and your business. Feature it prominently if you want your blog to become one of the main players in your online presence and existence. If you place the link of your blog discreetly, readers and visitors will think the blog is not official or that it is not important to you, and in turn in will not be very important to them.

6.    Promote. Once your blog is online, you will need to promote it in order to gain the necessary views you need. Your blog will gain a readership on its own, but it needs an initial push. You can go the traditional route and use traditional marketing means such as PR and advertising. Using the Internet and its tools (such as forums, blogs, and search engines) is also a viable and wise option. Post on forums and other blogs; include the link of your blog on those postings. Also, when you write entries for your blog, include the name of your brand or your company so the blog will appear on search engines.

7.    Maintenance. Most importantly, after everything else, you need to maintain the blog. Besides regularly updating the blog, you need to respond to the comments of your readers. Blogging, as mentioned several times here, needs to be a conversation if you want it to be effective. Respond to comments, especially if these comments pertain to pressing and important concern. You will also need to moderate the comments by removing overly negative, offensive, and off-topic comments. Do not remove the negative comments that are in place with the discussion; instead, use this to improve the operation of your business.

8.    Be honest. You need to be as honest as possible in your blog in order to make your consumer loyal readers of your blog. You have to respect the honesty of the readers of your blog, so you have to value their comments regarding the contents of your blog. You cannot delete negative comments, since these are reflections of your reader’s honest concerns regarding your product and your brand. You should respect to the negative comments rather than delete or screen them. Explain your side without being defensive. If you do this, you will gain the respect of your readers, your customers, and your potential customers.