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Does the thought of blogging for your organization make you want to reach for aspirin and an icepack? We’ve got seven top tips to help you manage the planning process and produce content that people will want to read. The first three are listed below. Next week, we’ll follow up this posting with our final four to make blogging for your organization as smooth as it can be!

Every organization has a story to tell, and blogging is a super way to do this.  It’s an opportunity to do some public relations of your own and a good way to keep content on your site current. You can use this web tool to tell your stakeholders about a new product or initiative, respond to a crisis, show your expertise on a topic, talk about your corporate social responsibility actions, be part of or establish the conversation in your industry or profession, or to let people get to know your organization a little better and to connect in a more personal way. If you work for a cause-related organization, you can use a blog to tell donors or the public about issues related to your cause and to encourage them to get involved.

For most of us, the thought of having to write a blog and then posting on a regular basis, say once a week, is overwhelming. Many bloggers and authors have written about this topic, but here are our top tips, based on our experiences, and research, in setting up this blog:

1. Define the goals for your blog, and make sure they are consistent with the goals of your organization. Perhaps your goal might be to be seen as a thought-leader within your profession, or to keep interested parties up-to-date with what is going on with your organization. Here are some examples from two corporate giants, who have stated their goals on their blogs:

• Wal-Mart’s blog, Checkout—Where The Lanes Are All Open (http://checkoutblog.com/). On the home page of their blog, Wal-Mart says that they are dedicated to bringing you the latest in gadgets, green, gaming, and more.  They add that Check Out is written by a group of expert Wal-Mart Associates, positioning themselves as an authority in these areas.

• Johnson & Johnson’s blog, JNJ BTW (http://www.jnjbtw.com). Click on the tab, About JNJ BTW, and you will see a well-written explanation of why they are blogging and how they intend to use the tool. 

2. Know your readers! Having defined the goals of your blog, clearly identify your audience. They might be prospects, the press, the public, or clients, for example.  This is the easy part, writing for them in a way that will connect with them is more difficult. The key to getting the attention of your audience, bearing in mind how busy everyone is and how much information we have to process on a daily basis, is to understand what is important to them . This knowledge will help you to write and publish content that is appropriate, meaningful, and relevant. Talk to stakeholders and do your research, on and off the web, to shore this up.

3. Recruit a variety of people to contribute to your blog. Consider senior executives, subject experts, employees from within the operations of the organization, and partners that you work with—not just the folks from marketing and communications. In our experience, having a team of contributors helps to take off some of the pressure, brings fresh perspectives, and sets the stage for the posting of high-quality information.

Come back next week, and we’ll continue on with our next four great tips. If you just can’t wait that long, give us a call.