3 Reasons You Should Get Your Staff Involved In Business Blogging – And 3 Reasons You Shouldn’t

Blogging is one of the most versatile resources any organisation can utilise and because of this, our business blogging strategies are extremely flexible.

From budgets through to content, the versatility of blogging means that whatever type of organisation you are and whichever industry you operate in, blogging will be able to be of benefit.

Something that more and more organisations are coming to realise, what is still quite a surprise to some is that we can develop our business blogging strategies in such a way that we can work together seamlessly with clients to deliver their bespoke strategies.  There’s no doubt that we love to fully manage blogging and social media for our clients, but we do understand that there’s very often a need – or simply a desire – to be active in the strategy’s implementation.

Definitely something that can be fantastic, whenever we discuss this with clients, we always explain the positive aspects and the potential pitfalls, many of which come about through the organisation’s involvement in terms of their staff.  Sometimes it can work perfectly, but other times getting your staff involved can prove to be extremely problematic and the following information covers the ‘highlights’ of why you should and shouldn’t get your staff involved in business blogging.

They know what problems they’re facing on a daily basis and know what information they’re looking for.  Therefore, if they can gain an understanding of the basics behind blogging, they should be able to provide some invaluable input for content suggestions.

2.  They can increase the reach of your messaging – most people have a social media account of some kind.  It might be a professional Twitter account with several thousand followers or a private Facebook account with one hundred friends, but most people are active on social media to some extent.  As social media is a fantastic way to increase the reach of your blog posts, involving your employees in the process can mean your content is not only published via your company social media accounts, but by numerous employees’, too.

3.  It can improve staff morale – staff want to be involved.  It doesn’t matter whether they’re fantastic at working alone or they blatantly express their need to work in large groups, engaging internally with your staff is seen as one of the most effective ways of getting the most from them.  If you can involve them in some aspect of the blogging process, whether that’s suggesting ideas or helping to promote the final piece, you’ll find they feel they’re contributing, engaging and interacting more with both their audience and their organisation as a whole.

Shouldn’t

1.  It can impact upon them as an individual – staff should never be made to get involved with blogging.  By all means encourage them, but if they’re forced to come up with ideas for content or write draft blog posts on a weekly basis when they don’t want to, you’re not just likely to get poor ideas or content, but chances are you’ll have an unhappy workforce.

2.  Their productivity may decrease – even if your employees want to get involved with blogging, it shouldn’t simply be a straightforward decision.  Blogging involves a substantial amount of work – much more than most people first realise – and without the correct planning and preparation, an employee’s productivity outside of blogging may decrease, jeopardising their role, their duties and the organisation as a whole.

3.  Not everyone can blog – whilst blogging’s versatility can be of benefit in various respects, it can also cause problems, particularly in the sense that even on the content side alone, there can be huge variances in what’s expected.  For example, you may have a member of staff who is competent at writing a press release for your organisation and who you think could handle regular blogging, but not only is a 400 word blog post different to a 400 word press release, but a blog post can vary on everything from whether you’re a B2B or B2c organisation right through to the demographics of your target audience.

Weighing up the pros and cons of your level of involvement as an organisation when it comes to implementing your business blogging strategy and making a decision on it can be difficult enough – deciding on your employees’ involvement can prove to be one that’s too difficult to make.

As part of the development process with any of our business blogging services, we always talk through the various different aspects that need to be considered when it comes to staff involvement, so to ensure we achieve an outcome that is as suitable and effective as it can possibly be.  However, if you would like to discuss the possibilities of your staff being involved – or not being involved – in a business blogging strategy at any point, please feel free to get in touch.

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